Free Republic

Maryan Hashi remembers the thoughts running through her mind when she began hitting the ski slopes in northern Sweden. As a Black woman from Somalia, she felt like an “alien.” “Am I wearing the correct clothing for this? Does it fit? Do I look weird? Am I snowboarding correctly? Do they think it’s weird I’m on the slope?” she said. “But I carried on — I felt if I didn’t, I was never going to commit to anything in my life.” A few years later, snowboarding is the 30-year-old student’s big passion and it is helping her integrate into her...

Former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has quietly taken a role as a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an institution long entangled with Chinese influence networks, foreign government funding, and open-borders activism.Previously led by former CIA Director William Burns, the think tank has whitewashed his historically awful tenure at DHS:“In that position, he led 260,000 employees to achieve transformational change in a diverse set of missions, including counterterrorism and physical security, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, trade and travel, immigration, and response to natural disasters. He has been lauded for his leadership skills, raising employee morale to historic heights...

[Catholic Caucus] Op-Ed: Will the SSPX Reach an Agreement with Pope Leo XIV?The announcement of new episcopal consecrations within the Society of Saint Pius X, followed by a swift reaction from the Vatican, raises a question that has been returning for nearly four decades: can the "Lefebvrists" and the Pope reach a lasting agreement? This time, however, the context is entirely different from that of 1988—both doctrinally and ecclesially.The answer is yes—at least in the sense in which I pose the question. The title must be journalistic and provocative, but in reality the issue goes far deeper than a simple...

Even after legalization, illicit cannabis grows continue to pollute California’s public lands. And the contamination, new research shows, lingers.

There’s a clip going around where some obnoxious woman decides that a guy walking out of a Quik-i-Mart is a nice guy and she takes it upon herself, being the heroine and the main character of the epic saga that is her life, to knock his cup of coffee from his hands. He’s a fairly big guy, fit, and he doesn’t lay her out across the parking lot with a right cross. It’s not that she doesn’t deserve it – she does. It’s that he is still defaulting to the male role in a chivalry system that no longer exists....

Discord has announced a major change coming to the service as part of its aim to improve teen safety features. Starting in March, all users globally will be required to submit age verification via a face scan or submitted ID, or be given teen-level access restrictions. Age verification across apps and social platforms has been an increased focus of legislative bodies around the world in the last couple years. In response, Discord has announced a major initiative to ensure that only adults see adult-designated content, while teens are restricted to age-appropriate access. To do this, Discord says all users worldwide...

OpenAI announced last week that it will retire some older ChatGPT models by February 13. That includes GPT-4o, the model infamous for excessively flattering and affirming users. For thousands of users protesting the decision online, the retirement of 4o feels akin to losing a friend, romantic partner, or spiritual guide. ... The backlash over GPT-4o’s retirement underscores a major challenge facing AI companies: The engagement features that keep users coming back can also create dangerous dependencies. Altman doesn’t seem particularly sympathetic to users’ laments, and it’s not hard to see why. OpenAI now faces eight lawsuits alleging that 4o’s overly...

Super Bowl commercials reportedly aim to target a less traditional audience ahead of the NFL title game on Sunday. Though the league's championship game has often been associated with older men, major companies are using the game to reach out to both Gen Z and female viewers with their latest advertisements. "[I]f we had made something that didn’t speak to Gen Z or didn’t appeal to women, I think we would have been missing the mark," Laura Jones, chief marketing officer of Instacart, told Variety on Wednesday. Super Bowl ratings reached record levels in 2025 with approximately 127.7 million people...

Daily Readings from the USCCBAfter making the crossing to the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there. As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. Mark 6:53–54As soon as Jesus stepped out of the boat, the people “immediately recognized him.” Jesus and the Twelve had spent the previous day on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the remote territory near Bethsaida where they planned to be alone. When they arrived there, however, the crowds were waiting for them, so Jesus preached to thousands of...

In its ongoing fight against identity politics in medicine, Do No Harm exposed the American Medical Association this week for content related to identity politics and diversity, equity and inclusion in its Continuing Medical Education courses. Do No Harm Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kurt Miceli told The Center Square: “The level of ideological bias documented in our report raises serious concerns about the integrity of these [Continuing Medical Education] offerings.” In order to maintain their license to practice medicine, medical professionals must continually keep up with their education – in varying degrees state by state – as explained by Do...

