Free Republic

Illinois started to provide standard driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants last year. Gov. JB Pritzker has now signed a bill into law to allow them to become driving instructors. In 2013, Illinois led the country as one of the first states to issue temporary visitor driver's licenses to help drivers who passed road tests regardless of immigration status. The 2024 law allowed undocumented immigrants to receive standard IDs without the large purple mark stating not valid for identification. House Bill 3125 will allow anyone with a TVDL for at least two years to teach driving courses. Sponsors said this change...

Explanation: How big is planet Earth's Moon? Compared to other moons of the Solar System, it's number 5 on the largest to smallest ranked list, following Jupiter's moon Ganymede, Saturn's moon Titan, and Jovian moons Callisto and Io. Continuing the list, the Moon comes before Jupiter's Europa and Neptune's Triton. It's also larger than dwarf planets Pluto and Eris. With a diameter of 3,475 kilometers the Moon is about 1/4 the size of Earth though, and that does make it the largest moon when compared to the size of its parent Solar System planet. Of course in this serene, twilight...

[Catholic Caucus] “Mass of ALL Ages”? Shiny New Lecture Series Rehashes 1970sWhenever a person writes, he always has to ask himself one question: Who is my audience? No matter his disposition or ideas, a writer writes to a certain group with their ideas (written and unwritten) and culture, which can often be very complex.I thought about this question today when I saw an ad promoting the latest work of Dr. Brant Pitre, a 32 hour, 130 dollar, 25 CD (or MP3) collection entitled Mass of All Ages which argues that actually, the Novus Ordo is the truly Traditional Mass!Now before...

The federal government is trying to force Kilmar Abrego Garcia to accept a guilty plea or face deportation to Uganda, his attorneys claimed in a filing on Saturday.The Salvadoran man, who was wrongly deported in March before being brought back to the United States to face human smuggling charges, was released from criminal custody in Tennessee and sent back to Maryland on Friday.After Abrego Garcia declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to the human smuggling charges, his attorneys say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed them that he...

" ... the FDA will disclose adverse events publicly in real time."The Food and Drug Administration on Friday started to publicly report adverse events to drugs and some vaccines in real time, a change FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said promotes “radical transparency.” The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System, known as FAERS, is what the FDA uses as its primary database for collecting adverse event reports related to medication errors, prescription drugs, and some vaccines — though the main database for vaccine adverse event reports is known as VAERS. The reports are collected from health care professionals, manufacturers, and consumers....

Woefully out of touch professional progressives again display their open hostility to American citizens.Two events occurring the same week highlight the catastrophic tone deafness of a once culturally celebrated credentialed institutional progressivism. On August 12, an illegal alien who had been issued a commercial driver’s license in the state of California made a wildly illegal U-turn with his big rig on a Florida road. Three people in another vehicle died in a resulting crash. Two days later, on August 14, the ACLU’s Nevada branch sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles over its fears that the agency was aiding US...

A bid to save a woman stuck 22,000ft up a mountain with a broken leg has been called off after ten days due to bad weather - and one rescuer died trying to help her. Russian mountaineer Natalia, also known as Natasha, Nagovitsina, 47, has been trapped at 22,965ft on Victory Peak in Kyrgyzstan, with a summit height of 24,406ft. Nagovitsina, who is a well-known mountaineer, was reportedly seen moving on drone footage as recently as three days ago. She was injured on August 12, when her climbing partner helped her as best they could before returning further down the...

Homicide detectives and a tactical squad of California sheriff deputies captured and jailed on Friday the parents of a baby boy they claimed was kidnapped, which authorities now allege was a lie. Jake and Rebecca Haro were arrested on murder charges at their Cabazon home after Rebecca Haro, the mother of seven-month-old Emmanuel Haro, had claimed her son was abducted outside a sporting goods store a week ago in Yucaipa, about 70 miles west of Los Angeles. San Bernardino Sheriff’s homicide detectives now say the kidnapping never happened and believe the child is dead.

Abandoned by his father to a troubled single mother; eventually raised by grandparents. He is then recruited from an Ivy league law school by shadow figures, a specific billionaire and a network of interests. He changes his name, writes a book about his life story, and with the support of the aforementioned – who eventually pays for a strategic campaign, becomes a Senator for 2 years before being quickly elevated into position in the White House.Many people reading that paragraph are familiar with the life story of Barack Hussien Obama. However, that paragraph is not describing Obama, that paragraph describes...

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged by a Labour peer to use the Royal Navy in the Channel to send small boats back to France. Lord Glasman, the founder of the socially conservative Blue Labour group, set out tough proposals to get a grip on the crisis. Speaking to LBC, he said the current situation was “completely out of order”. He said: “The first thing I’d do is put the Royal Navy in the English Channel to stop the boats.” Asked where they would then go, Lord Glasman replied: “Just turn them back to France. "What is the problem with...

