Free Republic

More than half of Americans don’t believe a college degree is worth the cost ... 56% of all Americans viewed getting a college degree as a bad investment, while only 42% of Americans see a degree as worth it. The highest skepticism of the group that was surveyed came from young adults in the 18 to 34 age range. "Women and older Americans are driving the decline in confidence. People over the age of 65 with faith in college declined to 44% from 56% in 2017. Confidence among women fell to 44% from 54%," the poll said. ... The confidence...

The owner of the dog savagely stabbed to death in Central Park over the weekend cried out, “You killed my dog, you piece of ****!” as the heartless attacker fled with his own pups, dramatic new video shows. The clip – taken by a witness to the heated Saturday night clash and obtained by WABC — shows the moments after 14-year-old pit bull-German shepherd mix Eli was mortally wounded by another pet owner near the park’s 106th Street and East Drive entrance. “You better not show your face!” Eli’s 51-year-old owner, Brian, snarled as he followed the suspect, seen fleeing...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated U.S. support of the "One China" policy on Monday, saying that the U.S. does not support Taiwanese independence following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (SNIP) "We do not support Taiwan independence," Blinken said in a press conference on Monday. "We remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side.

At a casual glance, the recent cascades of American disasters might seem unrelated. In a span of fewer than six months in 2017, three U.S. Naval warships experienced three separate collisions resulting in 17 deaths. A year later, powerlines owned by PG&E started a wildfire that killed 85 people. The pipeline carrying almost half of the East Coast’s gasoline shut down due to a ransomware attack. Almost half a million intermodal containers sat on cargo ships unable to dock at Los Angeles ports. A train carrying thousands of tons of hazardous and flammable chemicals derailed near East Palestine, Ohio. Air...

The numbers: For the first time in nearly a year, home builders are upbeat about the housing market outlook.The shortage of previously-owned sales is helping to buoy builders’ confidence.With mortgage rates above 6%, many homeowners find little incentive to sell—nearly 92% have an outstanding mortgage with a rate below 6%, according to a recent survey conducted by Redfin a brokerage and real estate listings company. And 23.5% of homeowners have a mortgage rate of less than 3%. Consequently, the number of new home listings has dropped by 22%, as compared with the same period a year ago, according to a...

Last week, JPMorgan accused Cecile de Jongh, wife of the former governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), of working for Jeffrey Epstein and facilitating his underage sex ring. SNIP The two incidents do not just highlight Epstein’s vast network; they remind us of the horrific crime of child trafficking, believed to yield annual profits of $32 billion in the U.S. and $150 billion worldwide. It is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, in competition with drug running and the arms trade. One man, Tim Ballard, has made it his life’s mission to fight this evil and rescue...

A search and rescue mission was underway Monday morning for a submarine that went missing off the coast of southeast Canada on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. Lt. Jordan Hart of the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston told CBS News that personnel were "currently undergoing a search and rescue operation" when asked about the rescue efforts off the coast of Newfoundland. It is not clear how many people are on board the missing vessel. OceanGate Expeditions, a company that deploys manned submersibles for deep sea expeditions, recently said on its website and social media feeds that...

Pick your grift... which of these holidays is the most wholly fabricated (hurry and vote before George Floyd's birthday is added to the ballot)?

Ukraine has released images purporting to show a car packed with explosives parked on the Kakhovka Dam before it was bombed, unleashing the river on settlements below, leading to serious flooding. The Kakhovka Dam was bombed earlier this month, causing the Soviet-era structure holding back the Dnipro/Dnieper, one of Europe’s major rivers to flood downstream. Given the colossal volume of water released fatalities have been mercifully comparatively limited, with the Ukrainian government speaking of 17 killed as a consequence of the attack, and a further 31 missing.

When the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley enters into his scheduled retirement later this year, one of the perks will include a personal security detail to protect him from threats — including “embarrassment.” The U.S. Army Protective Services Battalion, the Pentagon’s little-known Secret Service equivalent, is tasked with safeguarding top military brass. The unit protects current as well as former high-ranking military officers from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment,” according to Army records. Protective Services’s mandate has expanded to include monitoring social media for “direct, indirect, and veiled” threats and identifying “negative sentiment” regarding its...

A heroic grandmother was violently mauled as she wrestled her neighbor's violent pitbull with her bare hands to protect her two young grandchildren, leaving her dripping with blood after the dog tore chunks out of her face, legs and arms. Rhonda Stickney, from Motley, Minnesota, said the dangerous animal lunged at her daughter Tiffani, 27, grandson Jaxsyen, four, and Keyahra, two, as they stood in her doorway. The 50-year-old instinctively jammed herself between the aggressive mut and the children to protect them from being 'killed', only for the deranged dog to drag her outside by her leg.

