Free Republic

The Supreme Court returned Monday for oral arguments after a lengthy holiday break. During the court’s January sitting, the justices will hear arguments in eight cases, including ones dealing with school choice and the “Bridgegate” scandal. The justices already have heard arguments in cases involving the Second Amendment, Obamacare, and whether federal law covers claims of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Later in the term, the court will take up cases involving the president’s ability to fire the head of an “independent” agency, regulation of abortion providers, and the dispute over a subpoena for President Donald Trump’s...

A proposed change to federal disability assistance would result in millions of more case reviews, likely cutting off many disabled recipients, if the changes are enacted. The federal government is accepting public comments on the proposal until the end of January. Under the proposal, millions more reviews would be conducted and hundreds of thousands of people would have reviews more frequently. “We think the real intent of this is just to be a backdoor cut to the program,” said Jen Burdick, a supervising attorney with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, who assists people applying for disability benefits. Anyone applying for...

Are you taking too many meds? If you’re an older American, chances are your medicine cabinet is crammed with bottles of pills to reduce cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and treat everything from acid reflux to underactive thyroid. Forty-two percent of adults over 65 take five or more prescription drugs, and nearly 20 percent take 10 or more, according to the Lown Institute, a health care think tank in Brookline. The institute warns of a growing epidemic of overmedication that’s sent millions of seniors to hospitals and emergency rooms in the past decade with often serious side effects. Lown, which published...

Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly, fighting back tears in a video posted on social media, announced on Tuesday night his plans to retire from the NFL at age 28. "There's only one way to play this game since I was a little kid -- play fast, play physical and play strong,'' Kuechly said. "And at this point I don't know if I am able to do that anymore. That's the part that is the most difficult.'' Kuechly paused to gather his emotions. "I still want to play, but I don't think it's the right decision,'' he continued. "I thought about...

Handing a small victory to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, the hearing officer who listened to arguments on whether her nominating petition to run for office was legitimate, has recommended the first-term prosecutor stay on the ballot in her bid for reelection, records show. Foxx’s nominating petition signatures had been challenged in an effort to keep her name off the March 17 primary election ballot in Cook County. Objectors argued that Foxx had too many invalid signatures in her petition and that represented a “pattern of fraud,” but hearing officer Barbara Goodman wrote in her decision that they didn’t...

In my last column, “Newsweek Hits a New Low,” I wrote about Newsweek’s dishonest description of what I had said on one of my weekly PragerU “Fireside Chats.” A viewer had asked me to respond to a statement Anne Frank made in her epic Holocaust diary. Frank said, “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” The Newsweek headline, “Conservative Radio Host Ridicules Anne Frank,” was simply a lie. In order for readers to appreciate the level of mendacity, I had my entire response transcribed and placed it in the column. A few days later I received...

Among the notable victims of the Astros' cheating scandal in 2017 were the New York Yankees, who lost to Houston in a thrilling American League Championship Series that year. New York went 0-4 in Minute Maid Park, where the Astros were found to have used a monitor displaying the center field camera feed throughout the 2017 season. CC Sabathia, the longtime Yankee who started Game 7 of that series, isn't taking what the Astros did lightly. "It's weird, like it changes all the time," Sabathia said during an appearance on Showtime's "Inside the NFL" on Tuesday night. "When I first...

At the starting line, I stamped my feet in the snow and repeated this mantra: ‘There’ll be hot wine at the end.’ The promise of plentiful wine, local color, and a unique experience had drawn me to travel on a bitingly cold, gray January weekend to Moldova, one of the least-visited countries in Europe. I was running the Mileștii Mici Wine Run, a 10k race through the world's largest wine cellar. With a total 125 miles of underground passages, there’s plenty of room to stage an ultra here; the 10K Wine Run explores a mere fraction of the tunnels. Conditions...

Obesity has direct consequences on health and is associated with the onset of aggressive cancers, but the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are little known. Researchers from the Institut de Pharmacologie et he Biologie Structurale (CNRS/Université Toulouse III -- Paul Sabatier) have recently elucidated one of these mechanisms in prostate cancer, one of the most common cancers in men: in obese patients, the adipose tissue surrounding the prostate gland facilitates the propagation of tumor cells outside the prostate. A patent has been filed for these results, which open new avenues for the treatment of prostate cancer, and are published in Nature...

