Free Republic

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis is getting more involved in local school board races across the state by endorsing candidates. He released a survey recently gauging candidates’ stances on face masks, charter schools, critical race theory and more. The survey is essentially a litmus test for any school board hopeful who wants to secure Gov. DeSantis’s endorsement. The pledge specifically says the candidate will, “Reject lockdowns, increase teacher pay, and reject critical race theory.”

More videos from WFAA on the Uvalde incident. Uvalde school massacre could have been stopped in 3 minutes, DPS says at Senate hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhiS-VsXscYKey takeaways from Tuesday's Uvalde school shooting hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPlSwA8DeQkAccording to the testimony given, Arredondo deliberately held back multiple SWAT teams. One Uvalde officer actually did press forward against orders to assault in, because it was his wife in the room. Other Uvalde officers detained him, took his gun away and kicked him out.

The controlled use of fire by ancient hominins – a group that includes humans and some of our extinct family members – is hypothesized to date back at least a million years, to around the time that archaeologists believe Homo habilis began its transition to Homo erectus. That is no coincidence, as the working theory, called the “cooking hypothesis,” is that the use of fire was instrumental in our evolution, not only for allowing hominins to stay warm, craft advanced tools, and ward off predators but also for acquiring the ability to cook. Cooking meat not only eliminates pathogens but...

Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a massive marble head at the Antikythera Shipwreck in Greece, the site where the Antikythera mechanism was previously discovered in 1901. The Antikythera wreck is a Roman-era shipwreck dating from the 1st century BC. The site was discovered by sponge divers near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900.Some scholars speculated that the ship was carrying part of the loot of the Roman General Sulla from Athens in 86 BC. A reference by the Greek writer, Lucian, to one of Sulla’s ships sinking in the Antikythera region gave which rise to this theory.Previous excavations...

SHASTA COUNTY, Calif. — Residents and farmers in the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District (ACID) are ready to fight for their water. Residents believed their water contract was "iron-clad" and that, regardless of conditions, they would be given enough water to survive the summer months. Furthermore, residents were outraged to learn . . . the water they did have was sold off,. . . . . without the public's approval or knowledge. The biggest sign of the dry conditions: the ACID water canal has run completely dry. As a result, of the roughly 800 farms that exist in the district, almost all...

Department of Veteran Affairs patient advocate who was recorded on a security camera assaulting a veteran patient still has his job. Video of the encounter, released by WSB-TV, shows Phillip Webb, a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran, being choked, body-slammed, and thrown to the ground at the Department of Veterans Affairs Clinic at Fort McPherson. The assault took place on April 28, 2022. Lawrence F. Gaillard Jr., a patient advocate at the clinic, was arrested that day and charged with felony assault. In the video, Webb can be seen in a waiting room. After Gaillard points his finger in Webb’s face, he...

Excavators in Hungary have discovered a "very rare" gold Roman coin that features the face of a murdered Roman emperor.The third-century coin depicts Emperor Volusianus, who co-ruled the Roman Empire for about two years with his father, until the emperor was assassinated at age 22 by his own soldiers. Because of Volusianus' short reign, coins bearing his face are rare. What's more, the coin's denomination is rare, as is finding gold coins from the Roman period in Hungary, said Máté Varga, an archaeologist at the University of Szeged in Hungary and head of the excavation.Despite their luck in finding this...

Beetroot shows it can provide a competitive edge when playing sport. Evaluating the performance effects of foods that are thought to have a beneficial effect on aerobic performance, researchers found that beetroot, grapes, sour cherries, and pine bark extract, which contribute to nitric oxide availability in the body, boost endurance exercise performance. The meta-analysis evaluated the effect of consuming nitrate-rich foods (typically green leafy vegetables), foods that contain polyphenols (such as berries, cherries and cocoa), and L-Citrulline (found in watermelon) on exercise endurance performance. The study found that the nitrate levels contained in beetroot, which have been shown to boost...

@RepThomasMassie Good luck sleeping at night in a crime-ridden liberal-run city if Democrats pass their latest unhelpful piece of legislation. Speech... [5 mins]

A Staten Island, New York, man has been charged with third-degree aggravated assault and fourth-degree assault at a youth sporting event for the violent attack of a 72-year-old baseball umpire during a game June 4 in Branchburg. Jerry Otero, 40, a coach from the Staten Island-based New York Prospects travel team, was arrested Tuesday by Branchburg police and charged with committing the attack. The assault occurred during a 13-and-under U.S. Amateur Baseball League tournament game earlier this month and left the umpire with a broken jaw that required extensive dental surgery. Acting Somerset County Prosecutor Annmarie Taggart said Branchburg police...

