Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is fuming over the Army’s decision to withdraw new academic standards for college students in the ROTC program — including requiring a score of at least 1000 on the SAT — to block “stupid people” from becoming military officers. The new standards were announced on Aug. 5 in an internal memo issued by then-assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs Jules Hurst and were withdrawn Wednesday. “The Army must cultivate intelligent and adaptive officers to build a lethal and ready Army prepared to deter, fight, and win our nation’s wars....

Nathan Cofnas, the U.S. academic who raised plagiarism concerns over the late Cambridge professor Jason Arday, said on Thursday he had been suspended by Belgium’s Ghent University and was under investigation for discrimination. Arday, once hailed as Cambridge’s youngest Black professor, was found dead, aged 41, in London last Friday, days after resigning from his post. Arday had denied the allegation of plagiarism but acknowledged making mistakes. “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me,” Cofnas wrote on his X account. In a post a few hours earlier he said he was “under investigation by...

Credit: HHS.gov The far-left hacks at CNN are so terrified of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement that they have completely abandoned basic math just to attack Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blasted CNN host Erin Burnett after her program aired a ridiculous “investigation” attempting to discredit the affordable meals featured on Kennedy’s new cooking series, The Real Food Show. Kennedy’s program, inspired by President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, features chefs preparing nutritious, whole-food meals for approximately $5 or less per serving. But CNN decided to “fact-check” Kennedy...

MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) ... identified a phenomenon they call attribution decay, where the more data a generative model is trained on, the less any individual training example matters to any particular output. It feels counterintuitive, but at sufficiently large scales, they find, you can often remove any single image from the training data, or every image by a given artist, or every photograph of a given person, and the generated sample doesn't change. And if removing something changes nothing, the researchers argue, it can't be said to be responsible for anything. ... Their workaround is...

On Wednesday, after Democratic socialist candidate Angie Nixon was victorious in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary, MS NOW reporter Alex Tabet worried that Cubans in Florida would not vote for Nixon because of Republicans’ “incorrect conflation of communism and Democratic socialism.” Tabet joined new MS NOW host Peter Alexander’s show, State of Play, live from Florida after the primary. Alexander asked about Nixon, whom he called an “unfamiliar name,” and wondered if Democrats were “bullish about her campaign or anxious about what it may mean in a red state.” Tabet responded and said there was a “skittishness here on the ground...

President Donald Trump on Friday morning said the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported over the next three months without being subject to out-of-quota tariffs. Trump also said, “We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.” The president’s Truth Social post announcing the move did not say which companies had made those commitments, which he said came “as we work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers.” Trump did not say who he had reached a deal with on...

An iconic southern landmark went up in flames on Friday morning. If you've ever vacationed in Panama City Beach, Florida (as most of the Southeast has), you're almost certainly aware of the "shark store," a shop called Jaws Souvenirs on the way to the Florida coast. Welp. It's a goner. VIDEO AT LINK.......... This thing went up like a firework. Here's WSFA: Officials say the Bay County Sheriff's Office was also on scene to assist with traffic. Officials say the eastbound and westbound lanes are currently closed and ask drivers to avoid the area from Upas St. to Walnut St....

The Constitution’s stated goals are in the Preamble: a more perfect Union, justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, and the blessings of liberty for living and for posterity. If those are the ends you actually love, the consistent opposites are what undermine them: Disunion and factionalism that treat the country as a temporary alliance of tribes rather than a single people under one law. Injustice—unequal application of law, corruption of courts, or rule by status instead of by rules. Disorder that the government fails to suppress: endemic crime, riots, or private violence that makes ordinary life insecure. Weakness or...

Michigan pastor Lorenzo Sewell delivered a blistering address at a Dearborn City Council meeting this week, accusing local leaders of allowing the city to fall under Sharia law. VIDEOS AT LINK............. Sewell stepped to the microphone and seemed intent on refusing to bend the knee in his messaging. It's impossible to overstate the amount of courage it takes to make this kind of stand. "America, we have lost this city,” he declared, his tone rising with urgency. “This is a city that is no longer under American laws; we are under Sharia law. We will not have it anymore.” "Enough...

If you want to understand the difference between the political left and right, just look at how each side has treated the Supreme Court. For decades, conservatives grumbled about liberal justices on the court and the judicial activism they engineered in rulings such as Roe v. Wade. Justices, conservatives said, are supposed to interpret the law, not make it. They spent years articulating and defending this principle, and educating and supporting judges who thought likewise. And for decades, conservatives tried to get Republicans elected president in hopes (which were often dashed) that they would restore judicial balance to the court....

