Free Republic

Teachers’ grading practices have changed and students’ grades have drifted up in recent years, a pandemic-era legacy that is being met with mixed reaction from educators across the country. Dating back to 2020, when the pandemic upended American education overnight, many schools have adopted a more lenient approach to grading. Some eliminated zeros or removed penalties for late work. Many teachers report “giving grace” to struggling students. Others say they have felt pressure from administrators to limit failure rates. Higher grades have come even as students’ test scores and attendance rates have dropped. A study in Washington state found that...

Federal law enforcement agencies are warning that ISIS may be looking to target Pride events. Sergio Quintana reports. One comment at the video already notes this as a possible False Flag

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher reacted to the United Kingdom and Scandinavian nations walking back transitioning children by saying that America has tried to be so progressive, it’s actually behind the rest of the world and that the American medical establishment won’t make the same corrections other nations have because “They’re afraid.” Maher stated, “Let me add one more thing to our discussion there about rolling back some of the overexcesses in 2020…this is in the U.K., they are now pronouncing the United States as way behind. This is so, to me, symbolic of so...

Surprising no one, the staunchly conservative Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously upheld four 2021 state laws that make voting in Arkansas less pleasant, less convenient and less likely to count. In an opinion issued Thursday, the seven-member court overturned former Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen’s 2022 ruling that the four laws at issue hindered the fundamental right to vote and were therefore unconstitutional. [snip] The 2021 laws the state Supreme Court upheld Thursday are: Act 973, which shortens the window to turn in absentee ballots, moving the deadline from the Monday before Election Day to the Friday before. Act 736,...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed on Wednesday that Israel would "set its sights" on Turkey if it succeeded in defeating Hamas in the Gaza Strip, AFP reported. "Do not think that Israel will stop in Gaza," Erdogan told his party lawmakers in the parliament in the capital Ankara. "Unless it's stopped... this rogue and terrorist state will set its sights on Anatolia sooner or later," he added, referring to the large Turkish peninsula also called Asia Minor that comprises more than half of Turkey's territory. "We will continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its...

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - A man has been charged after he was shot while reportedly trying to break into a home Tuesday morning. The incident took place around 4 a.m. Tuesday in the 2200 block of Empress Drive. According to St. Louis County police, a man forced entry into a home when the homeowner shot him. The suspect ran off on foot but was tracked down by a police K9. He was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries following the shooting. First Alert 4 spoke to the homeowner who didn’t want to go on camera but did...

Donald Trump is a homophobe, sexist, and racist declared far-left Mayor of London Sadiq Khan while urging his party to do more to “call him out”. The “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States may be in store for choppy waters as polls suggest former President Donald Trump is set to return to the White House and the left-wing Labour Party is widely projected to take power in Westminster as the two countries head towards general elections later this year.

BERLIN (AP) – German authorities closed down Munich airport temporarily on Saturday after six climate activists broke through a security fence and glued themselves to access routes leading to runways, officials and local media reported. The activists from the group Last Generation were protesting flying, the most polluting form of transportation, said the German news agency dpa. Police have detained the six. Incoming flights had to be diverted to other airports, an airport spokesperson said. After a couple of hours, the airport’s two runways were reopened though some disruptions to flight schedules may happen, a statement on the airport´s official...

Not long ago, President Biden promised to transform the American auto industry — “first with carrots, now with sticks” is the analogy The Washington Post used. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’d trust the president to drive my car, much less dictate the future of industrial policy. Yet Biden implemented draconian emissions limits for all vehicles, ensuring that within nine years 67% of all new passenger cars and trucks will be electric. In the old days, a centralized state controlling manufacturing and commerce, production, prices, wages and conditions in our biggest sectors would be called...

Every two years one hears the next election will be one of the most important ever. The truth is every election is important because it determines the laws we live under, how we are taxed, and the kind of society we live in. But it’s not an overstatement to say that Tuesday’s primary election may be the most important election in recent memory. I say that after following Idaho politics for the past five decades, first as a journalist and now as an advocate for education. With so much at stake, this election will decide whether we remain stuck in...

Ocean temperatures that have gone “crazy haywire” hot, especially in the Atlantic, are close to making the current global coral bleaching event the worst in history. It's so bad that scientists are hoping for a few hurricanes to cool things off. More than three-fifths — 62.9% — of the world's coral reefs are badly hurting from a bleaching event that began last year and is continuing. That's nearing the record of 65.7% in 2017, when from 2009 to 2017 about one-seventh of the world's coral died, said Derek Manzello, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Watch...

A group of students allegedly celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday on the UC Santa Cruz campus, the university announced last week.

This was the first round of discussions between the two countries since January. The talks were mediated by Omani officials, with this occurring nearly over a month. Iranian officials held indirect talks with two Biden administration officials this week in Oman to de-escalate attacks in the Middle East, sources of the talks told Axios and Walla on Friday. The two officials from the Biden administration were Brett McGurk, the US president's top Middle East adviser, and Abram Paley, who is the US envoy for Iran. The US made it clear to the Iranians what the consequences of their and their...

The Israeli Air Force struck more than 70 targets across the Gaza Strip in the past day, the military says, as ground forces operate in Rafah, Jabaliya, and the Netzarim Corridor. According to the IDF, the targets included weapon depots, infrastructure, and buildings belonging to terror groups, as well as operatives. One of the airstrikes in Rafah hit a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative, who the IDF says was head of logistics for the terror group in the city in southern Gaza. “As part of his role, he was responsible for preparing the enemy for the IDF maneuver in Rafah,”...

As you’ve probably heard, the populist Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot five times by a crazed pro-Ukrainian, radical left-wing activist in a foiled assassination attempt. ... In today’s era of violent, pro-war leftists, advocating for peace has become dangerous—and potentially deadly. Fico was vehemently against supporting Ukraine in the dustup with Russia. The Slovakia anti-Ukraine history runs long and deep, as this 2023 article explains. Politico: Slovakia’s new leader Robert Fico made waves during the country’s recent election campaign by warning that he would not send “another bullet” to help Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion. His dramatic...

Illegal immigration and control over the nation's borders will be one of the major issues in this fall's elections, and a key aspect of that issue is the number of people who are present in the country today - and what should be done about them. Should he win reelection, former President Donald Trump is reportedly being advised to deport almost 20 million illegal aliens, in a project similar to the United Kingdom's Rwanda policy:

Donald Trump has demanded Joe Biden take a drug test before the pair face off against one another in next month's debate.Speaking at the GOP´s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner event on Friday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, Trump suggested the resident had been on drugs when he delivered the State of the Union address in March. Trump told his supporters he would insist Biden takes a drug test as a precondition for the debates. Donald Trump has called for President Joe Biden to take a drug test before their debates Donald Trump has called for President Joe Biden to take...

Video is 8:36 in length Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture. Victor discusses current political and social events and ideas, and current and past cultural trends.

Former President Donald Trump is surging with a voter bloc Americans might not expect. Black voters are flocking to Trump in huge numbers, while simultaneously leaving President Joe Biden, CNN's average of polls showed. Trump's support among black voters surged to 22 percent compared to 2020, when the 45th president only had the support of 9 percent of the demographic. Biden, on the other hand, saw his 81 percent of black voter support in 2020 dip to 69 percent.