Free Republic

More than 80 Harvard faculty members pledged to donate 10 percent of their salaries for up to a year to support the University in its resistance against the Trump administration’s attempts to exact concessions and freeze billions in federal funding. The group is still collecting pledges, but faculty members’ commitments currently amount to more than $2 million, according to Government professor Ryan D. Enos. The faculty sent a letter outlining their planned donation to University President Alan M. Garber ’76 Wednesday afternoon. “If we as a faculty are asking the University administration to resist the Trump administration’s attacks on academic...

President Donald Trump on Friday said he is "taking away" Harvard's tax exempt status. "It's what they deserve,” he said in a Truth Social post. The decision will likely face legal challenges. Harvard’s president has said revoking the university's tax-exempt status would be unlawful and endanger "our ability to carry out our educational mission." Trump previously called for Harvard to lose its tax exempt status after the university said it would not comply with the administration's series of demands, including actions on antisemitism and the use of DEI on campus.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have put Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on notice: Don't mess with the name Fort Cavazos. With support from President Donald Trump, Hegseth has begun reversing a Biden-era initiative to remove the names of Confederate figures from military installations. Hegseth has restored names with Confederate connotations to two Army bases, and he has vowed to continue. That has sparked fears that the Central Texas armored division base named for Gen. Richard E. Cavazos, the Army's first Hispanic four-star general, could be next. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is trying to get in front...

A man who reportedly has a warrant for deportation has climbed a tree to escape authorities. He’s been up there for hours as officers wait below. News4 has been streaming the incident on Facebook. According to a statement from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s San Antonio office, ICE, in coordination with the Texas Department of Public Safety, attempted to serve a criminal warrant on a man described as a “criminal alien" on Tuesday. ICE officials said Raul Ical, a 29-year-old Guatemalan national, was stopped during a traffic stop involving the vehicle in which Ical was a passenger. Ical exited...

The Trump administration is open to arresting Supreme Court judges, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told it on Monday morning. “You guys arrested a Milwaukee County Circuit judge for allegedly helping illegal immigrants get away,” Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked Leavitt. “As you guys look at other judges, would you ever arrest somebody higher up on the judicial food chain, like a federal judge or even a Supreme Court justice?” “That’s a hypothetical question, again I defer you to the Department of Justice for individuals that they are looking at or individual cases. But let’s be clear about...

The drag queen Jiggly Caliente has died aged 44 after a “severe infection”, her family confirmed. The performer, whose real name was Bianca Castro-Arabejo, rose to fame after taking part in the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Caliente’s family announced on Thursday that the Filipino-American drag performer had part of her leg amputated due to the infection. Her family wrote on Instagram that she was “cherished by many” for her career, and died on Sunday at 4.42am “surrounded by her loving family and close friends”.

The last time there was a War Department, Hollywood still made most of its movies in black and white, and Americans were falling in love with a new entertainment device called the TV set. They cost an average of $400 each. The year was 1949. In at least one respect, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to turn the calendar back to that time. The nation’s military forces were organized under the War Department, and Hegseth believes that term, with its bold martial overtones, better suits his desire to remake the armed services to emphasize fighting and killing. The Trump administration...

A Missouri woman is charged with child endangerment and abuse, accused of sending a foster child to live in "unsanitary" conditions at a Texas home in exchange for an exotic animal. Brenda Deutsch, 70, was arrested April 6 in Lincoln County, Missouri, and charged with two counts of abuse or neglect of a child and one count of first-degree child endangerment. She is from the small town of Winfield, Missouri, about 50 miles northwest of St. Louis. Deutsch is in custody at the Lincoln County Jail in lieu of $250,000 cash-only bond. Court records show she has applied for a...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's campaign against DEI has affected one aspect of Air Force life after another. Government-funded observances of Black History Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month and other cultural awareness events were canceled. Coursework and videos that celebrated diversity, equity and inclusion were stripped from the basic training curriculum at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Tributes to pathbreaking Black aviators and other notable minorities were removed from military websites. Jobs, contracts and trainings that promoted diversity were eliminated.Now, however, the Air Force is walking back one element of the DEI purge. RELATED: Pentagon DEI purge erases Colin Powell, Tuskegee Airmen...

But other democracies provide a roadmap for courts to prevail over attacks from the executive branch. Just two months in, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is aggressively challenging judicial constraints on its power, risking a showdown—and constitutional crisis—in which the executive branch seeks to make court orders optional. This month, the U.S. executive branch blatantly defied a federal judge’s order to temporarily halt the deportation of migrants to El Salvador. The president himself called for the impeachment of the judge who issued the order, along with other judges. In one of the 139 legal cases filed against the Trump administration...

