Free Republic

U.S. District Eastern Kentucky Court Judge William Bertelsman on Wednesday threw out five media libel lawsuits brought forth by former Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann. In January 2019, Sandmann was at the center of a viral video that showed him face-to-face with Native American man Nathan Phillips as Phillips banged a drum and sang a traditional song. Sandmann was 16 years old at the time and wore a red "Make America Great Again" cap. Several mainstream media outlets portrayed the video as racially charged with Sandmann antagonizing Phillips by standing in front of him and smiling. However, additional...

Wednesday, ABC’s “The View” issued an apology for claiming that Turning Point USA “embraced” neo-Nazis at its Student Action Summit in Tampa, FL over the weekend. On Monday, co-host Whoopi Goldberg said, “Let me make a quick clarification about the neo-Nazis at the Turning Point event. They were outside protestors. My point was more metaphorical. You embraced them at your thing I felt.” Co-host Sara Haines said, “So, on Monday, we talked about the fact there were openly neo-Nazi demonstrators outside the Florida student action summit of the Turning Point USA group. We want to make clear that these demonstrators...

Monday’s vote came a year to the day after the president sacked the government and suspended parliament in a dramatic blow to the only democracy to have emerged from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. For some Tunisians, his moves sparked fears of a return to autocracy, but they were welcomed by others, fed up with high inflation and unemployment, political corruption and a system they felt had brought few improvements. His opponents say the moves aimed to install an autocracy more than a decade after the fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but his supporters say they were...

Hundreds of angry protesters loyal to the powerful cleric Muqtada al-Sadr broke into Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone on Wednesday, denouncing the nomination of a new prime minister. Mohammed Shiya al-Sudani was formally nominated to lead the country on Monday by the Coordination Framework, the largest Shiite alliance in the Iraqi parliament. His nomination followed the mass resignation of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, a group of over 70 lawmakers who withdrew from the governing body last month in an apparent show of force after months of political stalemate. Iraq has struggled to form a new government since parliamentary elections in October;...

Victim accuses Pope Francis of protecting bishop found guilty of sexual misconductWhile Argentinian Bishop Emeritus Gustavo Zanchetta enjoys 'good times' after avoiding prison, one of his victims is struggling with feelings of anxiety.Bishop Zanchetta with Pope Francis(LifeSiteNews) — One of the two recognized victims of Bishop Emeritus Gustavo Zanchetta of Orán, in the Argentinian province of Salta, spoke out to a local news source on July 14, three days after his condemned abuser obtained an adjusted sentence allowing him to avoid spending time in prison.The victim, known as “M.C.,” spoke with his back to the camera to Silvia Noviasky of...

A major organization of Inuit native Canadians has insisted that Pope Francis’ apology was insufficient, calling on the Catholic Church to pony up monetary reparations. Pope Francis’ apology is “only one step towards reconciliation,” Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) said in a statement following the pontiff’s declaration of sorrow this week for the ways in which many Christians “supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the indigenous peoples.” “Inuit have finally been heard and their experiences acknowledged,” said Aluki Kotierk, president of NTI, which sent a delegation of 55 Nunavut Inuit to Edmonton to witness the papal apology. Now...

President Joe Biden said he was feeling great and had got through COVID with only mild discomfort, he said Wednesday morning, but he suggested Americans should wear masks indoors as the nation grapples with the latest infectious variant. And he paid tribute to vaccinations, which he said allowed him to stay in the White House in contrast to President Donald Trump who had to be airlifted to hospital. 'Here's the bottom line: When my predecessor got COVID he had to get helicoptered to Walter Reed Medical Center,' said Biden, 79. 'He was severely ill. Thankfully he recovered. 'I got COVID,...

A woman in New York died on Wednesday after her family's dog attacked her. When the woman's husband arrived at the couple's home on Long Island at about 1 p.m., he discovered that his wife was dead after being attacked by the family's pit bull, according to FOX 5. The pit bull was violent and went after police officers when they arrived, and they ended up killing the dog. Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder described the scene as "horrific."

New batches of the field rations will contain the only way to enliven everything from chili mac to cheese tortellini in a powder form. As Julie Smith, senior food technologist for the Army’s Combat Feeding Division, told Stars and Stripes, that means those instantly recognizable miniature Tabasco bottles will be phased out by 2024.

A judge blocked North Dakota’s trigger abortion ban on Wednesday, allowing the state’s sole remaining abortion clinic to continue offering the procedure following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. North Dakota’s ban makes it illegal for an abortion to be performed in the state unless it’s necessary save the patient’s life. Exceptions are also made in cases of incest or rape, according to The Associated Press.

