Free Republic

There is a fundamental difference between how China and the United States view higher education. Grasping that difference is essential to national security. Top Chinese graduate students are cultivated with the expectation that their expertise will advance state priorities. So when Beijing sends its top students to matriculate at American universities, it is not pursuing benign cultural exchange; it is deploying strategic assets. Seen through that lens, China is using the American university system as a conduit for absorbing American know-how, extracting technical expertise, and moving valuable research and intellectual property back to China. The practical effect is that People’s...

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) — The Summerville Police Department has arrested a woman who allegedly encouraged high school students to protest in a planned high school walkout. Dinah Chollet, 44, is charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to the arrest warrant. An anonymous student alerted a school resource officer at Summerville High School of a planned protest called the “Summerville Walkout” that was going to occur on Friday afternoon. The incident report stated that the protest was publicized on Instagram and was an open account to the public. When the officer joined the group anonymously, he...

Gov. JB Pritzker is demanding President Trump refund the state of Illinois more than $8 billion after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his sweeping reciprocal tariffs Friday. The court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. Now businesses are pressing the Trump administration to issue tariff refunds, and Gov. Pritzker has joined in their call. In a letter to Mr. Trump that Pritzker shared publicly, he wrote, "Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof. This morning, your...

Bruce Springsteen can seemingly offer “No Surrender” from his TDS. Announced this week, his 2026 “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour starts symbolically in Minneapolis, ground zero for the anti-ICE wine-mom rebellion against federal law enforcement. “We are living through dark, disturbing and dangerous times, but do not despair — the cavalry is coming,” The Boss crowed in a promotional video that dropped Tuesday. The cavalry he’s promising is a Boomer “No Kings” protest. But instead of being gratis, like most demonstrations, one will have to pay through the nose to get into arena doors. Don’t believe me? Springsteen has...

A nonprofit executive accused of stealing $132,000 in public money to fund her lavish lifestyle is being held behind bars. Amy Knox, who was COO of Harm Reduction Coalition of San Diego, pleaded not guilty to allegedly stealing cash for plastic surgeries, credit card bills and luxury vacations to Hawaii and Disneyland. The 45-year-old faces six felony counts of fraud and misappropriation and faces up to seven years in prison. Late Wednesday Knox pleaded not guilty to the charges in San Diego State Supreme Court. Her bail was set at $200,000. On Thursday she remanded in custody at the Las...

New York's Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez’s highest‑profile outing on the world stage yet at the Munich Security Conference last week has sharpened speculation about her long‑term political ambitions. Newsweek has reached out to Ocasio‑Cortez via email for comment. Why It Matters Ocasio‑Cortez’s emergence on an international platform comes as Democrats begin to look beyond President Donald Trump's time in office and toward a generational reshaping of party leadership. How seriously she is taken as a future contender is increasingly reflected in both betting odds and prediction markets. What To Know Ocasio‑Cortez’s trip to Germany marked her most prominent international appearance...

In 2023, newly disclosed documents related to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein revealed meetings and financial interactions between Epstein and the eminent linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky. The disclosures did not accuse Chomsky of criminal conduct. But they confirmed that, years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor, Chomsky met with him multiple times and discussed financial matters. Chomsky’s response was characteristically blunt: his meetings with Epstein, he said, were “none of your business.” The tone may have been legally defensible. Culturally and symbolically, it was something else. Because Chomsky is not merely a professor emeritus at MIT....

Young Scottish actress Mandipa Kabana has been cast to play Joan of Arc in a 2026 Scottish theatrical production that explores the “power of youth-led change”. 'Classic tale of war, duplicity, power and wealth gets a fresh new treatment' writes The Herald about the upcoming theatre adaption of Joan of Arc. Stewart Laing, the theatre director who cast Mandipa, had compared the French Patron Saint to Greta Thunberg: "Look at someone like Greta Thunberg. There are young people with loud voices protesting against those in power."

Follow live updates on New York City politics as Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a record $127 billion budget proposal Tuesday. The eye-popping amount — that one insider called “insanity” — is up around $11 billion from the current year. The socialist city leader’s plan includes a whopping 9.5% proposed property tax hike on New Yorkers, which he claims would be a “last resort” — while allocating another $1.2 billion for migrants. Mamdani, 34, unveiled his preliminary budget from the Blue Room at NYC City Hall this afternoon. Get the latest news, analysis and more from our local politics reporters with...

