Free Republic

Harvard's embattled president is facing yet further questions about her academic record, after a statistics expert challenged the data used in a report which helped win her tenure at Stanford. Claudine Gay, who took over as president in July, has been at the center of a firestorm since the October 7 Hamas attacks. She was seemingly slow to condemn students who justified the terrorist violence, and slow to speak out against antisemitism on campus. The harsh spotlight has spread to her academic record, with accusations of plagiarism - and on Tuesday, a data scientist challenged her analytical methods. It was...

The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion,1 which seeks to promote understanding of the natural sciences to Christian believers, has supported the publication of a new book aimed at children (7–14 years). Regrettably, God’s Cosmic Cookbook: Your complete guide to making a universe is directed towards the teaching of millions-of-years and evolution to children.2 A sizeable 192 pages, it has been written by Elizabeth Cole, with colourful cartoon illustrations by Patrick Laurent, while the Institute has “helped in every part of the process to ensure our science and theology are in line with current understandings and discoveries.”3The marketing information tells...

The amateurish opinion, issued by the Colorado Supreme Court (CSC), denying Trump the ability to be on the Colorado Presidential ballot. SCOTUS will take this case, and will throw it out, based on a misreading of the 14th amendment. This misreading of the 3rd clause of the 14th amendment is so fundamental, that once revealed, it will not only call the CSC's basic reading skills, and their incompetence is so stunning, they should be recalled. The 3rd clause of the 14th amendment reads: (i)(b)No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or...

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?”That was the question presented to the presidents of three elite universities—Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania—in a recent congressional hearing. Each of the three women took turns answering the question but their responses were the same: it would depend on the circumstances and conduct. None of them was willing to directly say students calling for genocide of Jewish people would violate their school’s code of conduct.Most congressional hearings pass without much notice, but the backlash to this event was swift...

Texas may be getting the last laugh in a show-down with Chicago officials over transporting migrants away from beleaguered border towns to the Windy City after flying asylum-seekers from El Paso to Chicago last week. Despite strict ordinances penalizing charter buses loaded with migrants heading into Illinois, buses and planes with migrants are bound for Chicago as we speak, El Paso officials confirmed to DailyMail.com. El Paso has sent 139 buses to Chicago in recent months with the help of state officials, according to the City of El Paso's migrant dashboard. Last week, the Texas Division of Emergency Management or...

Moscow has been on a drive to replace the use of the US dollar in international trade, but there are barrels of Russian oil stuck at sea due to issues with paying in alternative currencies. Shipments of Russian Sokol grade crude oil to state-owned Indian Oil Corp, or IOC, have been delayed by payment issues, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The seller is the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft. The problem arose because Rosneft unit selling the oil hasn't been able to open a bank account in the United Arab Emirates to receive payments...

A piece of America’s space history is now on the ocean’s floor. During its return voyage to Port Canaveral in Central Florida, a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster toppled over and broke in half. This particular booster, tail number B1058, was coming back from its record-breaking 19th mission when it had its fatal fall. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Dec. 23 carrying 23 Starlink satellites. The booster made a successful landing eight and a half minutes after launch on the drone ship ‘Just Read the Instructions’ which was stationed east of the Bahamas....

In the summer of 1993, minister for justice Maire Geoghegan-Quinn had no option but to change the law on homosexuality. In the 1988 Norris case, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that existing laws which criminalized sex between adult males in private contravened the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe was looking for the law to be changed, and a refusal to do so could potentially lead to Ireland’s expulsion from that body. […] So, the law had to be changed. But how it would be changed, and what the age of consent for homosexual activity...

Excerpt from linked Article by Egbe Ogu"In a surprising move, T-Mobile, one of the leading phone service providers in the United States, has recently updated its Terms of Service (TOS) to include fines for content that they deem objectionable. This development has sparked concerns among users and raised questions about the extent of control that phone companies now have over the content we consume. Beginning on January 1, 2024, T-Mobile will start imposing fines on users who commit perceived violations on their bandwidth. This article aims to explore the implications of this policy change and its potential impact on users’...

Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that he’s baffled he can’t get a meeting with the White House to talk about the Big Apple’s burgeoning migrant crisis — even as thousands of asylum seekers arrive in the city every week. “The federal government said to New York City: ‘We’re not going to do our job — you do our job. You take care of 4,000 people a week, Eric, you and your team,'” Adams said at a press conference. “Those who should have been helping us in government — every step of the way, [they] just critiqued us,” he lamented. “I’m...

