Free Republic

Can only post link: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/10/army-sees-sharp-decline-white-recruits.html"A total of 44,042 new Army recruits were categorized by the service as white in 2018, but that number has fallen consistently each year to a low of 25,070 in 2023, with a 6% dip from 2022 to 2023 being the most significant drop. No other demographic group has seen such a precipitous decline..."

Following a visit to the southern border last week, some House Republicans urged their colleagues to treat the situation at the border as a major national security risk and to be willing to force a government shutdown to get Democrats and the Biden administration to accept stricter immigration policies and border security measures.Around 60 House Republicans visited the west Texas border town of Eagle Pass last week. Speaking with NTD’s “Capitol Report” on Tuesday, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said that the trip marked his fourth visit to the U.S. southern border and that he agreed to go once again to...

Diagnostic errors in U.S. hospitals are sending nearly one in four patients to the intensive care unit, according to the results of a new study.(christinarosepix/Shutterstock)In the cohort study conducted by a team from UC San Francisco and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, it was found that 23 percent of patients either received incorrect diagnoses or experienced delays in diagnosis. Of these cases, 17 percent resulted in temporary or permanent harm to the patient.The study’s results are published in the January edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.To determine diagnostic errors, the research team looked at 2,428...

New York Governor Kathy Hochul gave her annual State of the State address this week and surprised some of us by addressing an issue that she previously had seemed determined to ignore. Any shopowner in New York City and many other parts of the state has long been aware that retail theft is out of control, just as it’s become in so many large cities. Shoppers are equally aware that they are finding shops with all of the products locked up or empty shelves, while others have simply shut down. Through it all, Hochul has insisted that things aren’t as...

In theory, this sounds like a win for Israel in its war. In practice, though, it may just be another opportunity for Hamas to escape the IDF. According to reports this morning, Qatar has proposed what amounts to a capitulation from Hamas. The real question is: do the Israelis think Hamas would ever capitulate? The war cabinet ministers have begun discussing it already:A new Qatari proposal for a ceasefire would see the leaders of Hamas all be deported and all of the hostages captured by the terrorist group released in exchange for the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, according...

Back in November, Finland closed part of its border and accused Russia of trying to stir up trouble by sending migrants on bicycles to border crossings. Why bicycles? It seems that Russia has been bringing these migrants across the entire country (none of them are Russian) and then giving them bikes to travel the last few miles on their own. There’s video of Russian authorities handing out bikes from the back of a van. There are no Russians trying to cross the border. They're sending people without necessary travel documents from countries like Yemen, Somalia and Syria.Russia is taking advantage...

I completely missed this when it was published at the end of last month. Fortunately, Jesse Singal did a great write-up about it which I noticed today. As you may know, Bill Adair is the founder of Politifact, a site which has generate a lot of content for this blog over the years. Last month, Adair was asked to share his predictions for 2024 and he wrote a piece titled “Fact-checking needs a reboot.” Part of that reboot would be pressuring social media companies to “suppress misinformation” more often.After I founded PolitiFact in 2007, I often said that our goal...

WILMERDING, Pennsylvania — By July of this year, the last man on the job here at the Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation will, in all likelihood, turn around as he reaches the threshold of the same front door hundreds of thousands of workers have passed through since the 1890s. For the last time, he will look out over the 300,000-square-foot plant that has provided this country with so much technology and innovation for nearly 140 years, and he will think about the men and women who went before, and then turn out the lights for the last time. This is...

Saturday, on the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, demonstration on Capitol Hill, the FBI arrested three "fugitives" from justice in Florida. Jonathan Daniel Pollock, Olivia Michele Pollock, and Joseph Daniel Hutchinson III were arrested on a ranch near Groveland, Florida. Jonathan Pollock--were one fool enough to believe everything the FBI claims--might arguably have been worth a three-year manhunt. I mean, he punched a cop or two; that's surely a threat to the republic. I mean, what if the George Floyd rioters in Portland had gotten away with punching cops? The charges against the other two were so chickensh**...

Saliency map highlights areas that contribute to the similarity between the two fingerprints from the same person. Credit: Gabe Guo,/Columbia Engineering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From "Law and Order" to "CSI," not to mention real life, investigators have used fingerprints as the gold standard for linking criminals to a crime. But if a perpetrator leaves prints from different fingers in two different crime scenes, these scenes are very difficult to link, and the trace can go cold. It's a well-accepted fact in the forensics community that fingerprints of different fingers of the same person—"intra-person fingerprints"—are unique and, therefore, unmatchable. A team led by...