A 13-year-old girl was called “despicable” by her teacher at a Church of England school in the United Kingdom on Friday after asking a classmate how she identifies as a cat. The schoolgirl and her friend were reprimanded by their teacher at Rye College in East Sussex at the end of an eighth-grade “life education” class, where they were told that they could “be who you want to be and how you identify is up to you,” The Telegraph reported. Following the lesson one of the students asked a classmate: “How can you identify as a cat when you’re a...

The Gateway Pundit has obtained access to the long-withheld voter signatures from the 2022 election in Arizona and prior exemplars used for signature verification. The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Maricopa County denied Kari Lake’s legal team access to voter signatures from 2022 and prior, claiming this was “in the best interest of the state.” Lake is still undergoing a special action lawsuit against Maricopa County for this evidence. Maricopa County also denied lawful public records requests from Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers in her capacity as Chairwoman of the Arizona Senate Elections Committee and We The People AZ Alliance...

Twitter plans to focus on video, creator and commerce partnerships to revitalize the social media company’s business beyond digital advertising, according to an investor presentation by owner Elon Musk and new Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino that was reviewed by Reuters. Yaccarino, who started as CEO on June 5, told Twitter investors on Thursday that the company is in early conversations with political and entertainment figures, payments services and news and media publishers, said a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private investor call. The presentation was Yaccarino’s first time addressing the company’s...

The hype around AI-powered vertical farming has come crashing down as profitability remains elusive and funding dries up, pushing several startups into bankruptcy or restructuring. AeroFarms, an early pioneer in vertical farming, filed for bankruptcy last week after building a huge facility in Virginia that drained its cash. Kalera, a local vertical farming company in Florida, also filed for Chapter 11 protection in April after struggling for months. Furthermore, AppHarvest, which operates high-tech greenhouses, is facing lender threats and a sharp drop in its shares. The firm has warned it could become “bankrupt or insolvent” if the issue is not...

A U.K. woman fired for speaking out against transgender and sex education lessons taught at her son's Church of England primary school won an appeal Friday after a judge overturned a previous ruling upholding her dismissal. Kristie Higgs said she was initially fired from her role as a teaching assistant at the Farmor's School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, England, after an anonymous person noticed her Facebook posts speaking out against her son's school's plan to introduce books containing transgender ideology and reported the posts to the head teacher. Though the school says otherwise, she maintains the firing was an attack on...

Emails from the Biden laptop shed light on Burisma’s opening of a Maltese bank account for Hunter Biden in the spring of 2016. This newly discovered development coincides with the allegations made by an FBI source, suggesting that Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma Holdings, allegedly paid a $5 million bribe each to then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. In 2014, Ukraine initiated criminal cases against Zlochevsky and Burisma, the company where Hunter Biden held a board position and received substantial compensation. Zlochevsky, who faced investigations for money laundering and public corruption, allegedly employed the Vice President's...

In response to former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from his predecessor Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden announced that, if elected, he would reenter the deal and “work with our allies to make it longer and stronger.” This, Biden claimed, would curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and moderate its malign behavior. He was and is wrong. The mere fact that Biden claimed to be seeking a “longer and stronger” deal puts the lie to Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry’s repeated claims that the 2015 deal blocked all paths to an Iranian nuclear weapon. In...

San Francisco Sriracha lovers are swiping bottles of the once-cheap condiment from local restaurants as a last resort amid the national chili pepper shortage. Bay Area eateries are struggling to keep bottles of the hot sauce on their tables thanks to customers who can’t find Sriracha at any grocery store. “They literally disappear,” Mariel Edwards, the operations manager of Oakland-based Senor Sisig’s, told SFGATE, calling the thefts “crazy.” “We haven’t seen people take them, but there is a bottle that will go missing … It’s funny how, like, they’ll just not be on the table anymore.” Other customers with arguably...

A former employee at the Harvard Medical School morgue has been charged with selling human remains from donated bodies and allowing buyers to choose which parts they wanted, according to federal prosecutors. The morgue’s manager, Cedric Lodge, was part of a massive nationwide network that bought and sold human remains stolen from the university’s medical school. From 2018 to 2022, Lodge and his wife, Denise Lodge, stole the corpses, removed parts such as the head, brain, skin, and bones, and sold them to their accomplices. They would also allow their buyers to come into the morgue and pick whichever parts...