Houston is a faraway place on FM 1413 in southern Liberty County, where a driver is more likely to see a pony munching on grass than a shop on the corner. If not for the trees and an electrical transmission line, the sky would be unbroken, horizon to horizon. It soon could look a lot more like other parts of suburban Houston where the Grand Parkway has gone, with cul-de-sacs replacing horse pastures and retail centers sprouting at major intersections.

The prostates of older mice contain more luminal progenitor cells -- cells capable of generating new prostate tissue -- than the prostates of younger mice, UCLA researchers have discovered. The observation, published in Cell Reports, helps explain why, as people age, the prostate tends to grow, leading to an increased risk for prostate cancer and other conditions. "Understanding what's causing the prostate to grow with age helps us to consider strategies to prevent the expansion of these cells and possibly reduce a person's risk for prostate growth or disease," said Andrew Goldstein, member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center...

Is POTUS walking into a trap in the Senate?

When you dine on curry and baked apples, enjoy the fact that you are eating something that could play a role starving -- or even preventing -- cancer. New research from The University of Texas at Austin identifies several natural compounds found in food, including turmeric, apple peels and red grapes, as key ingredients that could thwart the growth of prostate cancer, the most common cancer afflicting U.S. men. Published online this week in Precision Oncology, the new paper uses a novel analytical approach to screen numerous plant-based chemicals instead of testing a single agent as many studies do, discovering...

Results from the first long-term cohort study of more than 36,000 Japanese men over decades suggest an association between eating mushrooms and a lower risk of prostate cancer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first cohort study indicating the prostate cancer-preventive potential of mushrooms at a population level," said Zhang. Long-term follow-up of the participants indicated that consuming mushrooms on a regular basis reduces the risk of prostate cancer in men, and was especially significant in men aged 50 and older and in men whose diet consisted largely of meat and dairy products, with limited consumption of...

LOS ANGELES—Ex-Stormy Daniels lawyer and Trump antagonist Michael Avenatti was led out of the State Bar Court in Los Angeles by federal agents on Tuesday evening. The arrest occurred outside the disciplinary hearing in which the State Bar of California has accused the hard-charging, tough-talking attorney of using a doctored document to scam a client out of nearly $840,000, funneling money from a lawsuit settlement fund to his own personal use.

Moments ago, citing prosecutorial vindictiveness and the DOJ changing their position on sentencing, lawyers for Lt. General Michael Flynn filed a motion to withdraw the guilty plea. (pdf link – PDF embed link below) This is good news. Withdrawing the plea will now force the government to prove its case.

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14 Religion Forum threads labeled "Prayer" are closed to debate of any kind.

The president of a liberal arts college in Indiana has been fired after his arrest on suspicion of sex crimes, school officials announced. Thomas J. Minar was terminated by Franklin College on Monday after his Jan. 6 arrest in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin on preliminary charges of use of a computer to facilitate a sex crime, child enticement and exposing a child to harmful materials, the Indianapolis Star reported. Formal charges have not yet been filed, but prosecutors in Door County expect to file a criminal complaint in coming days. Minar, a 56-year-old Chicago native, had been the private college’s president...

Green activist John Cossham, 52, on how he earns very little so he can live a low-carbon lifestyleName: John Cossham Age: 52 Income: £10,000 Occupation: Entertainer and ecology educator I’m an enthusiastic green activist and I earn very little so I can live a low-carbon lifestyle. That’s the way I like it; I don’t want much money, because people who earn a lot have a high carbon footprint. This green lifestyle saves my family about £10,000 a year on utilities, food and travel compared to the average family of four. But that’s not the reason I do it. I’m proud...

Washington State University researchers have found a mechanism by which omega-3 fatty acids inhibit the growth and spread of prostate cancer cells. The findings, which are at odds with a 2013 study asserting that omega-3s increase the risk of prostate cancer, point the way to more effective anti-cancer drugs. Scientists have long known that omega 3s reduce inflammation and have anti-diabetic effects, and some recently discovered how this happens. A 2013 study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that men with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood had a greater risk of developing prostate...