Free Republic

Schools are letting out, and whether you've got kids or not, something about this time of year still hits differently. Summer stopped being a vacation for most of us a long time ago — but try telling that to the part of your brain still wired to Press Your Luck ("No Whammys!") and the smell of a freshly opened Slip 'n Slide. Core memories are funny that way. Once they're in, they're in for good. '80s Summers Meant Home By the Streetlights, Gone By Morning For a solid ten weeks a year, you roamed your little universe without anyone —...

Carol Rhees is a Democrat lawyer who started Hope for Children in Ethiopia a long-time USAID grant recipient.

Amid a rocket attack launched by Hezbollah on residential homes in the village of Rmeish in southern Lebanon, more than 50 children celebrated their first Communion in a testament to faith, resilience, and hope in the midst of war. In comments to local media, Rmeish Municipality Head Hanna Al-Amil said a missile fell between inhabited homes on Sunday morning and “narrowly avoided causing a major disaster.” Al-Amil stressed that the village contains no military forces, armed groups, or weapons, emphasizing that residents “simply want to live safely on their land, away from confrontation and escalation.” On Friday, several Hezbollah rockets...

This week, the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing detailing how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) helped facilitate and benefited from the historic Biden-Harris border crisis, as well as how far-left NGOs are still working to help inadmissible aliens undermine federal immigration law under the Trump administration. In the hearing, witnesses laid out in detail how NGOs received more than $6 billion from the Biden-Harris administration, including through grants from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and others. They also testified about how the Biden-Harris administration handed over unaccompanied alien children (UACs)...

Celebrity children identify as trans and non-binary at unbelievable rates. Charlize Theron, Cynthia Nixon, Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony — whose 18-year-old recently debuted a new name, changing from Emme to Oskar — are just a few of the stars with children who aren’t living as their birth sex. There’s nothing wrong with being trans. But such an unlikely concentration in a particular community should give one pause — especially when so many of these kids began playing with gender at shockingly young ages. In a geography where having a trans child has a tinge of chicness...

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CBS News in an exclusive interview that his government has evidence that Russia is abducting Ukrainian children and training them to fight against fellow Ukrainians. It is an allegation that may constitute a war crime, according to the International Criminal Court. This is the first time that Zelenskyy has publicly made this accusation, which goes beyond the documented evidence that Russia has a state-sponsored program of taking Ukrainian children to camps for reeducation or "Russification." "When these children grow up and they push these boys to the battlefield," Zelenskyy said. Zelenskyy said "yes have evidence...

Brandon Magni says when he asked for a forfeit, he was told he could forfeit himself or call the policeThe travel baseball industry was rocked over the Memorial Day weekend by yet another shocking incident in what is shaping up to be one of the ugliest on record for youth baseball. Did an Oklahoma 11U baseball coach order his pitcher to hit an opponent? Was that boy then ordered to throw a fastball at the opposing team's dugout? Those are the accusations being thrown around by a coach out of Nebraska who says his dugout was targeted at a...

Washington state has agreed to a permanent injunction allowing religious families who refuse to promote gender ideology to serve as foster parents. This comes after the state refused to renew a full foster care license for Shane and Jennifer DeGross, a couple who rejected using a child's "preferred pronouns," citing religious objections to socially "transitioning" children. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing the DeGrosses, announced the settlement in a press release. "Washington's policy failed to respect religious diversity because it singled out applicants with traditional religious beliefs on the sanctity of the human body," said ADF Senior Counsel Johannes...

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP vice presidential nominee, and ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl went back and forth over his past comments about “childless cat ladies,” as the Ohio Republican tried to clarify his previous suggestion that parents who have children should have more power than adults who do not have children. Vance has faced repeated backlash for 2021 remarks during which he told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want...

Washington state has agreed to stop forcing Christian foster parents to push the LGBTQ agenda on their foster kids. The Democrat-run state will no longer require Christian parents to fake gender pronouns or socially transition foster children in violation of their religious beliefs. That comes under a settlement reached with a couple who lost their foster-care license for refusing to compromise their faith and push the trans agenda on their foster children. The agreement, announced May 20, includes a permanent injunction requiring the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families to revise its licensing policies. The department can no longer...

