Free Republic

A year ago, the city of Philadelphia selected an artist to design a statue of Harriet Tubman that would stand in front of City Hall. However, the sculptor, Wesley Wofford, was unable to complete the statue. The city fired him shortly after his selection. Philadelphia fired him for being white. According to the New York Times, “incensed artists and community members argued that the city should have used a public selection process rather than awarding a commission, in part because the artist Philadelphia had selected was a white man.” The critics demanded Philadelphia find a black sculptor instead, no matter...

Joe and Jennifer Montana are among the people suing San Francisco, alleging city departments did nothing to prevent "torrents of water and untreated sewage" from flooding their homes. The lawsuit, filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court on Aug. 24, was brought by dozens of families who live, rent or own property in the Marina District. According to the lawsuit, the problem originates with San Francisco’s unusual sewer system, which is the only one in coastal California that “treats both wastewater and stormwater in the same network of pipes.” The plaintiffs allege that the city knew its aging system...

Only three in ten Republican primary voters hold favorable views of former Vice President Mike Pence, earning him the second-worst rating of any Republican presidential candidate behind former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), according to a national poll. His (Pence) favorability has dropped considerably since April’s Wall Street Journal poll, when 54 percent of the population saw him positively and 35 percent viewed him negatively. This marks a staggering 52-point swing in the wrong direction in five months’ time. Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), with a net favorability rating of -55 among Republicans, is in even worse shape than Pence. Only...

The Atlanta college that reinstated its mask mandate in August confirmed that it has ended the rule after two weeks. Morris Brown College, described as a historically black liberal arts college, stated in mid-August that it would reimpose mask mandates amid what it said was a rise in COVID-19 cases on campuses near where it’s located. That rule was scheduled to end on Sept. 3. In a statement to Newsweek, college President Kevin James confirmed that the rule had ended. However, the school will still “have several safety protocols in place,” he said. Parties and large events will still be...

Archaeologists with the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository have uncovered fragments of woven grass artifacts estimated to be 3,000 years old. The rare finds were made on August 18, 2023, during excavations of an ancestral sod house on the shore of Karluk Lake, Kodiak Island, Alaska sponsored by Koniag. The fragments, which appear to be pieces of mats, are the oldest well-documented examples of Kodiak Alutiiq/Sugpiaq weaving. A unique set of circumstances preserved them. Alutiiq Museum Curator of Archaeology Patrick Saltonstall explained."We were excavating a sod house beside Karluk Lake as part of a broader study to understand how Alutiiq...

Connecticut’s law enforcement has been rocked by a potential scandal involving how its officers have been reporting traffic stops. An audit exposed a troubling pattern of state troopers manipulating records to make themselves appear to be more productive. The report reveals that at least 100 officers were fabricating traffic reports to boost their numbers. The revelation has raised questions about the credibility of officers tasked with upholding the law and has led some to question whether they can be trusted to handle more serious criminal cases.

Photo: AlamyA super PAC that was once positioned to help Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., capture the 2024 Republican presidential nomination has closed shop and announced that it will shift its support to President Donald Trump, the Daily Mail revealed.In early 2023, legal counsel for DeSantis noted that the PAC, “Ron to the Rescue” was “similar to other ‘pro-DeSantis’ PACs that have formed and continue to use Ron DeSantis’ name and likeness to raise funds without his permission or authorization.”However, the Daily Mail reported that the PAC had accumulated $50 million that could have been donated to DeSantis’s current 2024 presidential...

Authorities want residents within a two-mile wooded area in a southeastern Pennsylvania township where an escaped prisoner fled to remain on high alert as they step up the manhunt for his capture. Law enforcement have entered the fifth day in their search for 34-year-old Danelo Cavalcante. Cavalcante, of Royersford in Montgomery County, was convicted in August of murdering his girlfriend. He escaped this past Thursday morning from Chester County Prison in Pocopson Township. State Police and the Chester County District Attorney’s Office held a joint news conference Monday afternoon about the continued manhunt. Since Cavalcante’s escape, authorities have confirmed four...

After failing to remove Trump from office with a bogus impeachment, Adam Schiff is now claiming Trump cannot hold public office. “By the clear terms of the 14th Amendment, [Trump] should be disqualified from holding office,” Democrat Rep. Schiff said on Sunday on MSNBC’s “The Inside Interview” with host Jen Psaki. A federal judge last Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Florida lawyer who claimed Trump should be banned from the 2024 ballot for inciting an insurrection. Judge Robin Rosenberg a US District Judge for the Southern District of Florida ruled the attorney, Lawrence Caplan, lacked standing to bring...

The ABC panel is jaw agape at the latest Wall Street Journal polling showing that Donald Trump has not only widened his GOP primary lead, but is also polling ahead of Joe Biden with a diverse core of American voters.Donna Brazile is very concerned, panicked even, that young Latino and black voters are now turning their back on the Democrat machine, and while they are not supporting Republicans, they are fully supporting Donald Trump. She won’t admit it, but this is exactly the reason why the Republican and Democrat apparatus are working together to get rid of Trump.President Donald Trump...

