Free Republic

Every week, the PA Ministry of Religious Affairs dictates talking points for all PA mosque preachers for the upcoming Friday sermon through a sheet of instructions. As Palestinian Media Watch has exposed, the preachers can’t freely choose their own subjects. A recent example is the letter above. It instructs preachers to teach worshippers that “Almighty Allah” will be victorious and “send His light in spite of the infidels.” The word “infidels” of course refers to the Jews in “Palestine” – which according to the PA includes all of the State of Israel: “Through faith, piety, endurance, and carrying out...

A growing number of states are adopting a comprehensive new type of school choice program that would pose a threat to public schools if many students were to leave them for a private education. Eight states—including Arizona, Florida, Indiana, and West Virginia—have approved “universal” or near-universal school choice laws since 2021. They open the door completely to school choice by making all students, including those already in private schools and from wealthy families, eligible for about $7,000 to $10,000 in state funding each year for their education. What’s more, most of these states have also enacted education savings accounts, or...

Despite the fact that the source of the threatening messages was pinpointed, Gloninger said he had difficulty refocusing on his job. Gloninger arrived in Iowa’s state capital after stops at TV stations in Rochester, NY, Albany, NY, Milwaukee and Boston. Just as he had done at his prior post at NBC 10 Boston, he noted how climate change was affecting the local weather in Des Moines — using material prepared by George Mason Univesrsity professor Ed Maibach. Maibach was the subject of a profile by Washingtonian magazine because of his “Climate Matters” initiative, which promotes “data-driven climate reporting” that is...

Credit to Andy Ngo who posted the details of this story on Twitter today. It started earlier this week with what appeared to be a serious crime. A 39-year-old man in San Diego named Scott Rowin said he was harassed and then set on fire by a couple of men who targeted him because he is gay. Last Monday night, Rowin says stopped by The Loft on Fifth Avenue and inquired about a job. He left past 8 p.m. and headed south, towards his downtown apartment, intending to call an Uber. His memory is hazy, but somewhere within a few...

In its early phases, Ukraine’s counteroffensive is having less success and Russian forces are showing more competence than western assessments expected, two western officials and a senior US military official tell CNN.The counteroffensive is “not meeting expectations on any front,” one of the officials said.According to the Western assessments, Russian lines of defense have been proving well-fortified, making it difficult for Ukrainian forces to breach them. In addition, Russian forces have had success bogging down Ukrainian armor with missile attacks and mines and have been deploying air power more effectively.Ukrainian forces are proving “vulnerable” to minefields and Russian forces “competent”...

Scientists, led by the University of California, Irvine, have identified the mechanism by which senescent pigment cells in the skin stimulate hair growth in skin moles, or nevi. The study revealed the crucial role of osteopontin and CD44 molecules in activating hair growth within hairy skin nevi, despite the presence of a high number of senescent pigment cells. This discovery contradicts the commonly held belief that senescent cells, which are usually associated with the aging process, are detrimental to regeneration. Findings may offer a road map for the next generation of therapies for androgenetic alopecia. Researchers have discovered that senescent...

Bud Light rolled out a new summer-themed ad in hopes of getting back into the good graces of beer drinkers, but the effort fell short for many Twitter users still smarting over the branding partnership with controversial transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The ad, which is musically set to the 1979 hit “Good Times” by Chic, shows a group of people using ice cold cans of Bud Light to cool off from the intense summer heat in an outdoor setting. Revelers who appear to be attending a barbecue are seen carrying kegs of Bud Light while using bottles of the beer...

It's easy to view the 1932 Pulitzer Prize award to N.Y. Times reporter Walter Duranty "for his series of dispatches on Russia especially the working out of the Five Year Plan". It seems the Pulitzer Prize Board will never rescind Duranty's award, though he was a willing tool of Stalin, whose government is ranked by the University of Hawaii "Democide" (People Killing) website in the "Deka-Megamurder" category with 61.9 million murders between 1917-1987. (Stalin was only in power between 1924 and 1953.) We have a clear picture of how Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Pres. Richard Nixon, each individually behaved, and...

New Bud Light Ad on Twitter - Crack a cold one: we've got an epic summer ahead. Sock tans included.

I have an add on installed on a different machine that changes the FR posting page to add a bunch of functions (like the options when replying to a post or article here on FR). At any rate, if anyone here knows where I can get ahold of the add-on I'm looking for, I'd appreciate the info. While searching for the add-on I came across this: Stop It Grandpa by Colin Brennan. About this extension NOW AUTOMATICALLY UPDATES! Boomer parents becoming increasingly radical over time? Got a friend who's starting down the path of white supremacy? Thinking your friends are...