Men who have sex with men should consider limiting the number of sexual partners they have to reduce their risk of contracting monkeypox, the director-general of the World Health Organization said Wednesday. In an apparent shift in WHO messaging about monkeypox, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the burgeoning outbreak can be stopped, but that people in the community where most transmission is occurring — gay and bisexual men, and other men who have sex with men — should take the risk seriously and take steps to help stop spread. “For men who have sex with men, this includes, for the...

For the 2021-2022 school year, just 47 percent of eighth graders were deemed ready for high school. Twenty-eight percent of students in the San Francisco Unified School District are "chronically absent"—a proportion that has doubled since the 2019-2020 school year. Two-thirds of African-American students fall into that category. Despite the declining academic performance, San Francisco city officials have debated whether or not to rename schools or remove murals dedicated to important figures in American history. Three progressive members of the San Francisco school board were recalled earlier this year after parents opposed the district's focus on social justice issues over...

Republican leaders who worry that Donald Trump could hurt their midterm chances by announcing a presidential run too soon are hoping he'll be dissuaded from doing so by the prospect of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal payments, according to an RNC official. But an RNC official told ABC News that as soon as Trump would announce he is running for president, the payments would stop because the party has a "neutrality policy" that prohibits it from taking sides in the presidential primary.

Two leading House Democrats are requesting a government watchdog step away from an investigation into deleted text messages sent by the Secret Service around the time of the U.S. Capitol attack. Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of House Homeland Security Committee, and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent the request Tuesday to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. In their letter, Thompson and Maloney wrote they have "grave concerns" about Joseph Cuffari, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general -- including what they said was his failure to promptly notify Congress...

The Customs and Excise Office has held a container of weapons believed to belong to the US Army in the province of Lampung, a port official said on Sunday. There is no indication of smuggling attempt – the weapons were sent for the purpose of a joint military exercise between the United States and the Indonesian Armed Forces, said Frans Rahardian, a spokesman for state-owned seaport operator Pelindo. However, problems arises because the container wasn’t included in the shipment manifest, prompting the customs office to affix a seal on it on Friday. "When the particular cargo was sent from America,...

Spain's equality ministry has launched a summer campaign to encourage women worried about how their body looks to go to the beach. "Summer is ours too," runs the slogan above an image of five diverse women of different shapes and sizes. "All bodies are beach bodies," said Social Services Minister Ione Belarra. Women's Institute head Antonia Morillas said physical expectations affected not only women's self-esteem, but denied them their rights. The campaign illustration of five women relaxing on the beach also features a topless woman after a mastectomy.

Will “Lia” Thomas, the biological male who swam on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team this past school year, has lost his bid to become the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year.Each eligible school could submit the names of up to two female student-athletes for consideration before the selection committee chose 10 athletes from each division to determine the top 30 honorees. The NCAA selected Columbia University fencer Sylvie Binder to advance to the next round as the Ivy League conference winner.Thomas made headlines for crushing his competition in NCAA women’s swimming, sparking widespread outrage. After years of being...

Karl Rove, the noted Republican political consultant and deputy chief of staff for the George W. Bush administration, praised California Gov. Gavin Newsom's political acumen during a Fox News program on Tuesday. Speaking to Fox host Bill Hemmer during a segment of "America's Newsroom," Rove called Newsom's recent ad blitz in Republican-controlled states a "brilliant" move. Specifically, he praised Newsom's re-election campaign for spending just a fraction of its money on relatively inexpensive ads that, in turn, generated national news coverage for Newsom. "He has spent less than half a percent of what he's raised, and he's going to dominate...

According to a poll of likely Democratic Primary voters in New Hampshire, President Joe Biden is not the leading candidate for 2024. The state holds the first primary in the nation, and several possible candidates have been swinging through from both parties. Trump-hating Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the state in the fall of 2021. More recently, Illinois’s extra-large governor, J.D. Pritzker, made an appearance. However, when the University of New Hampshire polled likely 2024 Democratic Primary voters, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg came out on top.University of New Hampshire Buttigieg’s most significant...

A doctor in Texas is suing the health care institution that suspended her for allegedly purveying “dangerous misinformation.” Dr. Mary Bowden, who now runs her own clinic, is seeking $25 million from Houston Methodist for alleged defamation. Bowden became concerned that the COVID-19 vaccines were not preventing contraction of the virus that causes COVID-19, and spoke out against vaccine mandates and, later, the vaccines themselves, according to the 19-page lawsuit, which was slated to be filed in Harris County District Court. After Bowden began sharing her opinions on social media, Houston Methodist and its CEO, Dr. Marc Boom, “retaliated” against...