Last month, one Texas lottery winner got lucky, scoring an $83.5 million Lotto Texas jackpot. Maybe a little too lucky, in Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's opinion. The winner purchased her ticket Feb. 17 through Jackpocket, a third-party lottery "courier" service that sells tickets to customers through an app online and processes them at a brick-and-mortar storefront called Winner's Corner. The Texas location sits at 7817 Rockwood Ln #101b in Austin. Here's a rundown of the legal issues preventing this Texas lottery winner from claiming her prize. Patrick's investigation On Feb. 18, Patrick conducted an in-person investigation at the Winner's Corner...

'Texas needs to lead in naming a major interstate ... after the greatest president of our time' If one Texas lawmaker gets her way, a section of I-35 in Central Texas will soon be named after President Donald Trump. State Rep. Joanne Shofner, R-Nacogdoches, filed a bill March 14 that would name the portion of I-35 running through Travis County as President Donald J. Trump Highway. If enacted, it would go into effect Sept. 1. The stretch would remain part of I-35, despite a new name for the county's portion of it. "The proposed designation honors the 45th and now...

The head of the non-profit relief organization calls the cuts “brutal,” saying his agency is “in crisis.” Catholic Charities, the Archdiocese of San Antonio’s wide-ranging relief organization, has laid off 200 employees due to drastic cuts in federal funding by the Trump administration, it announced last week. The funding losses puts refugee housing at risk, with some families facing eviction without rent and food assistance. The layoffs, which represent half the agency's staff of 400, occurred in the last 30 days. The affected employees worked mostly in refugee and asylum-related services, both federal programs that represent lawful immigration.

A 5-year-old North Texas boy died Monday after being hit by a school bus, according to the school district and Texas Department of Public Safety officials. Granbury Independent School District, about 45 minutes southwest of Fort Worth, said in a letter to parents posted to social media that a student at Emma Roberson Early Learning Academy died in an incident involving a school bus Monday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan got sick in the second half of Monday night’s Heat-Knicks game, interrupting the action at Madison Square Garden. There was a pause in play with 6:09 left in the third quarter while workers cleaned up the area around Morgan's seat. The delay lasted for more than 10 minutes.

A federal jury needed less than three hours Tuesday to convict two Mexican nationals of felony charges for their roles in a human smuggling operation that led to the deaths of 53 migrants in San Antonio in 2022. Jurors found Felipe Orduna-Torres, 29, and Armando Gonzales-Ortega, 54, both of Mexico, guilty of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens resulting in death. Each could receive life in prison when they are sentenced. Federal District Judge Orlando Garcia scheduled their sentencing for June 27 — the anniversary of the migrants' deaths. "It is the same day that 53 people died, including a woman...

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team is eliminating jobs at the vehicle safety agency that oversees his Tesla Inc., regulates the autonomous vehicles he says represents its future and has launched investigations into deadly crashes involving the Texas-based company’s cars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has cut a “modest” amount of positions at the agency, which is tasked with ensuring safety on U.S. roads, it said in a statement Saturday. The loss of three of the seven members of the specialized unit overseeing autonomous vehicles is part of a 10% overall workforce reduction at the agency enacted by Musk’s advisory group...

The move came as Roger Goodell defended the league's DEI policy The words "End Racism" will not be featured in the back of end zones during Super Bowl LIX between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Instead, the phrases "Choose Love" and "It Takes All of Us" will be emblazoned in the end zones at the Caesars Superdome. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Athletic on Tuesday the decision came amid the recent tragedies that have occurred in the U.S. since the start of 2025, including the terror attack in New Orleans, wildfires in the Los Angeles...

U.S. military bases around the world have celebrated Black History Month and similar cultural awareness events for decades. Now, Hegseth says 'Identity Months' are 'Dead at DoD.' Black History Month has been a regular feature of life at Air Force bases around the world for decades. No longer. A memo issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, headlined "Identity Months Dead at DoD," wipes Black History Month and similar celebrations off the military calendar — starting immediately. "Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department's warfighting mission. Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of...

It wasn't funny if this was meant as a joke, especially now that Los Angeles County is likely experiencing the costliest wildfire in American history. During a commercial break for the show ‘9-1-1’ on Fox, LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson did a media spot to increase diversity in emergency services. The LAFD has been criticized for spending an inordinate amount of time on DEI initiatives and less on vital aspects of training, like stopping wildfires.