Free Republic

The University of Minnesota tried to pay children as part of a program to push “transgender dolls” on them. It is not certain if any children actually participated in the program, according to the Daily Wire, which covered the incident on Tuesday. The initiative, which was organized by the school’s National Center for Gender Spectrum Health (NCGSH), was announced on Feb. 27 on Instagram. “We are looking to hear from transgender and gender diverse children between the ages of 5 and 10 years old and their parents about a new hands-on activity to help talk about gender and bodies! Compensation...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: A new provision in the latest CR lets Congress block subpoenas for House data, including emails, potentially preventing any investigation into the J6 Committee.

The M87 Galaxy, as seen via the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA/Hubble). For the first time in a decade, the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy has erupted in an enormous gamma-ray flare, a rare and significant event that defied expectations in the latest analysis by astrophysicists. Several large collaborations, including the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), as well as the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, and the MAGIC, VERITAS, HESS, and EAVN telescopes pooled their resources to observe the massive cosmic event, detailed in a new paper published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. M87 Black Hole Messier 87 is...

Russia has developed an mRNA-based vaccine aimed at combating cancer. The vaccine, developed in collaboration with multiple research centres, is set to be distributed free of cost to cancer patients, as announced by Andrey Kaprin, General Director of the Radiology Medical Research Center under the Russian Ministry of Health. This vaccine is expected to be released for public use by early 2025. Pre-clinical trials have already demonstrated its efficacy in suppressing tumour development and preventing potential metastases, according to Alexander Gintsburg, Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology. mRNA vaccines work by delivering specific instructions to...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson · Follow 🚨BREAKING: A new provision in the latest CR lets Congress block subpoenas for House data, including emails, potentially preventing any investigation into the J6 Committee. If you haven't heard, Congress is trying to pass a ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED PAGE omnibus bill. A typical tactic of politicians for decades has been to attach a whole bunch of hidden clauses into a massive-yet-critical spending bill that no one can physically read and process in its entirety. Thanks to Elon Musk's X, there's a place for people to read the bill together and find things that are...

If you have an old or damaged tv to get rid of, check out this 19sec video. https://xcancel.com/PlanetOfMemes/status/1869143208418214032#m

President-elect Donald Trump’s most striking characteristics today are clarity, confidence, and calm. This is extraordinary in a man renowned for chaos, confusion, and the thin-skinned hurling of demeaning insults. But it is a truth that needs to be acknowledged and accounted for to understand what we are witnessing as Trump prepares to resume the presidency. His press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Dec. 16 revealed a man almost preternaturally at ease with himself, his mission, his domestic support, and his acceptance abroad. His tone was measured, even somewhat humble, despite some bragging. When he dismissed questions, as he justifiably did once...

The Diversity Grants will be open to underrepresented, diverse people who have an interest in the horror writing genre, including, but not limited to writers, editors, reviewers, and library workers. Like the Diverse Works Inclusion Committee, the Diversity Grants have adopted the broadest definition of the word diversity to include, but not limited to, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabled, and neurodiverse. The Horror Writers Association (HWA) believes barriers—often unseen but very real—exist which limit the amount of horror fiction being published by diverse voices. The goal of these Grants is to help remove some of the barriers...

I asked Grok to analyze and list potential excessive, concerning, or wasteful spending in the latest 1,547-page spending bill that is currently being fast-tracked. Here are the results 👇 🧵Pages 1-100 ......

A Texas father says his four-month-old twins have been mistakenly deported along with their mother and siblings in an immigration mix-up. Federico Arellano Jr says his wife Christina Salazar and their four kids were put on a plane on December 9 after missing a hearing with an immigration judge. He says that he is a US Citizen - along with three of his four kids. It's unclear what Christina's status is. Despite being born in Houston in October, the twins were sent to Mexico with their mother. Now, Jr. is fighting to bring them all back, describing it as an...

