Free Republic

Amy Hadley watched in horror as her home was raided by police and destroyed in South Bend, Indiana, in June 2022. Over a year later, her family is still traumatized and their home still bears the scars of the raid. And all of this happened because police were searching for a man who was never in their home and who had no connection to Amy’s family.

PROVIDENCE, RI — A proud parent whose child just enrolled in a university other than Harvard is reportedly so proud that they've decided to slap a "My kid didn't go to Harvard" bumper sticker on their car. "Not going to Harvard is one of the clearest indications that someone has intelligence, character, and common sense," said parent Susan Grantwood as she wiped away a tear. "I'm just... so, so proud of my son." "Wow, their kid didn't go to Harvard. Lucky!" said one passerby. "That woman must have done a great job raising her kids!" Sources confirmed the "My kid...

Lawyer who has advised foreign secretary says Israel has the capacity, but not the will, to relocate even one settlerNearly 200,000 of the 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank would have to be relocated to Israel to create a viable Palestinian state, according to an Israeli lawyer from whom the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, has sought advice on his visits to Israel. Cameron has said he realises reaching a two-state solution would be tough, but he has not spelled out the practical consequences in terms of borders, including the need to persuade so many Israelis to relocate. Cameron...

The New York Times‘s so-called “conservative” columnist David French has claimed in a new opinion editorial that supporting Donald Trump is worse than supporting slavery. French’s bizarre op-ed essentially argues that slavers did not know any better, while MAGA supporters should, oddly comparing the forced ownership of human beings to supporting America First policies.

Explanation: Are squares A and B the same color? They are! To verify this, either run your cursor over the image or click here to see them connected. The featured illusion, an example of the same color illusion, illustrates that purely human perceptions in science may be ambiguous or inaccurate, even such a seemingly direct perception as relative color. Similar illusions exist on the sky, such as the size of the Moon near the horizon, or the apparent shapes of astronomical objects. The advent of automated, reproducible measuring devices such as CCDs have made science in general and astronomy in...

A ketamine specialist is weighing in on Matthew Perry's cause of death, claiming the actor "did himself in." Matthew Perry had a large amount of the drug ketamine in his system at the time of death -- the same amount that would be used in general anesthesia. Toxicology testing found that ketamine levels in Perry's system were at 3540 ng/ml. For context, the report, obtained by The Blast, reads, “In monitored surgical-anesthesiology care, levels of general anesthesia are typically in the 1000-6000 ng/ml range.” In other words, he had a large amount of the drug in his system, enough to...

Blue Origin on Monday postponed its long-awaited return to space, citing technical reasons and promising to try again later this week. Jeff Bezos' space company has not launched a rocket since an uncrewed September 2022 crash placed its program on hold while it carried out fixes and awaited regulatory approval. The company finally announced a December 18 launch from its base near Van Horn, Texas. But on the day itself it first pushed back the takeoff window because of cold weather, then declared it was off. "We're scrubbing #NS24 today due to a ground system issue the team is troubleshooting....

Nikola founder Trevor Milton was sentenced Monday to four years in prison in connection to defrauding investors of the embattled electric- and hydrogen-powered truck maker. Milton also was fined $1 million and could later be forced to forfeit property as part of his sentence. The punishment was far lower than the 11 years prosecutors had requested at Milton’s sentencing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. But it was substantially more than the non-jail sentence of probation sought by Milton’s attorneys. “I did not intend to harm anyone and I did not commit those crimes levied against me,” Milton told Judge...

In the United States, federal student loans are typically guaranteed by the government. This means that if a borrower defaults on their federal student loan, the government steps in to ensure that the lender (usually a private financial institution) does not face significant financial losses. The government either pays the loan in full or guarantees a portion of the outstanding balance. However, this guarantee does not absolve private lenders from all risks. Private student loans, which are not guaranteed by the government, may pose a greater risk to lenders if borrowers default. In such cases, the lenders may face losses...

Former President Donald Trump, in a new court filing Monday, again urged a Georgia judge to dismiss his Fulton County election interference charges on First Amendment grounds, arguing that the indictment against him is "categorically invalid" because it seeks to criminalize "core political speech." "President Trump enjoys the same robust First Amendment rights as every other American," said the new filing from Trump attorneys Steve Sadow and Jennifer Little. "The indictment here does not merely criminalize conduct with an incidental impact on protected speech; instead, it directly targets core protected political speech and activity." The new filing supports the arguments...

