Free Republic

U.S. college students are using marijuana at the highest rates in 35 years, according to a report released Thursday. About 43% of full-time college students said they used some form of pot at least once in the past year, up from 38%, a University of Michigan survey found. About 25% said they did so in the previous month, up from 21%.

An American Airlines mechanic was arrested Thursday on a sabotage charge accusing him of disabling a navigation system on a flight with 150 people aboard before it was scheduled to take off from Miami International Airport earlier this summer. The reason, according to a criminal complaint affidavit filed in Miami federal court: Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, a veteran employee, was upset over stalled union contract negotiations. Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article234766107.html#storylink=cpy

 Starting next year, most new homes and buildings in San Luis Obispo will be all-electric and without natural gas hook-ups. The SLO City Council approved an overhaul of its building code on Sept. 3 that includes strong disincentives against building new natural gas infrastructure, a move that city leaders claim will help SLO get closer to its net-zero emissions target by 2035. The local code amendments—collectively called the Clean Energy Choice Program—follow a statewide push among progressive cities to electrify buildings. SLO's code, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, doesn't outright ban new buildings with natural gas, as a recent...

President Donald Trump talked with reporters about his administration’s effort to build the wall at the southern border on Sept. 4 and said he expects the wall to be completed at key places by the end of 2020. Talking with reporters at the Oval Office, the President said his administration is currently building or replacing “very large sections of the wall” and it is happening “rapidly.” His comments came a day after the Department of Defense (DOD) said it was freeing up $3.6 billion in funds to build the wall that were previously budgeted for other projects. “We’re building different...

In a piece for the magazine’s October issue, Hill insists that black athletes are doing blacks no good by allowing “white” colleges to use the student’s athletic prowess to raise funds to benefit the college. After noting that 2018’s top college prospect Kayvon Thibodeaux brought a lot of notoriety to a historically black college when he was looking colleges over, Hill pointed out that the NCAA and the “white” colleges that participate in the conference make billions a year off the sweat of black athletes. “Almost all of these schools are majority white,” Hill disparagingly wrote, “in fact, black men...

Anthony Avalos was the fastest runner in his fourth-grade class at El Dorado Elementary School in Lancaster. He earned a place on the honor roll, and his teacher, Harmony Bell, noticed an uncommon emotional maturity for a boy his age. He often collected his thoughts before speaking, asking Bell if he could step out of the room and take a few deep breaths. When a new student joined the class, he asked to move to a neighboring seat, hoping to be the friend the newcomer needed. Yet Bell saw that Anthony was often nervous about something. He held his Bible...

Candidates diverge on fracking ban Expanding nuclear energy Americans will have to make personal sacrifices Changes to federal disaster assistance money How candidates would deal with Washington politics Gov. Jay Inslee, youth climate groups made their mark on debate

Six of the seven people charged Tuesday in an July killing in Towson had immigration detainers, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman confirmed. Of the six with detainers, five are Salvadoran and one is Mexican. All of them are in the country illegally, ICE spokeswoman Kate Pote said in an email. All six are identified in ICE gang databases as members of MS-13.

Construction on a Pentagon-funded portion of border fence began this week near Yuma, Arizona... The 30-foot (9-meter) steel fence will be built along the Colorado River in a section of border that had a big increase in migrant families earlier this year, but slowed to a trickle in recent weeks. The exact details of the project are unclear, but it appears it will consist of about 5 miles of fencing... At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Ajo, Arizona, the government is already working on a 2-mile stretch of 30-foot (9-meter) steel fencing to replace older barriers. In New Mexico,...

SAN FRANCISCO, September 5, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – As the preliminary hearing for charges against pro-life investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt continues, Twitter temporarily barred the pro-life Center for Medical Progress (CMP) from live-tweeting the proceedings – based on a misrepresentation of the tweets from Planned Parenthood’s attorneys, CMP claims. CMP has been locked in legal battles with Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation (NAF) since the summer of 2015, when their undercover videos revealed abortion industry insiders expressing interest in profiting off organs from aborted babies, which is illegal. The abortion groups accuse the pro-life investigators of breaking...

The man and a passenger told police that as the Escalade pulled alongside their vehicle, they heard a loud pop and the rear window shatter. They said they believed the driver of the Escalade was shooting at them...A grand jury in Dallas County will review evidence in the case and decide whether to indict the pickup truck’s driver. “This shooting is a tragic example of senseless road rage, impacting the lives of numerous people in multiple families,” police wrote in the statement.

