Free Republic

If you’re prone to losing your wallet, keep it filled with cash. That’s a tip from researchers who “lost” over 17,000 wallets in 40 countries. In all but two countries, the likelihood of a stranger returning a wallet increased if there was money inside. And the more money in the wallet, the higher the rate of return, the researchers report June 20 in Science. Those wallet drop-offs were not without hiccups. Flooding in India rerouted the Swiss students, while authorities in Kenya detained one student for a few hours for appearing suspicious. All told, the students handed employees 17,303 wallets....

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — As more states legalize cannabis for medical use, the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy is launching the nation’s first master’s program to train students about the science and policies of medical marijuana. The two-year program, based at the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville, is designed for health care practitioners, scientists, regulators, dispensary owners and industry professionals. Classes will be primarily held online, with an in-person symposium held each semester.

Two-thirds of employees report regrets about their advanced degrees, as Americans question the high cost of higher education. Student loan debt has ballooned to nearly $1.6 trillion nationwide in 2019, topping the list of regrets for employees. Science, technology, engineering or math majors, who are more likely to enjoy higher salaries, were least likely to report regrets, while those in the humanities were most likely. A college education is still considered a pathway to higher lifetime earnings and gainful employment for Americans. Nevertheless, two-thirds of employees report having regrets when it comes to their advanced degrees, according to a PayScale...

FULL TITLE: Boeing Has So Many Grounded 737 Max Planes Waiting to Be Fixed They're Parking Them in the Employee Parking Lot You may recall that, thanks to an issue with faulty sensors in the Boeing 737 Max flight control systems, those planes have been grounded after multiple crashes were found to be related to the issue. Grounded planes are, by definition, not in the air, and as such need to be stored, on the ground, somewhere. In the case of Boeing’s Renton Factory in Washington state, there’s so many grounded planes that some of that ground has to be...

Lawmakers expressed disbelief on Tuesday when a Google executive told a Senate panel that the company does not use persuasive techniques targeted at its users. Maggie Stanphill, Google’s director of user experience, during a Senate Commerce technology subcommittee hearing, told the panel, “No, we do not use persuasive technology at Google.” At issue before the panel was how Google and other companies use technology and algorithms to encourage certain behavior from users. But Stanphill's statement prompted pushback from senators who had been scrutinizing the company over its content decisions on platforms like YouTube. “You don’t want to clarify that a...

Yesterday I explained why the pending border bill drawn up by Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats should be considered dead on arrival. It’s true that the Senate is working on their own version (and who knows if they could actually resolve the two by the end of the week), but that one is lacking in many areas as well. Now it sounds as if the President has had a chance to take a look and he’s equally disappointed in what’s being cooked up. Word out of the White House has it that Trump is already threatening to veto it if they...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a top tier 2020 candidate, on Tuesday joined fellow candidate Julián Castro in a call to decriminalize illegal border crossings. Warren has yet to release a comprehensive immigration reform plan, but confirmed in a statement to HuffPost that she agrees with Castro, a former Housing and Urban Development Secretary. “We should not be criminalizing mamas and babies trying to flee violence at home or trying to build a better future. We must pass comprehensive immigration reform that is in line with our values, creates a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants including our DREAMers, and protects...

FULL TITLE: Conditions On The Streets Of San Francisco Are Comparable To “The Slums Of Mumbai, Delhi, Mexico City, Jarkarta, And Manila” Once upon a time, some of the most beautiful cities in the entire world were on the west coast, but now those same cities are degenerating into drug-infested cesspools of filth and garbage right in front of our eyes.  San Francisco is known as the epicenter for our tech industry, and Los Angeles produces more entertainment than anyone else in the world, and yet both cities are making headlines all over the world for other reasons these days. ...

Our country is being inundated with people from other countries at a scale far exceeding our existing capacity to economically absorb them. We need to change our labor laws to create economic places for them. Overstressed American women need affordable help in and around the house and with children. What can American families themselves afford to pay for domestic help? I say themselves because we certainly don't want to create any new federal subsidy program. State subsidy programs would be possible. My estimate is around $200/week plus room and board for the worker and the worker's significant others. That $200/week...

BIG UPDATE: YouTube has REMOVED the video from their platform. The video is still available on this website page. UPDATE 1: Congressman Louie Gohmert issued a statement, saying “Google should not be deciding whether content is important or trivial and they most assuredly should not be meddling in our election process. They need their immunity stripped…” UPDATE 2: Google executive Jen Gennai RESPONDED to the video, saying, “I was having a casual chat with someone at a restaurant and used some imprecise language. Project Veritas got me. Well done.” Insider: Google “is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump...

Donald Trump threatened Iran with 'obliteration' if it attacks 'anything American' Tuesday after the country's president branded the White House 'mentally retarded' after Donald Trump issued fresh sanctions against the leadership in Tehran. He launched a fusillade of tweets calling the country's leadership 'ignorant and insulting' after the insult from its president, Hassan Rouhani. 'Iran’s very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality.' he said. 'Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry &...

The official media account of how the intelligence community gained the transcript of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn talking to Ambassador Sergey Kisliyak on December 29th, 2016, surrounds “incidental collection” as a result of contact with an agent of a foreign power. Meaning the Flynn call was picked up as the U.S. intelligence apparatus was conducting surveillance on Russian Ambassador Kisliyak. If this version of events were accurate (it’s not), it would fall under FISA-702 collection: the lawful monitoring of a foreign agent (Kislyak) who has contact with a U.S. person (Flynn). In order to review the identity of...

Not that we have word of any openings coming up on the Supreme Court in the immediate future, but it always pays to be prepared, right? Particularly when you have several justices in their septuagenarian or even octagenarian years and one of them regularly talks about packing up his RV and touring the country. But given the politically poisonous mood currently gripping both Congress and the nation, would President Trump really want to open that can of worms and introduce a new nominee if someone suddenly retired? Oh, baby… you know he’s champing at the bit. (The Hill) President Trump...

A staggering 41% of city teachers hired during the 2012-13 school year left the system during their first five years on the job, according to a new report. City Comptroller Scott Stringer said Monday that turnover among fledgling educators shell-shocked by the city’s public schools is wrecking classroom continuity — and he called for a new “residency” program to stem the exodus through improved training.

The Customs and Border Protection agency’s acting commissioner, John Sanders, is expected to step down in the coming weeks as the government’s primary border enforcement executive, a federal official said Tuesday, a development that comes as the agency faces continuing public fury over the treatment of detained migrant children. The news of the resignation came shortly after agency officials disclosed that more than 100 children have been returned to a troubled Border Patrol station in Clint, Tex., a location where a group of lawyers who visited recently said hundreds of minor detainees had been housed for weeks without access to...

Tensions were already smoldering in the Oregon Senate Wednesday, when Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, poured gasoline on the situation, suggesting he would shoot and potentially kill any state trooper sent to haul him unwillingly back to the Capitol. After Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said Tuesday that his caucus was “prepared to take actions” to prevent passage of a major climate change bill, Gov. Brown announced on Wednesday that she was ready to answer Republican stonewalling by calling lawmakers back for a special session. Brown hinted that she would be willing to send state troopers to round up Republicans...

In a bid to corner the transgender vote, 2020 presidential contender former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Tex) vowed to "break down the doors of girls' locker rooms across the nation and let boys who identify as girls participate in girls' sports." "I am aware that many parents are uncomfortable with this next step in the evolution of sexual freedom, but we can't allow prejudice to tie our hands," the candidate said. "Many boys feel uncomfortable trying to compete with other boys. I know because I was one of them. If I had had the same options as the boys of today...

David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, Fla., massacre who has become a highly visible gun control activist, claims he has been the target of an assassination attempt seven times the past year. Hogg, 19, told The Washington Post in an article published on Tuesday that the attempts to end his life came from people who are "misguided and misinformed of what we’re actually here to talk about." He said that if someone were to kill him because of his efforts to curb gun violence, it would most likely be "the stupidest thing they could do to try to end...

Thirteen years after Tallahassee attorney Ron Meyer successfully challenged the state’s major school-vouchers program, he is preparing to sue the state again, this time over its newest taxpayer-funded scholarships. A number of organizations want Meyer to represent them in a case to try to strike down the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, which was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis last month. The organizations, which include Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center, argue it is unconstitutional for Florida taxpayers to give low-income and middle-income students scholarships to attend private schools, including religious...