Senate negotiators unveiled an 80-page bill Tuesday evening responding to the mass shootings at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, capping weeks of intense negotiations. Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator, is hailing the bill as the biggest breakthrough on the issue of gun violence in 30 years and predicted Tuesday it would save lives. Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the head Republican in the talks, says the legislation will take guns out of the hands of people who are dangerous or break the law but won’t affect the gun rights...

Ottawa is evaluating options to help restore German gas supplies as a crucial Nord Stream 1 pipeline part is stranded in Canada due to Russian sanctions, the Canadian Natural Resources Minister said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday. Gazprom's Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been forced to reduce capacity as it waits for the turbine, which is being serviced in Canada. Sanctions on Russia make it impossible for German equipment supplier Siemens Energy to receive the pipeline part, the company said last week. "We want to respect the sanctions because the sanctions were put into place for a reason,"...

On this date in 1779, American Revolution patriots hanged Henry Hare as a spy at Canajoharie in upstate New York. In the first years of the revolution, this district was plagued (from the revolutionists’ standpoint) by raids of Tory loyalists and their allied indigenous Six Nations confederation: the latter had sided with the British against the land-hungry colonists in hopes of better retaining their rights against settlers. An irritating situation became an intolerable one when loyalists and Mohawks descended on the village of Cherry Valley November 11, 1778, and massacred not only its defenders but about 30 non-combatants......

At Greece's largest coal mine, controlled explosions and the roar of giant excavators scooping up blasted rock have once again become routine. Coal production has been ramped up at the site near the northern Greek city of Kozani as the war in Ukraine forced many European nations to rethink their energy supplies. Coal, long treated as a legacy fuel in Europe, is now helping the continent safeguard its power supply and cope with the dramatic rise in natural gas prices caused by the war. Electricity generated by coal in the European Union jumped by 19% in the fourth quarter of...

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Cornyn is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who negotiated with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) last year on legislation to expand background checks for commercial sellers but without success. Cornyn scored one of the few notable accomplishments on gun violence legislation in recent years when he coauthored and helped pass the Fix NICS Act in 2018. The legislation required federal agencies to produce plans for uploading all relevant information to the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System. McConnell tapped Cornyn to lead the negotiations for Republicans shortly after a bipartisan group of senators met...

The Senate unveiled Tuesday the language of the bipartisan gun control deal Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) struck with Democrats at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) behest. NPR reports that the gun control expands background checks for gun buyers ages 18-20. The legislation also expands the prohibited buyers list by adding dating relationships under the domestic violence clause, thus closing the “boyfriend loophole” Democrats have been arguing against for years. The legislation also contains financial incentives for states that agree to adopt red flag laws. Rep. Matt Gaetz anticipated the financial incentives for red laws, telling Breitbart News Saturday that...

Queen Victoria would not always be considered the best symbol of genuine progress and democracy in every conversation. But a half naked statue of her in Melbourne, Australia, serves as a reminder that many of the city's forebears were far more open minded than the narrow prudish leftist mob rule which persecutes some of the most talented men here now for their heterosexuality and other reasons such as refusing to be vaccinated and being a highly successful catholic leader. A. Robert Doyle, the longest serving Mayor of Melbourne was driven from office by allegations, which he denied and which witnesses...

House Republicans have named the congressional aide to Rep. Jake Auchincloss, Massachusetts Democrat, who allowed TV’s Stephen Colbert’s comedy crew into one of the House office buildings after hours. Republicans said Tuesday that Auchincloss Chief of Staff Tim Hysom was responsible for letting seven producers and staffers of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” back into the House Longworth Building last week after U.S. Capitol Police directed the TV crew to leave the complex earlier in the day. Rep. Rodney Davis, Illinois Republican and ranking member of the House Administration Committee, said he is 100% sure Mr. Hysom is the...

Somewhere over the last few days — since back when he was telling friends that he was emphatically out on the LIV Golf series — Brooks Koepka found a metaphorical horse’s head in his bed, an offer he couldn’t refuse from the Saudi dismemberment enthusiasts behind the breakaway circuit. Since Koepka does not suffer fools gladly and has been vocally contemptuous of LIV Golf’s leading figures — Greg Norman, Phil Mickelson and Golf Saudi CEO Majed Al Sorour — we must assume the offer was sufficiently high for him to sleep soundly. For those who know Koepka well, one brief...

A new police report that was exclusively obtained by The Epoch Times has proved that “plainclothes” members of a special law enforcement Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU) were secretly embedded among protesters for the purposes of conducting video surveillance on January 6th. The newly uncovered report, titled First Amendment Demonstrations, was issued on Jan. 3, 2021, by DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief of Police Robert Contee under the Homeland Security Bureau’s Special Operations Division. It detailed the MPD’s response to the planned MAGA protest, which included specifics about covert operations that occurred on and leading up to January 6th. According...