For all the strategic calculations,sophisticated voter targeting and relentless talk about electability in Iowa and New Hampshire,the Democratic presidential nomination will be determined by a decidedly different group:black voters. African Americans will watch as mostly white voters in the first two contests express preferences and winnow the field — then they will almost certainly anoint the winner.

A 51-year-old Dos Palos man accused of shooting a Merced County sheriff’s deputy was captured Thursday following a nearly hour-long high-speed chase. According to Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke, the suspect Guadalupe Lopez-Herrera fired one shot at California Highway Patrol officers before he was apprehended after the chase ended in Kettleman City on Thursday afternoon. During a news conference Thursday, Warnke also revealed Lopez-Herrera was in the country illegally and had threatened the lives of his wife’s family. The detective, whose name has not been released, was shot just before 3:30 p.m. Wednesday near the intersection of Eucalyptus Road and...

Actress Carol Lynley, best known for her role in the 1972 film “The Poseidon Adventure,” died at her Pacific Palisades home Tuesday after suffering a heart attack, according to her friend, actor Trent Dolan. She was 77. The Hollywood veteran was also a television regular, appearing in shows such as “The Big Valley,” “Mannix,” “It Takes a Thief,” “Night Gallery,” “The Invaders,” “Kojak,” “Hawaii Five-O” and “The Night Stalker.” Lynley was married to publicist Michael Selsman from 1960-64, during which the two had daughter Jill.

In the year since Florida enacted its red flag law, Kendra Parris has defended nearly 20 clients against risk protection orders that could remove their firearms. The Orlando-based lawyer has long represented people who might be subject to the state’s involuntary mental health treatment provision. But when this new law, meant to protect against people who might be a harm to themselves or others, passed in the aftermath of the February 2018 Parkland mass shooting, she saw yet another opportunity for the state to potentially deprive certain people of their civil liberties. “It’s almost like a shiny new toy for...

DENVER — After watching his mother die slowly when he stopped her medication, Neil Mahoney knew he wanted the option of ending his own life peacefully when a doctor told him in July that he had months to live after being diagnosed with cancer. A physician was willing to help him do that under Colorado’s medically assisted suicide law, but she was fired by Centura Health, a health system affiliated with the Catholic and Adventist churches, for violating its guidelines on the issue. The action launched a legal fight over whether the law violates the organization’s freedom of religion and...

Growing demand for donkey meat and skin in China is causing a sharp decline in the animals in Kenya. Animal rights campaigners warn that donkeys could soon disappear in the east African country, where they play a vital role as beasts of burden, especially in rural areas. Since 2014, four abattoirs have been set up in Kenya to meet demand. The meat is considered a delicacy in China and the skins are processed to create ejiao, a traditional remedy used to treat everything from anaemia to dizziness. However, according to a recent report by the African Network for Animal Welfare...

'It's been a tradition for us to fast on Fridays. However, this tradition somehow was abolished,' said Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing As widespread protests continue in Hong Kong, a local bishop is urging people to pray and fast for peace, while speaking up against injustice and corruption. The auxiliary bishop of Hong Kong, who has been a vocal supporter of the protests, told CNA that he hopes prayer will help transform the area into “a channel of God’s peace.” “We’re urging fellow parishioners to join our ‘Friday fasting’ movement,” Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing told CNA on August 30. “It’s been...

Polish legal expert says the fight is not overWARSAW, Poland (ChurchMilitant.com) - In the face of pushback, the city of Warsaw, Poland, has withheld implementation of an aggressive document that would introduce LGBT themes to young school children in city schools. Rafał Trzaskowski, mayor of Warsaw, signed the "Warsaw LGBT+ Declaration" Feb. 18, a document that grants many benefits to LGBT activists related to education, public activities, culture and sports. In the area of education, the declaration called for classes in Warsaw schools on homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality, implementing the World Health Organization's standards that include encouraging early childhood children...

The Chudov Monastery, named in honor of the miracle of the Archangel Michael at Conae, was built in 1358, and stood within the Kremlin walls until it was destroyed by the godless soviets in 1929. The 14th building of the Kremlin was built over the site of the Chudov and Ascension monasteries between the Spassky Gate and the Senate Palace from 1932 to 1934; the dismantling of the building began in the fall of 2015, revealing a number of archaeological treasures. Now those treasures will be on display in an underground archaeological museum, built on the foundations of the Chudov...