Free Republic

Researchers examined cognitively normal human brain samples gathered at autopsy in early 2024 and found that tiny plastic shards were higher than just eight years earlier. The cadaver brains contained up to 30 times more microplastics than kidneys and liver, roughly equivalent to the amount found in an entire plastic spoon. “The concentrations we saw in the brain tissue of normal individuals, who had an average age of around 45 or 50 years old, were 4,800 micrograms per gram, or 0.48% by weight,” said co-lead study author Matthew Campen, Regents’ professor

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A Rhode Island federal judge on Monday found the Trump administration in violation of a court order, telling the new president to “immediately restore frozen funding.” U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell granted a “motion for enforcement” of a temporary restraining order, or TRO, he signed last month, blocking President Donald Trump’s freeze of Congress-approved funds across the country. “The states have presented evidence in this motion that the defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds,” McConnell wrote in his decision Monday. “These...

When Taylor Swift planned to attend this year’s Super Bowl, to cheer her boyfriend Travis Kelce, little did she know that she would be booed by the audience. Swift reportedly attended the big game on Sunday, February 9, 2025, in New Orleans as Kelce's team Kansas City Chiefs went head to head with the Philadelphia Eagles. According to a report in the Independent, when the Karma singer was flashed at the Caesars Superdome jumbotron, the crowd gave her loud boos. However, she laughed it off, and a video that has gone viral shows her smiling, and giving a side-eye to...

During a CNN broadcast, the anchor was talking about the killing of Osama bin Laden, but the screen behind him mistakenly read 'Obama bin Laden.' The confusion was likely due to the fact that Bin Laden was killed during Barack Obama's term of presidency. In May 2011, Bin Laden was killed during Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan. .....

The soaring price of eggs has alarmed consumers and the agriculture industry, and practically everyone in Washington is pointing fingers in various directions to direct blame. It’s hard to lay America’s egg crisis at the feet of any one politician. But agricultural experts say politicians in Washington and around the country can do more to help curtail the highly pathogenic avian influenza, or avian flu, responsible for the deaths of more than 40 million egg-laying birds last year. Because of short supply, egg prices rose 14% from November to December alone, and they are projected to rise another 20% this...

Former Disney Channel actress Christy Carlson Romano says she was shot in the face during a birthday event for her husband on Friday. Romano said she had taken her husband to shoot clay pigeons as a gift for his birthday. But there was “another party with us and they unsafely fired in the wrong direction and shot me in the face.” Romano’s husband took her to St. David’s South Austin Medical Center in Austin, Texas, where doctors worked to clean out the wounds, she said. “I was hit in 5 places, one was less than an inch from hitting me...

Panic at the disco. Three weeks into Trump the Sequel’s executive order blitz, with technology industry legends standing at the president’s side, and figures throughout the government and media likening the newly-minted Department of Government Efficiency’s staff and budget cuts to the rise of fascism, there are two things everyone finally seems to agree on: the Deep State really does exist, and it really does run our country. Now we’re mostly just divided over the question of whether that’s a good thing, and a little shocked by what these people actually look like (yes, I’m about to be petty). As...

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic Charities executives make massive salaries while abandoning the salvation of soulsCatholic Charities CEOs are taking grotesque salaries of as much as $510,000 while neglecting the conversion of peoples and nations to the teachings of Our Blessed Lord – the primary act and purpose of the Catholic Church.In the 1951 film “People Will Talk,” Dr. Noah Praetorius (an unconventional doctor, played by Cary Grant, who questions a medical industry that treats patients like machines) asks a colleague (Dr. Baker, played by Walter Slezak), “What is my business?” Dr. Baker responds with a rather conventional answer: “To diagnose the...

The vast majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump is fulfilling the promises he made during his campaign, according to a new CBS/YouGov poll. The poll, conducted between February 5th to 7th, revealed that 70% of Americans believe that President Trump is making good on his campaign promises, with 53% approving of his overall job rating. Only four other world leaders rank higher in approval rating than Trump, despite the president only being in office for less than a month. “New polling from CBS News shows Americans are overwhelmingly positive about President Donald J. Trump’s return to office and his...

What does the bill do? We're expecting to hear the debate on the border security bill shortly - the draft law would give police and other enforcement agencies broader powers in a bid to help them tackle people smuggling. Labour argues this will be a more effective way of clamping down on small boat crossings than the previous government’s scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which it scrapped. It would also formally create a new post of Border Security Commander to act as a link between intelligence agencies, police and border force officials on the issue. The bill would...

