Free Republic

Statistics show that black males are disproportionately getting in trouble and being suspended from the nation's school systems. Based on three years of participant observation research at an elementary school, Bad Boys offers a richly textured account of daily interactions between teachers and students to understand this serious problem. Ann Arnett Ferguson demonstrates how a group of eleven- and twelve-year-old males are identified by school personnel as "bound for jail" and how the youth construct a sense of self under such adverse circumstances. The author focuses on the perspective and voices of pre-adolescent African American boys. How does it feel...

Two Arizona State University students who were reprimanded after a viral video showed them confronting White students studying in a campus multicultural center last year have accused the school of "openly" discriminating against them. "Dear White People, A.K.A. ASU — You openly discriminated against us on November 16 when you handed down your decision from your racially biased investigation," the students, Mastaani Qureshi and Sarra Tekola, said in a more than nine-minute video posted to social media last week. "We're being persecuted for defending our multicultural center from racism and sexism … ASU is a violent place," Qureshi said. The...

A handful of congressional Democrats are investigating whether former President Donald Trump can be prevented from holding elected office again through the application of an obscure portion of the 14th Amendment. Section 3 of the amendment, enacted in 1868 and best known for enshrining the Equal Protection Clause, prevents any government official who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US from holding office again. According to The Hill, approximately a dozen Democratic lawmakers have publicly or privately spoken about applying Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to Trump, whom they accuse of inciting the Jan. 6 riot that disrupted...

Russia’s lead negotiator for coming talks with the U.S. said that Moscow’s demands on Ukraine must be addressed urgently and warned the Biden administration against resorting to the economic pressure it has threatened to try to get the Kremlin to back down. In advance of Monday’s talks with the U.S. in Geneva, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov sketched out an unyielding stance. He said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military ties to Ukraine represent a threat to Russia even if the country isn’t formally admitted into the alliance. Mr. Ryabkov rebuffed the Biden administration’s calls for the Kremlin to reverse...

We all know the two great pizza quotes, right? The first is Sam Sifton's Pizza Cognition Theory, which goes like this: "The first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes...becomes, for him, pizza." The second is the old chestnut about pizza and sex: even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. Then we get to the St. Louis-style pizza made popular by their local chain, Imo's , which seems to buck both of these statements. Of the myriad styles of pizza we've got in this country, it's got to be the most maligned.* Its thin, unleavened cracker crust bears...

The GOP has a duty to condemn the riot and those who refuse to acknowledge it. We’re in an acrimonious period of partisan tribalism and have been for some time. Both parties are guilty of overwrought denunciations of their political opponents. My criticisms are often aimed at Democrats; on the anniversary of Jan. 6, I’m addressing squarely those Republicans who for a year have excused the actions of the rioters who stormed the Capitol, disrupted Congress as it received the Electoral College’s results, and violently attempted to overturn the election. These apologists say those who stormed the Capitol were innocent...

Destroying the world’s major semiconductor market might be more of an invasion deterrent than actual open conflict, military paper suggests; Taiwan should adopt a ‘scorched earth policy’ and wipe out its own semiconductor foundries in the wake of any Chinese invasion as a deterrent, US military academics have suggested. First spotted by Nikkei, a paper in the US Army War College’s quarterly academic journal Parameters suggests the US and Taiwan can detour Chinese invasion of the island by creating a ‘deterrence by punishment approach via a legitimate and credible threat' to destroy the country’s own chip fabs if invaded. The...

The brain is one of the mysteries of creation that we are only just starting to understand through science and medicine. As more knowledge about the mechanisms of the brain is uncovered, researchers are also constantly revising their theories about how it works. As we discussed in Chapter 3, an early theory was that depression was caused by a neurotransmitter deficiency in the brain. But science has moved ahead to understanding the brain as functioning primarily through connections between neurons, through how the brain gets wired and rewired, in a process called neuroplasticity. The brain is constantly changing and adapting,...

