Free Republic

American higher education is in retreat. It’s shrinking. The for-sale signs have gone up. It’s time for “inventory reduction.” Forty-nine colleges have closed since 2020. Forty others have merged with neighbors. The Huron Consulting Group says that 400 colleges are at risk of closing in the next decade. The prospect of insolvency has now moved beyond small colleges. Larger ones are closing programs and laying off faculty. Not counting community colleges, trade schools, online-only outfits and clandestine thinkatoriums, some 2,700 four-year institutions are currently authorized to hand out college degrees in the US. That compares with 4,150 licensed hot dog...

It’s October and a new academic year is underway. In Britain, students are taking diversity classes; in France, they are rioting. And in America, they are panicking about campus rape culture. Plus ça change…The legacy of the almost decade-old Me Too movement is that we ‘believe all women’ but, as the Cornell case shows, sometimes reality is more complexThe case of the “Cornell Seven” has been making headlines across the US this week after a female student, known only as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was drugged and raped by seven male students in the Chi Phi...

A 40-year-old man has been arrested after being accused of sexually assaulting two women inside a Planet Fitness women’s locker room. Laquan Holland was arrested on Thursday morning after police responded to a report of an assault in progress at the gym in Porter square. According to reports, Holland, who was a member at the gym, entered the women’s locker room where he sexually assaulted a woman and prevented her from leaving the area. Holland then attacked a second woman after she attempted to intervene to save the first victim. Holland faces two counts of assault to rape, two counts...

Embassy of Poland U.S. @PolishEmbassyUS: Letter from CdA a.i. @BogdanKlich calling on @TuckerCarlson to publicly retract his outrageous statements and apologize for insulting Poles, British citizens, and, ultimately, the memory of the victims of the Shoah and all those who died in the fight against Nazism.

In the depths of the North Atlantic, a vast system of swirling currents carries warm tropical waters north, preventing Europe from freezing. But as climate change takes effect, this oceanic heat pump will weaken and might even fizzle out. If it does, Europe could be plunged into far lower temperatures. A colder-than-usual patch of water just south of Greenland, nicknamed the “cold blob,” has some scientists worried that this slowdown in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already well under way. Other researchers have examined climate models, surveyed sea temperature records and run simulations to conclude that the ocean...

If you have not been paying attention, there is a caravan heading our way. Yeah, that sounds politically correct. No, there is a planned invasion of the U.S. southern border by some 600 Honduran, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Ecuadorian, and Haitian individuals. The group called Fe y Esperanza (Faith and Hope) departed San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on 20 September. They are being allowed safe passage across several borders, including that of Mexico, as they transit. One has to ask: Why can’t they find “Faith and Hope” in another country? There can be no doubt that someone thought that, in this last month...

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday on the stage during a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, which seeks to cut diesel costs by temporarily allowing off-road “dyed” diesel for highway use. "Today I'm announcing another unprecedented step to bring down costs," Trump said during the rally. "For many years, farm vehicles, construction equipment and other off-road vehicles have used what is known as red-dye diesel ... Tonight I'm going to sign an historic executive order to officially waive the off-road requirement and allow anyone to purchase tax-free red-dye diesel for any reason."

“I want to see Gaza empty. I am not afraid when they’re hiding behind their own babies. And this is what they do,” Feiglin said.Israel should have left Gaza “empty” after the Hamas-led October 7 massacre and annexed the area, Zehut party chairman Moshe Feiglin told The Jerusalem Post *** “Occupation, transfer all, all the Arabs. I don’t care. They cannot stay there after what they did,” he said. Feiglin is running in the October elections with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionist Party (RZP).*** Feiglin said that he believes the current government should have viewed...

In central Libya, the endless flat desert of the Sahara gives way to something unexpected: a jet-black ocean of frozen rock. Covering more than 40,000 square kilometers, Al Haruj is one of the largest volcanic fields in Africa, shaped over millions of years by repeated eruptions. Hundreds of extinct cinder cones and ancient fissure vents rise from its sun-baked plateau, where dark basalt flows meet the shifting sands. In this documentary, we explore the volcanic history of this remote landscape and how vast lava flows reshaped the Sahara, leaving behind one of North Africa's most desolate and striking geological monuments....

The separatist Parti Québécois won Quebec’s provincial election Monday, returning to power a party that has promised another referendum on independence from Canada. The victory by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s party ends eight years of rule by the Coalition Avenir Québec and puts the question of Quebec’s future in Canada back at the center of provincial politics. St-Pierre Plamondon has pledged to hold another referendum on independence, though he has said he would wait until U.S. President Donald Trump is no longer in office. The PQ won the most seats in Quebec’s 127-member National Assembly, the provincial legislature, but it was...