Former first lady Jill Biden is refusing to close the door on one of the wilder theories surrounding her husband’s disastrous 2024 debate performance. That he was drugged.

The US Navy is working to rename an aircraft carrier under construction that was set to honor a Black sailor hailed for his heroic actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor, three sources familiar with internal discussions told CNN.During President Donald Trump's first term, the Navy announced that the Ford-class carrier would be called the USS Doris Miller, recognizing an enlisted sailor who helped defend US forces from Japan's attack.It's unclear what the Navy is seeking to change the name of the carrier to, though two of the sources said there have been internal conversations about renaming it to honor...

A substitute teacher in Louisiana was arrested after authorities say she triggered false active shooter alerts at five schools, prompting security responses across the district. Lytonja Barfield, 58, was booked on five counts of menacing after an investigation into the alerts Wednesday, Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn Sr. announced. The Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office began investigating after officials with the Caddo Parish School Board contacted the agency about possible threats after emergency alerts at several schools. ... "We are cooperating fully with the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office as they continue their investigation into the matter. Ms. Barfield is no longer...

How are you doing? This is Sahar TV with another update on the situation that happened in Dearborn yesterday, August 18, when a bunch of "Crusaders" took their motorcycles and rode all the way to Dearborn, Michigan to show them that America is not a Muslim nation.

A Pennsylvania college soccer star was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend, who claimed “demons” told him to do it — and got his mom to help him dispose of the body, according to police. Karoline Heintz was found dead in the back hatch of her Jeep Cherokee at around 12:30 a.m. Thursday, just outside the Pennsylvania Western University campus in California, Pa. Heintz, an incoming freshman on the university’s women’s soccer team, had met up with her boyfriend, Royce Mosher, after she attended a family party earlier in the evening, Pennsylvania State Trooper Rocco Gagliardi told reporters.

This week, five unelected California Energy Commission members unanimously adopted new rules that will make an estimated 70% of the tires currently sold in California illegal by 2033. Given the Golden State’s history of seeing its regulations — from vehicle emissions to appliance standards — become de facto national rules because of the size of the California market, these restrictions could be coming soon to many other states. The Energy Commission’s rules will be imposed in two phases, so that by 2033 they will ban the sale — both retail and online — of replacement tires that don’t meet exacting...

A mother in Florida was arrested after she allegedly assaulted her daughter’s elementary school teacher and principal when they wouldn’t allow her inside of the school building to get the girl’s backpack that she left in a classroom. Lynesia Dorsey has been charged with battery on a school employee following the incident that took place during the first week of school on August 13.

* Caffeine acutely raises blood pressure (by 3-15 points systolic), but habitual coffee drinkers develop tolerance, leading to only modest long-term increases of about 2.4 mmHg systolic and 1.2 mmHg diastolic. * Slow caffeine metabolizers face higher heart attack risks with more coffee, while fast metabolizers clear caffeine efficiently, explaining conflicting study results. * A review of 13 studies involving 315,000 people found that coffee drinking was not associated with an increased risk of developing hypertension, regardless of gender, amount or caffeine content. * A Japanese study found that people with severely high blood pressure (160/100 or above) who drank...

American political life is shifting beneath our feet. For nearly a decade, the cultural landscape was dominated by an academic, HR-driven crusade centered on language control, institutional capture, and symbolic compliance. That era – termed Woke 1.0 by commentators – reached its peak around 2024. It policed pronouns, mandated workplace diversity seminars, deployed therapeutic jargon, and enforced obedience through social shaming and corporate fear. What has replaced it is what critics describe as a harder, more confrontational phase: Woke 2.0. Soft appeals to corporate allyship and workplace inclusivity have given way to an explicitly anti-capitalist politics that prioritizes raw power...

The FBI's new crime report is out, and it's safe to say that those who listened to the predictions of anti-Second Amendment groups are wondering where the crime is. Since the Supreme Court struck down New York's discretionary system for issuing concealed carry permits in June 2022, groups like Everytown, Giffords and Brady United predicted public safety would be diminished by the decision. However, the FBI's data noted that in 2025, the murder rate went down 18.1%, while violent crime fell by over 9%. One survey of crime that is widely cited is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) carried...