Students at a high school football game watched on in amazement as a recently sacked teacher ran onto the track and outsprinted pursuers before being pinned to the ground by police. Carlos Hurtado, 27, was banned from the campus after he was sacked last week by Heritage High School in Brentwood, California, reportedly for poor attendance. The history teacher from Oakley appeared to take it badly posting a message to his Facebook page saying he was ‘in desperate need’ of his followers’ support and directing them to a petition calling for his reinstatement. But no-one was expecting to see the...

A teenager in Orlando, Florida, flashed an eerie smile while being arrested for the deaths of a six-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man. Nico Brown, 15, was detained on charges of first-degree murder after little Ajahliyah Hashim died from gunshot wounds - and he gave a grimacing smirk as he was handcuffed and led into a police car by Orlando Police. The ordeal took place on August 29, just before 8.30pm when shots were fired from a moving vehicle into a home. Ajahliyah Hashim, six, was inside her living room on 1100 block of Poppy Avenue with her mother, who...

Los Angeles Dodgers starter Julio Urías was arrested on felony domestic violence charges late Sunday, Los Angeles police told ESPN, the second domestic violence arrest in the past four years for the soon-to-be-free-agent pitcher. Urías, 27, was arrested just after 11 p.m. PT and booked into jail around 1 a.m., according to jail records. He was released on $50,000 bond at 4:47 a.m. and has a court date of Sept. 27.

A panel of independent experts who annually assess delivery of the climate commitments in the Program for Government have awarded the Government a “C+” grade this year and warned that overall performance on environmental issues is still a long way off where it needs to be. The assessment, which was commissioned by Friends of the Earth, noted progress in some areas such as renewable energy but said these were a cause for hope rather than celebration and that the Government now needs to deliver transformational change. The Coalition leaders need to be upfront with people that a certain amount of...

The mother of a teenage girl who was bullied in school and eventually sex-trafficked is suing her daughter's school district for withholding the information that the teenage student was identifying as a male at school. Michelle Blair, the mother of Sage Blair, filed a lawsuit against the Appomattox County School Board and district staff, in addition to a Baltimore public defender for actions that she allege deprived her of properly parenting her child. Blair now claims that her daughter was severely bullied in high school, which she was aware of - but alleges that the school district withheld information about...

A man waited for his pregnant ex-girlfriend to come back to a safehouse where he stabbed her to death because he thought she would accuse him of domestic violence, which would send him back to prison, according to authorities in Alabama. The Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said at a press conference that dispatchers received a call shortly after midnight on Saturday about a body found at a fire station, which also serves as a safe house for domestic violence victims. The victim, 37-year-old Treasure Hennessy, was suffering from several stab wounds. Her boyfriend, Bradley Wayne Stokes, was arrested Saturday...

A married rabbi from New York City has been arrested in Israel for 'rape by deception' after his double life as a secular dating app Romeo was exposed. Rabbi Yosef Mordechai Paryzer, 35, has been criminally charged for using a false identity to get women to have sex with him - with one of the relationships lasting more than seven years. The father of two allegedly used fake names such as Jake Segal to set up online dating profiles on sites like Tinder and Bumble and dated many of the women simultaneously. Two of the women he allegedly fooled filed...

In August, the unemployment rate jumped 0.3 points, from 3.5% 3.8%, as the number of long-term unemployed increased, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday. The nation’s unemployment rate jumped 0.3 percentage point to 3.8% in August, as the number of unemployed persons increased by 514,000 to 6.4 million. Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs increased by 294,000 to 2.9 million in August, offsetting a decrease of 280,000 in July. The rise in the unemployment rate, coupled an increase in job losers, highlights ongoing challenges in the economy. Meanwhile, the...

Seriously, it’s hard to believe Joe Biden hasn’t dropped out of the 2024 presidential race yet. His numbers are really that bad. According to a new poll from the Wall Street Journal, a large majority of Americans, 73%, don’t think he’s “mentally up for the job” of being president. Joe Biden was already the oldest president to take office at the age of 77, and he’d be 86 at the end of a hypothetical second term, assuming he actually wins and serves the entire time. This assessment of Biden was bipartisan, as two-thirds of Democrats agreed that Biden is too...

Heavy rains that poured down on 70,000 Burning Man attendees have also awoken hundreds of three-eyed 'dinosaur shrimp' from their slumber. The small creatures, known as fairy shrimp, were encased in a thick shell for years until rainstorms drenched the Nevada festival, typically a dry wasteland, and provided an optimal environment to hatch. The crustaceans were spotted emerging from the mud pits as revelers escaped the flooded desert and will start laying more eggs over the next week. Fairy shrimp are known as 'living fossils' as similar forms date back to the Cambrian Period, more than 500 million years ago....