Tennessee didn't just fail to execute Christa Pike, argues anesthesiologist and intensive care doctor Joel Zivot in a New York Times opinion piece—it exposed what lethal injection really is. Zivot, hired as a medical expert by Pike's legal team, says he warned that her small veins and medical history made a botched execution more likely. On Wednesday, pentobarbital was injected into her veins; when the first dose didn't stop her heart, a second was given. Her arms turned purple, her lawyers say, and she reported extreme pain before an ambulance was finally called more than an hour after the process...

Democrats aren't waiting for midterms results or more polls: They're sketching out a post-Trump playbook. From politicians on Capitol Hill to outside advocacy groups, the Washington Post reports, Democrats are drafting bills and ethics plans aimed at narrowing presidential power, tightening conflict-of-interest rules, and rebuilding barriers between the White House and the Justice Department once President Trump is out of office. Ideas on the table include curbing emergency powers used to justify tariffs and troop deployments, forcing public review of White House renovations, barring presidents from taking foreign payments without Congress' signoff, and blocking settlements that could shield a sitting...

A “Cornell 7” frat bro accused in the alleged gang-rape of a young woman claimed to campus cops that he was too wasted to consent to sex with her — suggesting he was the real victim, according to records. Matthew Ingalls — one of the seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers at the center of the explosive Ivy League case — told Cornell University police that he was the one too intoxicated from booze and ketamine to consent to sex that fateful 2024 night, records obtained by ABC News showed. Ingalls suggested that the alleged victim — a then-20-year-old student only...

On Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that the United States will help Russia after a laboratory worker died at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia.While local media alleged the 28-year-old lab technician died from pneumonic plague, Russian officials stated postmortem tests found only 'pneumonia of undetermined aetiology' with no evidence of occupational pathogens.Authorities placed at least one hospital in Shelekhov under quarantine, with nearly 200 people under medical observation after potential exposure to the worker.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the nation is monitoring closely and sees no 'cause for alarm,' while experts...

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that a Maine stop may be on his schedule, though he did not give a date. “I don’t know about Maine, I think we’re going to Maine too but we’re going to Michigan in a week and a half,” Trump said during a gaggle, according to the in-town pool report. Asked about mail-in voting, Trump said, “I’d rather have them vote in-person, but they can vote by mail if they want… a lot of people want to vote by mail, but a lot of very good people also want...

On Monday, the White House refused to allow Politico on Air Force One, preventing the outlet from fulfilling its print pool responsibilities for President Donald Trump's campaign trip to Nebraska.The Trump administration justifies these restrictions by distinguishing access to the White House complex from tight spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One, where officials have repeatedly barred CNN from assigned pool days.With Politico barred, the White House offered the seat to other news organizations, but several declined; CNN reporter Brian Stelter noted Monday's action will likely be incorporated into the outlets' ongoing lawsuit.Attorney Ted Boutrous, representing the...

President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would pay for television advertisements himself or with money raised from the MAGA political committee after pushback over the use of taxpayer-funded television ads featuring him shortly before the November congressional elections.Ethics experts and lawmakers from both parties ⁠have criticized the three nationally broadcast ads, which celebrate a "golden age of America".

In a major upset for the ruling Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party, the Parti Québécois (PQ) is shaking up the political landscape in Quebec. The party hasn’t been in power since 2014 and its leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has vowed to hold a third referendum on Quebec sovereignty in his first term.

The Trump administration is suing the University of Delaware over a tuition policy that allows certain illegal immigrants to pay lower in-state rates while American students from outside Delaware are charged thousands more. The Justice Department argues the policy illegally gives undocumented students a financial benefit based on residency that is not offered on the same terms to U.S. citizens, making Delaware the latest target in the administration’s nationwide crackdown on immigration-related tuition benefits. The DOJ alleges the University of Delaware charges Delaware residents approximately $15,740 per academic year, compared with approximately $42,470 for non-Delaware residents, coming to a $26,730...

The Justice Department is seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of two China-born men convicted in separate cases of working for the Chinese communist regime. The department filed a denaturalization case—seeking to revoke naturalized U.S. citizenship—against former U.S. Navy sailor Wei Jinchao in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Sept. 30 and a complaint against Florida technology worker Li Ping in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Oct. 1, according to an Oct. 5 Justice Department announcement. The two cases are among 40 denaturalization actions the Justice Department said it...