Free Republic

The Federal Aviation Administration turned away 1,000 air traffic controller applicants due to its DEI policies despite a staff shortage, according to a lawsuit. Complaints over the FAA's hiring policies have resurfaced after American Airlines flight 5342 collided in midair with a helicopter over Washington DC, killing 67. In a suit filed in 2015, lead plaintiff Andrew Brigida, 35, claims the agency's obsession with DEI hiring was a catalyst in ensuring an accident was likely to happen - and reiterated this in an interview with The Telegraph on Thursday. The FAA dropped a skills-based system for hiring air traffic controllers...

The most important thing to know about Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley is that she is the first LGBTQ fire chief in the history of the Los Angeles Fire Department.It’s also the only thing worth knowing about the woman in charge while Los Angeles burned.Crowley’s status as the first LGBTQ fire chief appears at the top of her bio on the LAFD site. It’s what got her on the Kelly Clarkson show under the headline, “Meet LAFD’s First Female & LGBTQ+ Fire Chief” and made her one of the marshals of the Los Angeles Pride Parade (some of whose...

Given the state of affairs in Ukraine and the Middle East and the rise of China as a chief U.S. adversary, one would assume that the Department of Defense has its hands full combating real threats to U.S. national security. One would also assume that under the fraught geopolitics of the current world, the Department of Defense (DoD) would be harnessing its precious resources toward identifying future menaces that literally pose an existential threat to the security of the United States. Climate change does not constitute a current threat to U.S. national security. However, the leaders of the DoD think...

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) insisted he has “credible” sources that drones in his state could be from Iran, calling the Pentagon’s handling of the situation “incredibly stupid.” Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh dismissed Van Drew’s claims Wednesday, saying there is not “any truth” to the New Jersey lawmaker’s claims on the drones or that they came from an Iranian ship off the coast. However, Van Drew pushed back against this dismissal. “They’ve been incredibly stupid and incredibly weak with this,” Van Drew said on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “Here’s the point: we know they’re not backyard drones that some...

"We can see Ukrainian Soldier in this video at 3:49. It was published by the Ukrainian Soldier at 3:51. On this video, we can see a young man who was sitting in the trenches. When I was watching this video for the first time, I didn't understand what exactly is happening. But later, when I read the comments and the description of this video, I realized everything. If you take a look at this young man, he is a man with special needs. He's a special needs person who was forcefully mobilized and sent to the front line, where he's...

The military must recruit more women and more immigrants—and change its culture to embrace diversity as a strength—to be successful in the future.

Los Angeles is a modern American city of 4 million people that's in the midst of a typhus epidemic. Typhus? Really? It's true. The same disease that afflicts many residents of Caracas, Venezuela is spreading in Los Angeles and city officials - not to mention residents - are frightened. Typhus is spread by fleas hitching a ride on rats. The rat population in LA is doing fine, thank you, as piles of garbage dot the cityscape, making it Thanksgiving Day every day for the city's fat, happy rodents. NBC4: For months, LA County public health officials have said typhus...

"Authorities: Would-be Minnetonka bank robber demanded money, then interpreter. Authorities say the suspect appeared to be in his 50s and spoke only halting English."

MINNEAPOLIS - One by one, 18 months ago, they began disappearing: Young boys, academic overachievers, the caretakers in large families, responsible and conscientious all. A few months later, three or four, from St. Paul, Minn., like the others, simultaneously went missing. Then, last Nov. 4, seven or eight young men - whose families assumed they were out in the streets, celebrating the election of Barack Obama - vaporized. One of them was 17-year-old Burhan Hassan. "My sister calls me," says Burhan's uncle, Abdirizak Bihi. "I ask, 'Did you vote?' " Most Somali-Americans do not get involved in the American political...

Hundreds of shoppers smashed through windows at a Long Island Wal-Mart early Friday morning, killing one store employee in the stampede. News' reader Nakea Augustine caught the chaotic scene on her cell phone, check out the photos. http://www.nydailynews.com/money/galleries/walmart_stampede_captured_in_pictures/walmart_stampede_captured_in_pictures.html

Customs officers have seized hundreds of headless rats which were being smuggled to London So African diners could crunch into their bones and flesh. Hundreds of rat corpses - which had been smoked to improve their flavour - were found at Tilbury Docks, in London. The grisly discovery was made by customs officials as they made a routine inspection of a shipment of synthetic hair at the docks. Closer investigation revealed boxes containing the carcases of 340 kilos of headless rats. The giant cane rats, which had been smoked prior to shipping, arrived in a shipment from Ghana and are...

The three main minorities in the United States -- blacks, Hispanics and Asians -- have little trust for each other and hold prejudiced views about Americans of different ethnic origins to their own, a poll showed Wednesday. "This extraordinary poll reveals some unflattering realities that exist in America today," said Sandy Close, head of new America Media (NAM) which sponsored the poll together with ethnic media groups. Forty-four percent of Hispanics and 47 percent of Asians are "afraid of African-Americans because they are responsible for most of the crime," the survey of 1,105 adults drawn from the three ethnic groups...

In George Orwell's novel "1984," the protagonists in the totalitarian society employed "newspeak," the inversion of words to create false meaning. "War is peace," "good is bad," "moral is immoral" are merely a few of the possible inversions. While Orwell passed this mortal coil years ago, his notion of false meaning is alive and well and residing in the United Nations. In fact, there is scarcely a sentence uttered at this institution that isn't Orwellian. Human rights, for example, the hallmark of U.N. efforts, does nothing to promote these rights. The commission organized to promote this goal is composed of...

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. Prosecutors say a suburban Atlanta man circumcised his 2-year-old daughter with a pair of scissors to avoid bringing shame on his family. The defense blames his wife, her mother and a nasty divorce case. Khalid Adem, who is on trial this week in Gwinnett County, could face 40 years in prison if convicted. Assistant District Attorney Marty First acknowledged that Adem, who was born in Ethiopia, is from a culture that practices female circumcision.

A furor over what Concord High School administrators call an "overtly sexual" style of dancing at school dances has split the school community: There are those who defend the students'right to dance however they want and those who believe the moves are just plain inappropriate. Principal Gene Connolly is with the latter group. He said the school will cancel all remaining dances, including the upcoming homecoming dance, unless students step forward to help halt the "grinding." "This style of dancing is wrong," Connolly told parents at a Parent-Teacher-Student Organization meeting Tuesday night. "If you were to see it, you would...

Brother suspect in killingThursday, 11 a.m.: Cops reach out to Afghan communities to find 20-year-old man after fatal shopping centre shooting. DISBELIEF FELL over an Ottawa intensive care unit yesterday when police announced they were hunting the brother of a young woman who was shot to death at an east-end mall. Ottawa police said last night they considered Khatera Sadiqi's 20-year-old brother, Hasibullah Sadiqi, a suspect in the shooting that killed the 20-year-old woman early Tuesday morning. Police said Hasibullah Sadiqi should be considered armed and dangerous. Along with a picture, they released a description of the type of car...

“Youths” Kick Man to Death on Crowded Antwerp Bus The Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the security of its citizens. On Saturday afternoon Guido Demoor, a 54-year old Flemish train conductor on his way to work, was kicked to death by six “youths” on a crowded bus near Antwerp’s Central Station. The incident recalls the rush-hour murder ten weeks ago of Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, in a crowded Brussels Central Station on 12 April. Guido Demoor, a father of two, intervened when six “youths” got on bus 23 in Antwerp and began to intimidate...