As dawn breaks, hundreds of men gather at a dusty square in Chaghcharan, the capital of Ghor province in Afghanistan. They line the roadside with weary faces, hoping someone will come along offering any work. It will determine whether their families eat that day. The likelihood of success, however, is low. Juma Khan, 45, has found just three days of work in the past six weeks that paid between 150 to 200 Afghani ($2.35-$3.13; £1.76-£2.34) per day. "My children went to bed hungry three nights in a row. My wife was crying, so were my children. So I begged a...

California Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Xavier Becerra went viral yesterday for saying to a local Los Angeles television (KTLA) reporter, after she asked a hard question, “By the way, this is a profile piece, this is not a gotcha piece, right?” Reporter Annie Rose Ramos responded, appropriately, “These questions are fair. It’s in order to learn about you as a candidate.” Progressives responded by criticizing Becerra’s messaging. A progressive Pod Save America co-host and former Obama spokesman, posted on X, “Politicians and candidates…let your staff have these whiny conversations! Or at least don’t do it on camera!” Former Obama strategist David...

When it comes to vaccine policy, the U.S. government is holding up Denmark as a role model...The Scandinavian nation of 6 million gives children far fewer vaccines than the United States has done... The new U.S. schedule follows Denmark’s example. It no longer recommends that all children get vaccinated for half a dozen diseases: hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and COVID-19. Instead, administering these shots should be “based on shared clinical decision-making” between parents and doctors, HHS says. The move elicited widespread criticism from doctors and public health experts—but it also drew attention to Denmark’s minimalist vaccination...

In [2021-2023], thousands of children crossed the border alone and ended up working in some of the most dangerous jobs in the country. Migrant children as young as 13 suffered chemical burns on overnight factory shifts, had their limbs mangled by conveyor belts or fell to their deaths from roofs......[HHS Secretary] Xavier Becerra [who was in charge of finding homes for the kids] began urging staff members to move them more quickly through shelters... Employees told me they loosened protections that had been in place for years, including in screening sponsors... Most of [the kids Becerra placed with sponsors] were...

FBI investigations of a heinous online child predator network have expanded to target more than 450 people, the bureau said on Tuesday. Officials continue to crack down on groups going by names such as “764” that lure children into violent online communities and induce them toward self-harm or sexual acts, FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Joe Rothrock said in a statement warning parents and schoolteachers. Authorities have traced similar groups’ beginnings to at least 2019, announcing more than 350 subjects of investigations by late last year. FBI Dallas is sharing information with parents, guardians, and teachers about violent online...

In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.Democrats rarely mention our nation’s fertility crisis, but when they do, they always offer the same solution: more immigration. Here is former President Bill Clinton stumping for Vice President Kamala Harris in the most recent presidential election."We got the lowest birth rate we've had in well over 100 years,” Clinton told Harris supporters less than a...

From a stunning report that confirms, again, skeptics’ concerns over the deadly impact of the COVID-19 shots created by pharmaceutical companies and sold for billions of dollars to the American government during the pandemic, it’s known that federal officials linked those shots to child deaths at the time – and the Biden administration kept it a secret. Investigative journalist Catherine Herridge has reported online the Joe Biden administration “suppressed” details about COVID shot pediatric deaths as well as the total death count. She cited a study done on children who died, of which a number died of the effects “possibly”...

Painters think in brushstrokes. Directors think in scenes. Women under 30 think in Instagram stories. Young women’s travel, clothing, hobbies, and even their romantic relationships are subconsciously selected based on what would look best photographed, filtered, and ironically captioned. Digital life and real life are not in competition; they’ve melded. Social media isn’t a hobby or a distraction for young women; it is their medium of self-creation and, in some instances, self-destruction—and it has ruined girlhood, Freya India writes in her debut book GIRLS®: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything. India, herself a 20-something, surveys the online activity of...

The Texas Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit over the state's investigations into families with transgender children because most of the investigations were closed and the children are no longer minors. In a ruling Friday, the state’s highest civil court ruled that because the Department of Family and Protective Services isn’t actively investigating the families, they no longer face the alleged threats they outlined in their 2022 lawsuits against the agency. The plaintiffs argued against dismissing the case, suggesting DFPS could choose to reopen its investigations without the injunction. But the Texas Supreme Court dismissed those concerns over future investigations as...

In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here. America’s birth rate has fallen again, extending a decadeslong decline that has reshaped the country’s demographic future. The latest data confirm what has been evident for years: People are having fewer children and, if they have them at all, later. Analysts have pointed to a familiar list of explanations — the rising cost of housing,...