A California Teacher of the Year finalist has been arrested for trying to pay for sexual acts with an undercover cop posing as a 13-year-old boy. Ruben Guzman, an assistant principal and math teacher at Sunrise Middle School in San Jose, was snared when he organized for them to meet up last week. The 31-year-old, who was also recognized by the San Francisco 49ers for his work in the classroom, was cuffed by San Jose police and the FBI on the scene. It came as part of a wider bust that saw 10 others across the region caught over alleged...

Selloff wipes out nearly $1 trillion from software and services stocks as investors debate AI's existential threat Summary: Companies: Software stocks fall on AI disruption fears, but selling intensity eases Scramble to shield portfolios as AI muddies valuations, business prospects Selloff has been overdone, analyst says Software and service stocks shed $830 billion in market value in six trading days Feb 4 (Reuters) - Investors were assessing on Wednesday whether a selloff in global software stocks this week had gone too far, as they weighed if businesses could survive an existential threat posed by artificial intelligence. The answer: It's unclear,...

A twisted New Jersey teacher who groomed and abused two students ended up getting pregnant by one of the teens — then broke his heart by getting an abortion, it was revealed as she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Julie Rizzitello, who was an English teacher at Wall Township High School, had told one of her victims that she’d gotten pregnant after convincing him to have unprotected sex with her on his birthday, it was revealed in court Wednesday, according to Jersey Shore Online. The 37-year-old mom later informed the teenager, whom she’d groomed as a freshman, that...

An old newspaper page from 1986 has resurfaced on social media, showing math teachers protesting against the use of calculators in the classroom, until upper grades. Back then, the concerns were not only about students' academic dependency, but many feared that it would replace human skills and take away jobs that depended on manual calculation. Years later, the history appears to repeat itself. This time, the conversation has shifted from calculators to Artificial Intelligence, as an AI tool can take on tasks like -- writing, designing, teaching, and problem-solving, eventually weakening critical thinking, creativity and overall learning process. Just like...

I just watched a TV ad for the new Unrivaled woman's basketball league. A player comes on and says:...the new Unrivaled league is unpresidented I guess they don't allow the President to watch. Public education probably allows her to say this, but how does this slip by the ad company?

Abstract AIs have made rapid progress on research-oriented benchmarks of knowledge and reasoning, but it remains unclear how these gains translate into economic value and automation. To measure this, we introduce the Remote Labor Index (RLI), a broadly multi-sector benchmark comprising real-world, economically valuable projects designed to evaluate end-to-end agent performance in practical settings. AI agents perform near the floor on RLI, with the highest-performing agent achieving an automation rate of 2.5%. These results help ground discussions of AI automation in empirical evidence, setting a common basis for tracking AI impacts and enabling stakeholders to proactively navigate AI-driven labor automation....

Why 95% of enterprise AI projects fail to deliver ROI: A data analysis American enterprises spent an estimated $40 billion on artificial intelligence systems in 2024, according to MIT research. Yet the same study found that 95% of companies are seeing zero measurable bottom-line impact from their AI investments. The pattern is remarkably consistent across industries. Companies invest millions in AI infrastructure, train models on internal data, deploy systems to assist sales teams or automate marketing workflows—and then watch as adoption stalls or results disappoint. The technology works in demos but fails in daily operations. MIT's Project NANDA calls it...

The heated exchange centered around a recent resolution criticizing ICE officers — a move critics say was rushed through without public awareness.

A North Carolina celebrity sheriff who opposes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also lacks a basic grasp on the three branches of government – and which one he serves under. [...] Sheriff McFadden has made a name for himself by opposing ICE. Soon after taking over as the county’s top cop in 2018, McFadden announced he would no longer cooperate with the federal agency under the 287(g) program. This allows local law enforcement to receive funding to help with immigration enforcement.

In this article, I want to focus on one particular document from 2018. It is a wire transfer request form that is dated June 12th that shows that six 55 gallon drums of sulphuric acid were purchased for Epstein’s private island. Interestingly, June 12th was also the exact day when the FBI began investigating Epstein’s sex trafficking operation…

Reports identify Jesse Strang as the alleged transgender suspect in the Canada mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, though authorities have not officially confirmed the shooter’s identity. Canada shooter identfied? Authorities launched an intense investigation after two mass shootings in Canada on Tuesday (Feb 10). At least nine people were reported killed, and dozens were injured after an alleged shooter launched open fire at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. What did Police say? The police said they were aware who the suspect was, but did not disclose their identity, except that it was a woman with brown hair and wearing...