President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Gaza’s Palestinians relocate to Jordan and Egypt on a “short term or long term” basis has been dismissed as diplomatically “unprecedented.” The critics are wrong. Jordan is a majority Palestinian state ruled by an ethnic Hashemite monarchy of fewer than 100 people. If Palestinians have a “right of return,” it’s to Jordan. Palestinians in the West Bank/Judea & Samaria and Gaza were Jordanian and remain so, despite the Hashemite Kingdom’s abandonment of them. Jordan and Egypt oppose assuming responsibility for the Palestinians. “They will,” says President Trump. He is right — both historically and legally....

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Monday uncovered a $59 million FEMA payment from just last week to house illegal aliens in “luxury hotels in New York City,” Elon Musk announced Monday. The payment comes after the Biden administration had claimed FEMA was not using funds to support illegal aliens. “It’s just categorically false. It is not true,” former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in October. Republicans argued FEMA did not have enough money in the fall to help victims of the hurricane in North Carolina, but President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security claimed those...

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been totally geeking out on and fangirling @DataRepublican on X. She developed a searchable database of federal grants linked to recipient institutions. Using that, she, and now hundreds if not thousands of others, have broken open truth about how much federal grant funding actually gets to the claimed ultimate beneficiaries. When I was noodling around in the database to see about funding to prevent or treat dangerous viruses, I saw something that, as written, set off warning bells. I’d love to learn that I’m wrong.DataRepublican is bringing about the transparency President Trump promised...

I have some sad news. This morning, three of the Mountain Mules, who became famous for carrying supplies through the mountain passes of Western North Carolina to Hurricane Helene victims, have tragically passed away. Rest in Peace: Vader, Amigo, and Kev According to news reports, a tree fell on the fence that was holding the mules. They escaped and were struck in the road. Full statement is below: We could not be more heartbroken over this incredible loss, and it is with great pain that we share it with you, as we know many of you have also fallen in...

Summary Hamas says it's delaying the release of Israeli hostages until further notice It says it's a response to Israel breaching the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which began last month "These violations include delaying the return of displaced persons to northern Gaza, targeting them with shelling and gunfire in various areas of the Strip, and failing to allow the entry of humanitarian aid in all its agreed-upon form," Hamas says Israel calls the decision a "complete violation" of the ceasefire deal "I have instructed the IDF to prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza and...

Special Dispatches to the New-York Times. WASHINGTON, Thursday, Feb. 9. It is understood that the reason the President did not send in his Message to-day, giving an account on the Peace Conference, is because he wishes to make some additions to it answering several points in Messrs. HUNTER, STEPHENS and CAMPBELL's history of the conference recently submitted to the rebel Senate.REBEL ACCOUNTS OF THE CONFERENCE.MESSAGE FROM JEFF DAVIS AND THE REBEL COMMISSIONERS.From the Richmond Whig, Feb. 7. The following documents were laid before Congress this morning: To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Confederate States of America: Having...

Researchers in artificial intelligence (AI), from Stanford and the University of Washington, have trained a "cutting-edge" reasoning AI model for under $50 in cloud compute credits, according to a research paper published recently. The model, named s1, purportedly rivals industry-leading models like OpenAI's o1 and DeepSeek's R1 in tests of math and coding skills. The s1 model, along with the data and code used for training, is now available on GitHub. The team behind s1 started with an off-the-shelf base model and fine-tuned it through distillation, a process that extracts reasoning abilities from another AI model by training on its...

The Trump administration is making an urgent push to end a court order barring top officials’ access to the federal government’s massive payment system operated by the Treasury Department, saying the “remarkable intrusion” is unconstitutional and should be “dissolved immediately.” “Basic democratic accountability requires that every executive agency’s work be supervised by politically accountable leadership, who ultimately answer to the president,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in the 11-page filing, calling the order “impermissible” and “anti-constitutional.” The attorneys are asking Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas to quickly end or modify the order to ensure Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his...

President Donald Trump on Monday said he had ordered the firings of the boards of visitors for all of the U.S. military’s service academies, the outside advisory panels that help oversee academic programs and student life, saying that the government’s training grounds for military officers had been invaded by so-called “woke” ideology. “Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard.” The president did not immediately announce the appointment...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's offer to rehouse white South Africans as refugees fleeing persecution may not spur quite the rush he anticipates, as even right-wing white lobby groups want to "tackle the injustices" of Black majority rule on home soil. Trump on Friday signed an executive order to cut U.S. aid to South Africa, citing an expropriation act that President Cyril Ramaphosa signed last month aiming to redress land inequalities that stem from South Africa's history of white supremacy. The order provided for resettlement in the U.S. of "Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust...