Free Republic

A Los Angeles Times editorial is asking for a "do over" in the plastic bag ban that actually led to more plastic waste, according to a recent report. After California became the first state in 2016 to ban single-use plastic grocery bags, the thicker convenience totes that took their place as a reusable and recyclable alternative weren't reused and actually aren't recyclable. In fact, the study finds, the total amount of trash from plastic bags that California sends to landfills has never been higher. In February, the LA Times reported on the study, which looked at the impact of the...

The advertising trade group The World Federation of Advertisers told its members on Thursday that it was discontinuing activities for its Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative following an antitrust lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X against the company earlier this week. Stephan Loerke, the CEO of the WFA, wrote in an email to members, seen by Business Insider, that the decision was "not made lightly" but that GARM is a not-for-profit organization with limited resources.

Tim Walz’s military service controversy took a more profound turn this week after a resurfaced clip from 2009 showed a pair of veterans confronting his staff with accusations of “stolen valor.” Stolen valor, the act of falsely claiming military service, honors, or awards that one has not earned, is often used by those seeking to gain benefits. According to the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, it is a federal crime to fraudulently claim receipt of certain military awards, which can lead to fines and imprisonment.

LONDON — Britain was tense Wednesday as police and anti-racist campaigners, fearing a possible outbreak of the right-wing rioting that erupted across the country in recent days, flooded into several neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. The handful of anti-immigrant demonstrators police encountered in north London neighborhoods like Finchley and Harrow were vastly outnumbered by hundreds of counterprotesters carrying signs that said “Refugees Welcome” and “Racists Out, Refugees In.” And in the east London neighborhood of Walthamstow, an even larger gathering of more than 5,000 anti-right protesters chanted “Love, not hate” while hundreds of police officers kept watch. There were also...

American Mensa accepts scores from approximately 200 different standardized intelligence tests*. Often potential members have taken acceptable tests at other times in their lives and don’t realize they may already qualify for membership.

Organizers have planned protests in at least seven provinces on Thursday throughout Iraq in response to the introduction of amendments to a core family legal framework that could legalize child marriages, deprive widows of their inheritance, and facilitate sex slavery. The Iraqi Parliament began to debate amendments to the Personal Status Law on Sunday that would, critics say, effectively dissolve the country’s universal standards to protect women and girls on matters such as consent to marriage, alimony, and custody of children by allowing men to opt out, choosing traditional Shiite or Sunni Islamic mandates, instead. While child marriages, sex slavery,...

A Republican activist who signed a document falsely claiming Donald Trump had won Arizona in 2020 became the first person to be convicted in the state’s fake elector case.Loraine Pellegrino, a past president of the group Ahwatukee Republican Women, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document, Arizona attorney general’s office spokesperson Richie Taylor said Tuesday, declining to comment further. Records documenting her guilty plea haven’t yet been posted by the court. Still, court records show Pellegrino was sentenced to unsupervised probation. Before the plea, she faced nine felony charges.Seventeen other people have been charged in...

The B-21 promises to be the culmination of those stealth refining efforts, with some claiming that the new stealth bomber will have the radar cross section (RCS) of an insect. While the claim – that a large, fuel-guzzling military aircraft could have the RCS of a honeybee – seems hyperbolic, one Washington thinktank is backing the claim, and urging the US to pursue large-scale acquisition of the B-21.

Hunter Biden accepted $3,101,258 from Romanian partner Gabriel Popoviciu to “influence U.S. government agencies” when President Joe Biden served as vice president, Special Counsel David Weiss said in a Wednesday court filing. Weiss, who stopped short of accusing Hunter of having “improperly coordinated with the Obama administration,” failed to indict him on Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations in 2023, opting instead to indict the president’s son on alleged tax violations, potential wrongdoing that Republicans claim falls short of justice. Weiss could still charge Hunter with violating FARA because his sweetheart plea deal, which was negotiated to give Hunter sweeping...

A Florida woman was arrested on animal cruelty charges and other counts after allegedly killing another woman’s pet spider by drowning it in a fizzy drink. Ilena Rasmussen, 43, faces counts of animal cruelty and petty theft after ending the life of a jumping spider in a situation that resulted in her being charged on July 29. According to The Miami Herald, Rasmussen’s roommate was the first to notice something wrong, and potentially criminal, had occurred. On July 15, the roommate arrived home to find her pet spider and its enclosure missing entirely.