Boston marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev was ordered by a federal court to turn over the $1,400 in coronavirus relief funds he received, along with other money sent to him, to his victims as restitution. SNIP But so far, he has paid only $2,203, court documents reveal. Tsarnaev has $3,885.06 in his inmate account, funds that came from the COVID-19 relief check he received on June 22, 2021, as well as deposits from individuals and groups, including the Officer of Federal Defenders in New York. ​ Federal prosecutors say Tsarnaev ​has splurged on “gifts,” “support,” and “books” to his siblings —...

@jonkarl Former VP Dick Cheney also just told me this: “I’m deeply disappointed we don’t have better leadership in the Republican party to restore the Constitution.” He noted that his daughter is an exception.

SYDNEY (AP) — The leaders of Japan and Australia signed a “landmark” defense agreement Thursday that allows closer cooperation between their militaries and stands as a rebuke to China's growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in a virtual summit to sign the Reciprocal Access Agreement, the first such defense pact signed by Japan with any country other than the United States. The agreement follows more than a year of talks between Japan and Australia aimed at breaking down legal barriers to allow the troops of one country to...

Funny parody of the FBI and the Jan 6 "insurrection". Only 2 minutes 57 seconds long.

Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the vice-chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot, said Thursday on NBC’s “The Today Show” that former Vice President Mike Pence was a “hero” for his role in certifying the 2020 presidential election at the January 6, 2021 joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes. Host Savannah Guthrie asked, “How does former Vice President Pence fit into this case? Are you willing to subpoena him to get his testimony? Do you think he’ll cooperate?”

Less than a month after voting to form a union, employees at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, N.Y., have gone on strike over grievances about working conditions. Six employees on the schedule to work instead formed a picket line in front of the store. Three other employees reported to work as scheduled, but Starbucks closed the location for the day. The striking employees stated that the surge in coronavirus cases and illnesses among the staff had created “unsafe working conditions.” In recent days, Buffalo area Starbucks locations have been operating on a take-out-only basis. “Pressure to go to work is...

A former Trump White House official on Thursday condemned the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as a "coup attempt" and said the former president "failed to meet the moment" in reflections on the anniversary of the insurrection at the Capitol. Sarah Matthews, who served as a deputy press secretary in the Trump White House and resigned on Jan. 6 over the day's events, called the riots from a year ago "one of the darkest days in American history."

The bodies of four swimmers have been found mauled by piranhas in a spate of attacks that has sent shockwaves throughout South America. The attacks happened in Paraguay, where people have visited local rivers in large numbers during the current heatwave in order to cool down. The first death of the New Year happened on Sunday when a 22-year-old man was bathing in the Paraguay River.

America isn’t just seeing less of Mike Pompeo because the Trump administration is no longer in the White House. We are seeing less of the former Secretary of State because there is literally less of him — 90 pounds, to be exact. The former Director of the CIA has faced a lot of challenging situations in his long career, but he hesitates to talk about his weight loss because of a nagging fear he will put all the pounds he lost back on. But, in an exclusive interview with The Post, he revealed how he did it and why.It all...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday suggested former President Donald Trump may have learned some lessons from President Biden's speech marking the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, after Trump dismissed the remarks as "political theater."

President Joe Biden accused Donald Trump and his supporters of holding a “dagger at the throat of democracy” in a forceful speech Thursday marking the anniversary of the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. He warned that though it didn’t succeed, the insurrection remains a serious threat to America’s system of government. Biden’s criticism was blistering of the defeated president whom he blamed for the assault that has fundamentally changed Congress and the nation, and raised global concerns about the future of American democracy. “For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election, he tried...

[T]he meteor that exploded Saturday morning in the skies above Western Pennsylvania produced a blast that was equal to 30 tons of TNT. On New Year’s Day, a loud boom was heard and felt throughout the region, with some people reporting rumbles in their homes and rattling windows. NASA told The Post that the meteor was a yard in diameter, weighed 1,000 pounds, and hit the atmosphere at a staggering 45,000 mph. A meteor of that size travels through Earth’s atmosphere every three or four days, but because most of the planet is water-covered, the majority of those meteors fall...