Free Republic

A £24,000 statue of Greta Thunberg installed at a university has sparked anger among students who have branded it a “vanity project”. The University of Winchester believes it is the world’s first life-sized sculpture of the “inspirational” Swedish environmental activist. But the students’ union said the funds could have been better spent. The university said “no money was diverted” from student support or staffing for the project. President of Winchester Student Union Megan Ball described Thunberg as a “fantastic role model to everyone, as someone who speaks loudly and proudly about important global issues”, but said the union could not...

A portrait of former President Trump will be unveiled in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., when it reopens, Washingtonian reports. Trump's portrait will be the latest addition to the museum's "America’s Presidents" gallery, a permanent exhibit within the museum. The portrait itself is only temporary, however — Trump's official portrait is still in the works. A museum spokesperson told Washingtonian that the final work of art is still in its initial phase of creation. Typically, presidential portraits can take as long as two years from the time they are commissioned until they are debuted to the public. As...

For nearly a decade, California farmer Jack LaPant was the target of an investigation and prosecution by the United States Army, who alleged that LaPant violated the Clean Water Act by growing a wheat crop to feed his cattle. Earlier this year, LaPant was able to settle the case to get the Army out of his hair, but the settlement required him to give the Army more than $1 million in money and land value. This, despite the fact that the government never proved a single allegation in court.

Edmundo Sanchez said one of his foster children suffered an anxiety attack A Washington state social services nonprofit is evicting a foster father and his family to make way for illegal immigrants, the parent told Fox News on Wednesday. Edmundo Sanchez joined Seattle radio host Jason Rantz on "Fox News Primetime" to explain how the announcement led to tragedy almost immediately. Sanchez, who lives in Renton, told host Rachel Campos-Duffy that upon hearing the news that they would be forced out of their home, one of his foster children was hospitalized due an anxiety attack while another ran away and...

I voluntarily signed up for the first or second time the university offered a certificate course in “Diversity Training.” Each week we learned about another demographic group in our society — Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Gays, Women, the Elderly, Indo-Asians — and then we would bond as a group each week at a group lunch at a restaurant themed around that group: a Black “Soul Food” restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, an Indian restaurant. I privately approached the program director and said, “Y’know, for all the sensitivity and group bonding, you are isolating me as an Orthodox Jew. All...

Unquestionably, much of the Biden infrastructure plan is an unmitigated disaster. Brad Polumbo has an excellent article up that highlights some of the most egregious spending provisions of the Biden plan. They include $10 billion to create a “Civilian Climate Corp,” $20 billion to advance “environmental justice,” and $100 billion to make schools greener by doing things like eliminating paper plates. The truth is that while the Biden plan is a disaster, it exists – in part – because of the GOP’s own refusal to deal with the issue of infrastructure when we held the House, Senate, and the White...

(President Trump's Operation Warp Speed Update) (the 200 Millionth dose has been delivered by the manufacturers) Total Vaccine Doses Delivered: 200,496,635 (7,896,300 J&J) Administered: 153,631,404 (3,429,880 J&J) People Vaccinated, At Least One Dose: 99,565,311 Fully Vaccinated: 56,089,614

Donald Williams, 33, the MMA practitioner who was present at the fatal arrest and called as an expert witness, faced questions over his training and conduct on the day, which was captured on a widely-seen video. Williams’s testimony on the first day of Chauvin’s trial painted a picture of the former police officer showing indifference to Floyd’s suffering, a key component of the charge of third-degree murder known as “depraved mind” or a “depraved-heart murder”. Michael Padden, a Minneapolis-based lawyer with 34 years’ experience trying cases, often involving the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), described Williams as a “[g]ood, solid witness...

Top Senate Republicans on Thursday called for Democrats to hold a public hearing on the border crisis and question Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “While we may not agree on the causes of or the solutions to this crisis, we believe it is vitally important for the Senate Judiciary Committee to exercise its oversight authority and seek testimony from Secretary Mayorkas and relevant officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of Health and Human Services regarding the situation at the border and the Biden Administration’s response to it,” Sens. Chuck...