Americans were forced to sit through one of their biggest cultural events of the year in a language that is not theirs, surrounded by symbols of other, foreign places. The Super Bowl is supposed to be one of the cultural cornerstones in American life that still belongs to Americans. There are only a handful of days each year when most of the country pauses and gathers around the same screen to participate in something recognizably ours. It’s a shared experience — rooted in common language and culture and tradition. Which is why the Super Bowl half time show this year...

Some college programs whose graduates earn less than workers with only a high school diploma could lose access to federal student loans under the Republicans' "big, beautiful bill" act, a change that could impact about 40,000 U.S. college students, according to a recent analysis. About 2% of U.S. associate and bachelor's degree-granting programs are at risk under the new provision, called "do no harm," which takes effect in July, according to research from the HEA Group, a higher-education research firm. The provision, part of the GOP tax and spending law's overhaul of student loans, requires programs to show that graduates...

Texas has created another new national record, this time for the most students applying to a new school choice program on the first day it launched. Texas’ first school choice program launched on Wednesday with 20,000 students applying by noon. Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced the successful launch of Texas’ new Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) stating that nearly 8,000 applications were filed in the first hour. By noon, more than 20,000 students had applied “for the largest year-one school choice initiative in the nation,” The Center Square reported. More than 35,000 applications had been received by Wednesday evening on...

9 February 2026 Monday of week 5 in Ordinary Time Altar of Saint Apollonia in the Church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Zagreb, Croatia Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First reading1 Kings 8:1-7,9-13The Ark of the Covenant is brought into the TempleSolomon called the elders of Israel together in Jerusalem to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord up from the Citadel of David, which is Zion. All the men of Israel assembled round King Solomon in the month of Ethanim, at the time of the feast (that is, the seventh month), and the priests took...

Three adult dogs and seven puppies found abandoned near the Gaza border will be flown to the US for adoption by American soldiers who served in the area during the Gaza war. The soldiers discovered the animals and decided they couldn’t leave them behind, according to Israel’s Let the Animals Live association. Let the Animals Live said it was caring for the canines in kennels before they are flown out, while also dealing with the export bureaucracy and ensuring that all shots are up to date. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (International) is funding most of...

A man in a three-month coma credits ‘The View’ for saving his life. A nurse put ‘The View’ on his room TV. The man woke up and changed the channel.

Why the artificial-intelligence advertising spree could be the last hurrah - like the dot-coms in 2000 OpenAI and Anthropic are losing enormous amounts of money, yet are given valuations as if they were real companies making real profits. During Super Bowl XXXIV on Jan. 30, 2000, 14 of the 61 television advertisements were for internet startups. Perhaps they should have heeded the advice offered by E-Trade's "Waste of Money" ad that year, which featured a dancing monkey and ended with the on-screen punchline: "Well, we just wasted $2,000,000. What are you doing with your money?" That Super Bowl was played...

House Democrats proposed a sugar tax on Thursday that would impose another 3-cent charge per fluid ounce of applicable beverages, amounting to a 72-cent tax on a 24-ounce coffee. The sugar tax would be in addition to other state and local taxes, including Seattle's sugar tax, which amounts to a 1.75-cent-per-ounce tax on distributors of "sweetened beverages." The money would go toward expanding food assistance programs, despite studies showing that it could decrease sales. Rep. Chipalo Street, D-Seattle, and Rep. Alex Ramel, D-Bellingham, recognized this potential outcome when filing House Bill 2734, citing Seattle and other cities with sugar taxes...

The number of Fortune 500 companies willing to publicly disclose their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices has dropped 65 percent in the last year, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). The HRC, likely the most powerful gay and “transgender” lobby in the country, typically keeps track of which companies are doing its political bidding. According to a 2026 report, only 131 Fortune 500 companies in 2026 are participating in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index — the primary measure of corporate ideological compliance for HRC. That is down from 377 Fortune 500 companies in 2025. Part of the decrease, HRC...

It would be a hell of irony if useless preparation for a nonexistent threat simply set us up for a knockout blow from a real one. It has been two weeks since western PA experienced a dump of two feet of snow, the product of the continent-wide storm that was supposed to ravage the nation and throw back civilization 500 years or more. That, needless to say, did not happen, at least outside of Missouri, where it would never be noticed. But there is that two feet of snow. Pennsylvania is in the melt belt, a region in which even...