A defamation case against the New York Times and one of its former journalists is moving to discovery after a judge rejected the paper’s bid to have the litigation dismissed. Though most of the complaint was thrown out, businesswoman Ariadna Jacob provided sufficient evidence to survive the motion to dismiss regarding a statement that claimed she had leaked nude photographs, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos ruled. Taylor Lorenz penned an article in 2020 that, citing an internet influencer, alleged Jacob leaked naked photographs of the influencer. “Right before we parted ways she leaked my nudes and sent them to business...

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear restored voting rights to nonviolent felons in 2019, but a group of convicted criminals argued Thursday that relief does not prevent a First Amendment challenge to the commonwealth's re-enfranchisement procedure. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2018 against then-Governor Matt Bevin, a Republican, and claimed Kentucky's re-enfranchisement protocol for felons – involving a decision by the governor alone – violated the First Amendment because it gave the governor "unfettered discretion" over a criminal's voting rights. Beshear, a Democrat, took office shortly thereafter and signed an executive order to restore voting rights to all nonviolent felons who...

As President Biden’s approval rating has languished this year, seemingly impervious to external events, a group of congressional Democrats have gotten a taste of the sort of younger, more charismatic presence some of them crave to lead their ticket next year. Albeit a grayer version. Former President Barack Obama has hosted a handful of informal, but lengthy private meetings with groups of next-generation House Democrats this spring, I’m told by multiple attendees. The initial session featured the chamber’s new trio of leaders, but he then held subsequent conversations with a range of lawmakers. Included were progressive members, like Representatives Alexandria...

The debris found at the seafloor was “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” the Coast Guard said. All five people aboard the Titan submersible are believed to be dead, and debris discovered in the search area for the missing vessel was consistent with a "catastrophic implosion," the U.S. Coast Guard said. The debris was found off the bow of the sunken Titanic, officials said. The search for the Titan, which went missing Sunday after embarking on a mission to survey the wreckage of the Titanic, had been focused on an area where Canadian aircraft detected "underwater noises" Tuesday...

BRANFORD, Fla. (WCJB) - Suwannee County sheriff’s deputies arrested a woman in Branford for indecent exposure. Two teenagers told them Debra Thomes, 55, followed them around Ivey Park and asked inappropriate questions. The pair called 911 after Thomes pulled down her shorts to give the teens a quote “sneak peek.” Deputies also charged Thomes with lewd and lascivious behavior.

The point at which Latinos would outnumber white residents to make up the biggest share of the Texas population has been on the state’s demographic horizon for years. It seemed that long-awaited milestone was reached in 2021 when a closely watched data release last year was the first to reflect the culmination of decades of transformative growth. But confirmation did not come until this week, when the U.S. Census Bureau updated its official population estimates. In new figures released Thursday, the bureau confirmed Latinos have made up the largest share of the state’s population since at least July 2022. The...

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — In the metro Atlanta area, a county police department is set to hold an all-day gun buyback Event on the weekend. The Clayton County Police Department will hold the buyback on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the department headquarters in Jonesboro. According to the department, payment for the guns bought will be given through gift cards in $25 increments. Flyers for the event show pricing for different types of guns and related items. Here are the prices listed on the event flyer: $100 for rifles $75 for handguns $25 for broken frames and...

The average reading and math test scores for U.S. 13-year-olds have plummeted since 2020, according to data from National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The decline in math skills for children this age is “the single largest decline” in the past half century according to experts. The average mathematics score for 13-year-olds declined nine points between the 2019 – 2020 and 2022 – 2023 school years, and the average reading score declined four points over the same time period of time, according to the NAEP. “Green shoots,” a term used to describe signs of recovery during a downturn, “have not...

“Both whistleblowers noted one instance in which IRS agents sought to search a storage unit in northern Virginia belonging to Hunter Biden. When the agents reached out to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf with their request for a warrant, she informed Biden’s defense team about their interest in the property. “It was at this point for me that I started to believe that the attorneys with the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office and DOJ Tax were not acting appropriately“

The broader Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro region reported $5.5 billion in venture capital last year across 423 agreements, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, surpassing similarly burgeoning cities like Austin, Texas and Charlotte, North Carolina. The city also saw an increase in deals by nearly 12 percent during a period that saw many investors reserve funds for better economic conditions. Miami has found particular success in the tech startup marketplace, which Justin Sayfie, the founder of Sayfie Review, punctuated last year with a proclamation that “the 2020s will be to Miami what the 1990s were to Silicon Valley” as municipal leaders,...