A new prototype solar panel from the Technical Institute of Copenhagen (TIC) promises to be a game changer for renewable energy prospects....Traditional solar panels work by intercepting photons. Naturally the Earth is opaque to photons, so at night the panels are useless. But the Sun emits another kind of particle that shines right through the Earth, even at night: solar neutrinos....neutrinos pass through the Earth, they do change on their way through – a bit like the way white light is changed into a rainbow as it passes through a triangular prism.” Keying in on this relationship, Pierrot was able...

Republicans in at least seven states have introduced proposals that would ban the teaching concepts of the quasi-Marxist critical race theory (CRT). The measures range from banning government agencies from conducting training based on the theory to prohibiting the incorporation of the concepts into school curricula. The efforts follow President Joe Biden’s reversal of last year’s executive order by President Donald Trump that banned federal agencies, contractors, subcontractors, and grantees from instructing their employees to follow CRT tenets. CRT has gradually proliferated in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world. It redefines human history as...

Douglas Murray and I discuss, among other topics, the collapse of grand narratives on the left and the right alike, the potential for the resultant explanatory and motivational void to be filled by more radical ideological ideas, and the dangers posed by the mutual recrimination that all-too-frequently characterizes relationships across the left-right divide.

Abp. Viganò weighs in on ‘scandalous’ prohibition of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica‘For sixty years the doctrinal deviations introduced by Vatican II have insinuated that Mass offered without the people has no value, or that it has less value than a concelebration or a Mass at which the faithful assist.’Inside St. Peter’s Basilica April 1, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — On March 12, by means of an ordinance issued without signature, protocol number, or addressee, the First Section of the Secretariat of State forbade the celebration of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, beginning on the First Sunday...

New, bombshell admissions over China’s influence in both the United States and Europe link organizations such as the Berggruen Institute with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Berggruen Institute first rose to national attention after co-founding the “Transition Integrity Project” which advised on how Joe Biden could seize power on the back of an ostensible Trump victory.

A Wiki Page was created to list every mass shooting in the US in 2019. The list does not include those shootings where no one will speak to police. At least 20 of the mass shootings in 2019 were in Chicago, Illinois. More than 140 mass shootings are unsolved largely because no one will give descriptions to the police. Congress Launches New Policy For Cars Used Less Than 49 Miles/Day Of course, most of these shootings took place in the inner city. Democrats don’t care about those shootings. They never make the splashe headlines for days. It doesn’t fit their...

UNC announced this morning that basketball coach Roy Williams will be retiring after 18 seasons in Chapel Hill. Williams has coached 33 seasons in his career and won 903 games on his way to the Naismith Hall of Fame. There will be a press conference today at 4:00 pm ET. Williams returned to his alma mater when the program was in, to put it nicely, shambles. He went on to lead the Tar Heels to three national championships in 2005, 2009, and 2017. Coach’s accolades go on for days, as you all know and don’t need me to remind you....

Virginia will open its Covid-19 vaccine eligibility to all residents ages 16 and up starting April 18, the state announced Thursday (1 April)... All residents age 16 and up in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia are now eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. Utah vaccinations are also open to those 18 and up, and Texas and North Dakota have expanded eligibility to all adults.

George Floyd’s Friend and ‘Key Witness’ in Chauvin Trial Invokes 5th Amendment, Declines to TestifyA self-described key witness to the death of George Floyd—a longtime friend who was in the car with Floyd when police approached him—said through a lawyer that, if forced to testify about the incident, he’ll invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and remain silent. Morries Lester Hall, who in a June 2020 interview with The New York Times called himself “a key witness to the cops murdering George Floyd” and said he was “going to be his voice” going forward, has asked the court to...

The Biden administration has given Ukraine its full backing as new video showed Russia sending trains filled with tanks and military vehicles into Crimea. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the United States' 'unwavering support' for Kiev as tensions continue to escalate with Moscow. The Kremlin said on Thursday the West should not 'worry' about Russian troop movements on the Ukrainian border,but there are concerns the situation could turn into another conflict.

(CNN) — Njeri Camara, 61, can’t visit the Shreveport, Louisiana home where she was born. Like many Black homes and neighborhoods across the country in the 1960s, it was bulldozed to clear space for highways. Camara says her parents moved when she was a baby to another Shreveport neighborhood, Allendale, where she still lives. But now her current home is at risk of being bulldozed so that a second highway, Interstate 49, can connect directly through the city. The Shreveport leaders who want to trade Camara’s home for a highway are embracing a Dwight Eisenhower-era belief in the almighty good...