Illustrative photo of a woman brushing her teeth. (photo credit: Sophie Gordon/Flash 90) Israeli tap water will no longer contain fluoride after Tuesday, following a decree by Health Minister Yael German earlier this month discontinuing the practice. The decision has been lauded by various rights groups, but criticized by many in the medical and dental communities as a serious mistake. Fluoride is commonly added to national water supplies by governments throughout the world in order to prevent tooth decay, but critics say overconsumption of the invisible, odorless, tasteless gas is a health hazard. Israel originally mandated water fluoridation in 1970...

The following idiotic piece that ran from the Washington Post's editorial board said that the FBI raid on former National Security Council advisor John Bolton raid "underscores the danger of putting partisan hacks in top law enforcement positions." FBI raid targeting Bolton crosses a line in the Trump revenge campaign Yes, they wrote that. What a bunch of hypocrites. Of course, they acted as though Democrat hack appointees in comparable positions from not so long ago, such as Merrick Garland, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Andy McCabe, James Comey, and others, were absolutely independent and non-partisan no matter what they did....

In the 1990s, it seemed like everyone was obsessed with Winona Ryder. Well, I wasn’t born, so I can’t say I witnessed the height of the actor’s fame for myself, but you only have to look at the number of songs which name-drop the star to realise how popular she was. Ryder is, of course, so much more than a muse: Johnny Depp’s infamous ‘Winona forever’ tattoo emerged from the embers of their passionate relationship, while Tim Burton has never hesitated to cast her in his work. But it’s undeniable that she has been the inspiration for many art forms....

Friday marks 59 years since the tragic University of Texas Tower shooting. On Aug. 1, 1966, a man by the name of Charles Whitman disguised himself as a janitor and carried bags of guns to the top of the UT Tower. Whitman set up on the observation deck of the tower where he then opened fire on the people below. “At approximately 11:53 a.m. on Aug. 1, 1966 I came within 4 feet of being shot by the tower sniper,” said Austinite Forrest Preece, who was a student during the shooting. “A gentleman standing that far to my right was...

In a recent article, Jenna Ellis remains anti-abortion, but in her so-called compassion for women who have abortions, she comes too close to justifying their decision. Her article reads more like a piece that could have been written by Hillary Clinton defending the need for abortion rather than promoting anti-abortion goals. She lists all the good practical reasons and the pressures put on women by their men to have abortions. Reading her pro-life article, it seems that pro-life proponents must find themselves supporting vast therapy networks. It seems she is calling for policies that invest vast sums of money so...

Caitlin Clark, the standout guard for the Indiana Fever, has become one of the most electrifying talents in the WNBA. Her scoring prowess, playmaking ability, and leadership have not only helped elevate the Fever but also brought unprecedented attention to the league. However, the 2025 season has been anything but smooth for Clark, whose ongoing injury issues and the team's internal struggles are raising serious questions about her future in professional basketball. Clark's season has been plagued by multiple injuries. She first suffered a right groin injury on July 15, which kept her off the court for more than a...

In April, illegal Harjinder Singh made an illegal u-turn on a Florida turnpike and caused a crash that killed three occupants of a minivan in the lane to the left of his semi-truck. Hoping to bolster his chances of running for president in 2028, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif) pointed out that "Trump was president when Singh illegally entered the US. His failure to secure the border enabled this tragedy to occur." What Newsom failed to mention was that it was California that illegally granted Singh a commercial driver's license. When Singh was tested for English language proficiency by the Federal...

Editorial Gerrymandering is an idea that should be terminated the independent redistricting movement here, has vowed to fight Newsom with the same vigor that his character as a Thank goodness for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not only did he utter one of the top lines in movie history—“I’ll be back”—but he’s also bringing muscle to the fight against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s scheme to take Ventura County and the rest of the state back to the days when shady politicians decided who spoke for us in Sacramento and Washington. Newsom’s “Election Rigging Response Act” is a constitutional amendment that, if passed by California...

Mass deportations. Prison camps. Quitting the Refugee Convention and the UN Convention on Torture. A shrug of the shoulders at the idea of the UK sending asylum seekers back to places like Afghanistan or Eritrea, where they could be tortured or executed. "I'm really sorry, but we can't be responsible for everything that happens in the whole of the world," says Nigel Farage. "Who is our priority?" The Reform UK leader has been setting out his party's new plans to address illegal migration in an interview with The Times newspaper - a set of policies, and a use of language,...

Maduro’s removal-he’s a cartel leader-a distinction without much of a difference. Phase Two entails gunboat diplomacy. Force against Venezuela may be used to convince wavering Iranian leaders to concede.