The Iranian rial has sunk to its lowest value in history in the five weeks since the re-election of former US President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported. The rial traded at 703,000 to the dollar on November 5, the date of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It now trades at 777,000 to the dollar, a loss of about 10 percent. The incoming Trump Administration is expected to renew its maximum pressure campaign against Iran, including the enforcement of powerful economic sanctions. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump and members of his incoming administration have begun reviewing...

When he came to power in 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was hailed as a progressive icon, a charismatic leftist with movie star good looks who promised to reform elections, tackle climate change and legalize marijuana. He quickly became one of the world’s best-known political figures, known for agenda-setting liberal policies — and for taking selfies with enraptured fans. “He was seen as this Canadian rock star,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Nine years later, Trudeau is deeply unpopular at home and fighting for his job amid growing calls that he step...

Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said peace in Ukraine could be obtained only through compromise, including territorial concessions. In a December 15 interview with the broadcaster Slovak Television and Radio, Pellegrini said, as translated by the Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda: "When it comes to peace, I think we need to remain realistic. Probably no one in Europe among reasonable people today believes that peace can be achieved without some partial territorial losses for Ukraine." U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to return to office on January 20, has repeatedly vowed to end the yearslong Russia-Ukraine conflict "within 24 hours."...

Japan Airlines has teamed up with Sumitomo Corporation to launch a trial of a clothing sharing service, which is called “Any Wear, Anywhere.” The idea is that foreign tourists and business travelers landing in Japan on JAL will be able to rent clothes for their trip, meaning they just have to bring their underwear and socks. Here’s how JAL describes the concept behind this service:

We’re presently in the political equivalent of the eye of a hurricane. We all know that the 2024 election was just one battle, and the enemies of liberty on the left are steeling themselves for the inevitable counterattack. They will be back with the same old lies based on media domination and language manipulation. Once again, division is employed to control the people as they accuse and project those sins on us. The bad news for the left is that the election was far more damaging for it than anyone realized. It was simply a landslide victory when you consider...

The parents of a volleyball player who was left with serious brain damage after she was knocked to the ground by a transgender opponent have broken their silence and have urged families to 'pull your kid' from sports games. Payton McNabb was 17 when a ball spiked by a trans opponent with force struck her in the face, threw her to the ground and left her unconscious while she played a volleyball match in September 2022. Payton was left with brain damage and paralysis on her right side, which ended her dreams of getting a volleyball college scholarship and has...

An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has implied that Moscow cannot push Ukraine out of Kursk by the end of the year, despite Putin previously setting a deadline to kick them out by October. Russia's Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, said that all the tasks set by the country's leadership for the military in 2024 have been completed, according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. He was speaking during a briefing for the military. As Ukrainian forces remain in Kursk, it is possible that driving them out was not a...

This week the Democrat funding organization ActBlue admitted it broke the federal campaign financing law's prohibition of using foreign funds to help elect Democrats. President and CEO Regina Wallace-Jones said "we recognize that technically foreigners are not supposed to donate money in US elections. However, we don't acknowledge the legitimacy of this law. Since the US is the most powerful country in the world persons living in other countries have a stake in the outcome of our elections. Why shouldn't they be able to help elect people that would represent their interests? Anyway, we stopped accepting foreign money after September...

It was a long day in Angola. President Biden had already visited a port facility bracketed with cranes and toured a factory filled with conveyor belts. So by the time he sat down at a large wooden circular table in a warm, stuffy room with African leaders, he put his head in his hand and briefly closed his eyes as the speeches droned on. Flying across the world would have tired even a president younger than 82. But the point, as he saw it, was that he came. He traveled thousands of miles to highlight a new U.S.-backed railway that...

SYRIAN despot Bashar al-Assad traded his country's military secrets with Israel in exchange for safe passage out of the country, it has been claimed. The murderous tyrant allegedly handed over coordinates for weapons depots which Israel is now using to drop bombs on Syrian targets in a cowardly last act.