[Catholic Caucus] Transalpine Redemptorists Take Bishop to CourtThe Transalpine Redemptorists, who follow the Roman rite, have filed a canonical complaint against Bishop Michael Gielen of Christchurch, New Zealand, who is kicking them out of his diocese (Zenit.org, 6 August).Last month, an apostolic visitation recommended that the Redemptorists be banned from celebrating Mass in the diocese. The bishop willingly followed the Vatican's instructions.The order's canon lawyer has now formally asked the bishop to rescind his decision. If this request is refused, the order intends to take the case to the Apostolic Signatura, the Church's highest tribunal.The Redemptorists must know that there...

Day #3 of the Top 50 songs on my iTunes playlist -- ranked in reverse order by play frequency from #50 to #1 and presented here on a series of FR threads. I'm posting them here on a new thread that compiles the growing list one day at a time over the next couple of months. I only post them on weekdays and may miss a day or two here and there, so it will take at least ten weeks to do this. And to show my gratitude to the FR management for giving us all a forum to post...

Democrats are eager to introduce Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to the country. He is a veteran who used the GI Bill to get to college, a former public-school teacher who coached high school football, and a two-term governor of a midwestern state with a record of accomplishments on behalf of working-class families. Republicans are just as excited. Despite his Rust Belt resume, they say Vice President Harris has selected a radical as her running mate. In an interview with RealClearPolitics, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said, “Tim Walz is really, truly her ideological soulmate.” The emerging Republican plan to...

VIDEOLaura Loomer appears to be hinting at something about Tim Walz. However, exactly what she is hinting at seems to elude me. Perhaps somebody more alert than Yours Truly can figure out what Laura is trying to tell us.

Kamala Harris’ running mate pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, boasts on his resume that he is a National Guard veteran, but a few issues have come to light. Retired Minnesota Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Behrends said Walz left military service in 2005 after receiving a warning order that his unit, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, was to be deployed to Iraq, according to Alpha News.

- The CNBC All-America Economic Survey finds former President Donald Trump holding a commanding lead among voters on key economic issues, but ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris by just a 2-point advantage in the head-to-head race for the White House. After the replacement of President Joe Biden with Harris, an assassination attempt on Trump and the Republican convention, Trump’s 48%-46% lead is within the CNBC survey’s margin of error and unchanged from the 45%-43% lead Trump held against Biden in the NBC News July Survey. While the head-to-head competition remains the same, there have been dramatic but offsetting changes...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a podcast interview released Thursday that she has “never been that impressed” with President Biden’s “political operation.” “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation,” Pelosi said of Biden in an interview with The New Yorker’s David Remnick on a Thursday episode of “The New Yorker Radio Hour.” Pelosi’s comments follow The Hill’s reporting that, out of public sight, the California Democrat pushed the president to leave the 2024 presidential race, which he eventually did. The former House Speaker’s fellow Californian, Vice President Harris, is now at the top of the...

Texas executed Arthur Lee Burton on Wednesday evening ... He was convicted, and ultimately executed, for murdering a Houston woman in 1997. He also attempted to kidnap and rape her, court records show. ...

Good afternoon Freepers. I got an IT question I'm hoping you all can help me with. I have been experimenting with using a "dark mode" for my browsers. I know that browsers like Brave have a built in dark mode that can be found in chrome://flags, and I've experimented with a few plugin extensions, like Super Dark Mode. The problem is none of them "quite" do the job. For instance, Super Dark Mode can be a good one. The extension has options built in where you can white list a website that doesn't do well in dark mode, and it...

A convoy of Ukrainian armoured vehicles carrying jubilant troops was captured trundling through Russia's Kursk region in a fresh humiliation for Vladimir Putin after Volodymyr Zelensky's forces launched a surprise assault earlier this week.Tanks, armoured personnel carriers, a UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle and other army equipment were seen surging through a rural area in footage taken by a Ukrainian mortar position and shared to Telegram this morning. Kyiv's forces stormed across the border on Tuesday morning, deploying around 1,000 troops and more than two dozen armoured vehicles and tanks in an unexpected assault on Russian soil, according to the Russian army.The...