A 23-year-old Florida mother-of-two has been shot and killed following an argument over Christmas presents. Abrielle Baldwin was killed on Christmas Eve at their grandmother's home in Largo, Florida. Police believe the gun was fired by her 14-year-old brother Damarcus Coley who was then shot by their 15-year-old sibling, Darcus Coley. It is alleged Darcus fled the scene and then made a call to their mother. Damarcus and his sister were taken to hospital, where he underwent surgery, but Abrielle did not survive her injuries. Both brothers have been charged with murder, and the state is considering trying them as...

Exemptions for immunizations required in school are on the rise in the U.S., leading to concerns among medical experts that diseases like measles could soon make a comeback in many states. In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that exemptions for immunizations required in school is the highest ever recorded in U.S. history – increasing to an average 3.0% in the 2022-2023 school year, with 10 states now reporting exemptions exceeding 5%. This leaves both vaccinated and unvaccinated children vulnerable to disease outbreaks including measles, experts say. … Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers have...

A right-wing group specializing in hidden-camera investigations will not be able to use the First Amendment to stop the federal government from accessing documents and communications related to the group’s apparent acquisition of a stolen diary belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter.As Law&Crime previously reported, the FBI executed a search warrant in 2021 at the property of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, as well as from Project Veritas staffers Spencer Meads and Eric Cochran. The search warrants were granted in connection with the theft and sale of the personal journal belonging to Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter. Two people, Aimee...

Vladimir Putin has been mocked by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko over Russia’s shortage of eggs. Mr Putin’s ally confronted him over the skyrocketing prices of the kitchen staple, with the entire exchange caught on camera at the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council session in St Petersburg. At the event Mr Putin, 71, was also spotted bizarrely stretching his feet as he waited to greet several fellow ex-Soviet republic leaders, including Mr Lukashenko, 69. Former farm boss Mr Lukashenko teased the Russian leader that Belarus’s agricultural industry was in better shape than Russia’s. He said: ‘We have achieved a high level of...

The United States has reportedly denied a request by Israel to acquire a new batch of Apache attack helicopters. The request from Israel comes days after Ukraine made a similar appeal for the lethal choppers. The request for Apaches was reportedly made in recent weeks and re-emphasized by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Israel earlier this month, local Israeli media has reported. However, the reports fell short of specifying when the request was first made. Citing security sources, the reports stated that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has requested Apache attack helicopters from the United States but has been...

A Gaza City clothing shop named “Hitler 2” — which grew its fame by showcasing masked mannequins holding knives, inspired by Palestinian stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians when it first opened — was reportedly destroyed during the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. The shop, which debuted in 2015, can be seen in photos featuring display figures dressed in shirts with “Stab!” written across the chests. In a clip produced following the store’s launch, young Palestinians celebrated the shop, demonstrating that the store’s controversial name functioned as a unique draw, attracting customers and increasing patronage. Some of the young customers...

Ancient DNA from the pelt of a fluffy white dog named Mutton is revealing new details about the woolly dog, an extinct breed that was cared for and raised by the women of the Coast Salish tribal nations in the Pacific Northwest. The small dogs... were fed a special diet of fish or elk, and they were shorn like sheep, their wool woven into special blankets and textiles.For thousands of years, woolly dogs were cherished as family members and raised on islands or kept in pens to ensure they didn't interbreed with other dogs, according to Michael Pavel, an elder...

CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem said Tuesday on “News Central” that former President Donald Trump is using the “threat of violence” to rally the support of his people. Kayyem said, “It’s about to be 2024. We are running into an election period in which violence and the threat of violence are sort of viewed as an extension of our normal democratic differences. This is one of the successes of what Donald Trump has been able to do, is to sort of be kind of casual about violence.” She continued, “There’s two things. I don’t know how to say it...

Bo Nickal is one of the best wrestlers I've ever seen - and I've followed PSU Wrestling for 40 years. I don't follow MMA, but I hear that he's kicking ass there as well.

Research shows that the skeleton found in Cambridgeshire is of a man from a nomadic group known as Sarmatians.It is the first biological proof that these people came to Britain from the furthest reaches of the Roman empire and that some lived in the countryside.The remains were discovered during excavations to improve the A14 road between Cambridge and Huntingdon...Archaeologists discovered a complete, well-preserved skeleton of a man, they named Offord Cluny 203645 - a combination of the Cambridgeshire village he was found in and his specimen number. He was buried by himself without any personal possessions in a ditch, so...