SHOCKING RUSSIAN REPORT FOUND! Current Ukraine War Footage And News With (Day 686) A shocking secret Russian report to high command has been uncovered showing the true state of Russian forces in the southern front. Ukraine may be using this to their advantage while Zelensky states that there is no external pressures trying to end the war. Ukraine has also seen more improvements to their armed forces. Russia has not been able to advance and Ukraine still holds them back.

A first-time mom who carried twin babies to term before being forced to give them up has settled with the fertility clinic which 'unimaginably' implanted her with embryos from two other women. The Korean-American woman from New York City only discovered the appalling mix-up in the delivery room when the twin girls she had been told to expect turned out to be two Caucasian boys. She and her husband, named in court papers as AP and YZ, had struggled for years to conceive before spending $100,000 at the Cha Fertility Clinic in Southern California. But just six weeks after becoming...

On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughan Merrick and William H. Keating founded The Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts. Within three years of its founding, that promotion took place through public lectures, a high school, a library, public exhibitions, and a research journal, and many of these endeavors remain core activities to this day... For the organization's first century, the Institute offered classes in mechanics, drafting, and engineering, and promoted science and invention. In 1930, despite the Great Depression, The Franklin Institute and the Poor Richard Club began to seek funds to...

Growing up, I couldn’t understand why I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. There it was in black and white on my birth certificate, yet it didn’t make any sense. My parents had never lived in Kentucky, we weren’t American and had no family connections to the place whatsoever. When I asked my mother, she told me she chose Kentucky because it was where her favourite film, Gone With The Wind, was set (it wasn’t) and she always wanted her child to be born in such a romantic location. It’s also why she called me Olivia after one of the film’s...

John Anthony Castro, a Texas man known for his legal efforts to challenge former President Donald Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 presidential ballot, has been arrested on charges related to filing false tax documents. Castro, who filed challenges in 27 states against Trump’s ballot placement, was indicted last week on 33 counts of aiding the preparation of false tax returns. Castro operated a virtual tax preparation business that deceitfully inflated tax refunds for clients, The Hill reported. Castro was the proprietor of Castro & Company LLC, a digital tax preparation firm with establishments in Orlando, Mansfield, and Washington, D.C., per...

NATIONAL OYSTERS ROCKEFELLER DAY National Oysters Rockefeller Day on January 10th recognizes a dish so rich there was only one man's name this dish could bear at the time. At least, that's the story according to the chef who so masterfully created famous recipes in the French Quarter. #NationalOystersRockefellerDay In 1889 in the renowned kitchen of Antoine's, Jules Alciatore developed a recipe for baked oysters on the half shell with sauce and bread crumbs that would earn the name Oysters Rockefeller. A dish so rich Alciatore himself admitted, "...I know of no other name rich enough for their richness." While...

President Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, during which he stated that Biden’s number one priority if he wins reelection this year is abortion. Fulks said Biden is focused on ensuring states are once again forced to legalize abortion, as they were under Roe v. Wade. According to Politico, host Kristen Welker asked Fulks, “What would, on day one, President Biden’s top priority be?” Fulks replied, “Well, look. The president announced this campaign with the moniker of ‘finish the job’ and protect freedom and democracy. So when we talk about that,...

THE SCOOP Google is laying off hundreds of people working on its voice-activated Google Assistant software and eliminating a similar number of roles on its knowledge and information product teams, a Google spokesperson confirmed to Semafor on Wednesday. Google told Semafor the restructuring would help improve Google Assistant as it explores integrating newer artificial intelligence technology into its products. The company announced in October that it was using its generative AI chatbot Bard to build a new version of Google Assistant that “extends beyond voice, understands and adapts to you and handles personal tasks in new ways.” Google has been...

WASHINGTON — While the 2022 Dobbs decision overturned 1973’s Roe v. Wade, striking down the nation’s federal abortion law, the pro-life effort continues in 2024, as the battle shifts to the states. The 51st-annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., will be held Friday, Jan. 19, 1 to 4 p.m. The March for Life website explains that the annual event occurs in support of continued legislative efforts to restrict abortion “until a culture of life is restored in the United States of America.” The event kicks off with a rally at noon on the National Mall between the Washington Monument...

Having tied itself in knots with multiverse convolutions that—as demonstrated by the underwhelming box-office performances of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels—audiences don’t like or want, Marvel tries to untangle itself with Echo, a five-episode TV series, premiering Jan. 9. It’s the studio’s first release under a “Marvel Spotlight” banner which indicates that it’s less wrapped up in (or requires knowledge of) the larger MCU narrative. Such intentions, however, aren’t aligned with this small-screen affair’s execution, as it spends the first 28 minutes of its premiere melding original material with pre-existing Hawkeye snippets and a touch of Daredevil...