Mia Lee spends most of December entertaining Wall Street bankers during hourslong stints in private rooms at a New York City strip club. Or, she's keeping them company during luxurious weekend getaways in quaint towns north of the city, all before they head home to their families for the holidays. Lee — who has been a professional escort for five years and a stripper for a year and a half — said the first two weeks of December tended to be one of the busiest and most lucrative periods of the year for her line of work. In just one...

Malibu, California CNN — Bridget Thompson says she should be dead. If not for a late cheer team meeting on a Tuesday night in October, the Pepperdine University senior would have been with her four best friends — three were her roommates — heading to an off-campus mixer. “I should have been there and I usually would be there,” Thompson said. “I can just picture them in the car on the way there. I know they were listening to music and I know they were singing along.” The girls parked and were walking along the Pacific Coast Highway when prosecutors...

Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams has kicked open the door to tax hikes and city layoffs — blaming the Biden administration for the threatened wallops to taxpayer wallets. Adams has said his administration is struggling to close New York City’s expected $7 billion budget gap next year given whopping migrant costs — and added Sunday that the federal government has been AWOL in terms of financially helping with what is a nationally created problem.

Former President Donald Trump’s latest business venture sees him return to the world of crypto, once again leveraging a surprising network that he has come to favor within the space: Polygon. Trump has announced a non-fungible token (NFT) collection, portraying his now-infamous mug shot from Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, minted via the Layer 2, Ethereum-interoperable blockchain network, which currently has an $8.3 billion market cap. “Former President Donald Trump has backed (Polygon) not once, not twice, but three times total in 2023, making a bold statement into 2024,” explained TheStreetCrypto’s Austin Arnold in the video above. “And this is...

A bizarre argument broke out at the Miss France beauty pageant, after an “androgynous” contestant with short hair won for the first time on Sunday night. SNIP The Dunkirk-born Gillies made history as the first winner in the pageant’s 103-year history who does not have long hair, since she sports a pixie cut. However, not all viewers agreed with this choice. After the judges chose Gilles as Miss France 2024, there was an uproar. “Miss France is no longer a beauty contest but a woke contest which is based on inclusiveness,” one user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

NEW YORK—One recent morning, Reilly Richardson woke up to being watched. She jumped out of bed, went to the window of her Manhattan apartment and fell to the floor when she saw the peeper. “It absolutely scared the you-know-what out of me,” she recalls about the 2-foot-tall owl staring back at her. “It’s New York City. It’s the last thing you expect to see.” Richardson, 31, and an actor, didn’t know it then, but her feathered visitor was Flaco, an orange-eyed Eurasian eagle-owl who became a New York celebrity after he escaped a zoo in February and turned leafy Central...

A recent incident involving a Tesla Cybertruck getting stuck carrying a Christmas tree in a California forest has become a viral sensation, especially because the stranded electric vehicle was rescued by a gas-powered Ford F150. The Los Angeles Times reports that a Tesla Cybertruck became the center of attention after sliding down a snowy embankment while carrying a Christmas tree on its roof. Much to the embarrassment of fans of Elon Musk’s odd-looking electric vehicles, the stranded EV was rescued by a Ford F150 that pulled the Cybertruck to safety. The post was originally made to Facebook but quickly went...

Haley recently received a coveted endorsement from Gov. Chris Sununu.Nikki Haley is closing the gap on former President Donald Trump in a key early voting state.A CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday found that 29% of likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire would vote for Haley, while 44% said they’re backing Trump. It’s the latest good news for Haley out of the Granite State, where she recently received a coveted endorsement from Gov. Chris Sununu, who has pledged to put “110 percent” behind the former South Carolina governor in the run-up to the state’s Jan. 23 primary.

For the second time in little more than a week a drill sergeant was found dead at Fort Jackson, the U.S. Army said Monday. The body of Staff Sgt. Zachary L. Melton, a 30-year-old with the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, was discovered on Saturday at Fort Jackson, Army officials said in a news release. After he failed to report to work, an unresponsive Melton was found in his vehicle, according to the release. The Directorate of Emergency Services were called, and Emergency Medical Services personnel pronounced Melton dead shortly after arriving, officials said. On Dec. 8, Staff Sgt. Allen...

And she peed for paying strangers on ChaturbateSusanna Gibson, the nurse turned camgirl turned defeated Democratic candidate for Virginia State Assembly, has scores to settle. In an interview with Politico magazine’s Alexander Burns, she reveals all about what it was like to deal with the blowback from the national media discovering her side hustle, saying the ordeal “fundamentally changed” her “as a human.”...Gibson’s defense of her choices is equally astonishing: “Choosing to share content, online or in whatever medium, with select people with the understanding that it will disappear and can only be seen by those present at the time...