Free Republic

The shocking cause of death for the California-based food influencer Michael Duarte has been revealed more than a month after he was shot and killed by a Texas sheriff’s deputy. Duarte — known online as FoodWithBearHands — died from a gunshot wound, a spokesperson for the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office told People on Wednesday. The full autopsy report remains pending, the spokesperson said.

A Swiss wind instrument repairman is serving a ten-day jail sentence after refusing to pay a fine imposed for a comment he made on Facebook about biological sex. Emanuel Brünisholz, from Burgdorf in the canton of Bern, responded to a December 2022 post by Swiss National Councillor Andreas Glarner, writing: “If you excavate LGBTQI people after 200 years, you will only find men and women among the skeletons; everything else is a mental illness that was fostered by the curriculum!” As we reported, the comment, which stressed the immutability of biological sex, triggered complaints from activists who accused him of...

A Swiss man, Emanuel Brünisholz, is serving 10 days in prison in Switzerland for saying on Facebook that skeletons are either male or female. For that remark I was fined 500 Swiss francs. I refused to pay, and so, on the 2nd of December 2025, I will serve ten days in prison. It is worth noting that, legally speaking, this prison sentence is not a punishment for refusing to pay the fine. Instead, the prison sentence is an alternative way to be punished for the Facebook post itself. I have chosen to trade a monetary fine for time behind bars....

In October 2021, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that his social media empire was officially rebranding itself as “Meta” as part of a sweeping company-wide doubling down on virtual reality tech.The head-scratching pivot has been nothing short of a disaster ever since, from blocky “Horizon Worlds” online environments filled with screeching children to never-ending rounds of layoffs and exorbitant losses.All told, the company has lost more than $70 billion since the beginning of 2021 on its enormous long-term VR bet, a staggering sum that has left investors itchy and unimpressed as Zuckerberg has failed to convince the public of the...

Meta halted internal research that purportedly showed that people who stopped using Facebook became less depressed and anxious, according to a legal filing that was released on Friday. The social media giant was alleged to have initiated the study, dubbed Project Mercury, in late 2019 as a way to help it “explore the impact that our apps have on polarization, news consumption, well-being, and daily social interactions,” according to the legal brief, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The filing contains newly unredacted information pertaining to Meta. The newly released legal brief is...

Sex trafficking on Meta platforms was both difficult to report and widely tolerated, according to a court filing unsealed Friday. In a plaintiffs’ brief filed as part of a major lawsuit against four social media companies, Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being Vaishnavi Jayakumar testified that when she joined Meta in 2020 she was shocked to learn that the company had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex.” “You could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended,” Jayakumar reportedly...

A Washington congresswoman is pointing the finger at daylight saving time for her son’s recent mishap in which he incurred a bad bloody nose, using the incident as a springboard to do away with the semiannual changing of the clocks altogether. “My kid just got his first gusher bloody nose. Thank you Daylight Savings Time for this annual rug pull,” Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, 37, perplexingly wrote on X and Facebook Sunday. “And it’s not just about tired kids bumping into s–t – research shows car and other accidents spike in the days and weeks following the time change,”...

A woman faced a clash between social expectations and personal boundaries when asked to give up her extra airplane seat for a child. Choosing comfort over pressure, she stood her ground unapologetic, firm, and ready to face the moral debate that followed. Here’s a story Martha shared with us: “Hi, Bright Side,So, this is what happened to me on a flight and I sincerely need opinions on whether I’m wrong here.I’m on the heavier side, and for longer flights, I’ve learned it’s better for everyone if I just buy an extra seat. It’s expensive, sure, but it means I can...

In an awesome raid out in California, the Department of Justice arrested ten suspects who are accused of attacking federal immigration authorities. The ten arrested are accused of attacking federal officers during riots regarding attempts to lock up illegal aliens in and around Los Angeles over the summer. As background, the Trump Administration has prioritized cracking down on illegal aliens in sanctuary cities across the country, such as Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles. As part of that, ICE has been fighting against rioters who have attempted to block them from doing their job and arresting illegal aliens. Amongst the most...

Sorry, Facebook friend says "fact-check", "it's a thing", and I don't have time for that. What do you think of these claims about how "cruel" and "horrible" Trump's raids are? I'll include another ass who posted her claims too. Of course they cry "racism" and of course, are very non-self-aware regarding "DISGUSTING, DESPICABLE" and "classy" when it comes to supporting endless riots!

A group called Stand for Palestine Australia announced it would hold a “Glory to Our Martyrs” rally on October 7 — the anniversary of the horrifying Hamas terrorist attack that launched the Gaza war — in the western Sydney suburb of Bankstown. New South Wales (NSW) Premier Chris Minns said he was appalled by the “terrible timing” of the event. “Terrible timing, shockingly insensitive,” Minns said in a radio interview on Tuesday. “We understand that there is concern about innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but to do it … on 7th, seems like they are glorifying the actions of these...

Two City of Fort Worth employees faced criticism after posting comments about Charlie Kirk following his assassination. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated during a Q&A at Utah Valley University on September 10. The event was the first stop of the group’s “American Comeback Tour.” Kristina Ashton, a senior administrative services manager with the Fort Worth Park & Recreation Department, criticized Kirk in a Facebook post, alleging that during a past encounter he had made remarks about women. “Charlie Kirk told my daughter and me that we shouldn’t be able...

A city councilwoman in Oklahoma resigned this week after it was revealed that she told a supporter of President Donald Trump to kill herself. Bree Montoya, who represented Ward 3 in Norman, a city just south of Oklahoma City, got into a spat with a Facebook user in June over the size of the local 'No Kings' protests. These demonstrations occurred all over the United States and largely coincided with the US Army parade in Washington, D.C. celebrating the military branch's 250th anniversary. When arguing about the protest in Norman, Montoya told a woman named Audra Abbott to 'open a...

A British police officer has been recorded confronting a Donald Trump supporter over a Facebook post that “upset someone."

If you can't resist the urge to check your phone over and over, even if you're out with friends, Meta has a solution: check your glasses instead...Meta's Reality Labs division burns cash at an alarming rate, which has concerned investors over the years...Meta has had its fair share of flops, like the entire promise of its social metaverse...But with the Meta Ray-Ban Display, Meta has created a remarkable piece of technology, unlike any other consumer-facing product on the market -- we have yet to test it ourselves, so we can't quite say just how groundbreaking this really is, but it...

A financial breakdown of what goes into each puppy that comes out of a reputable breeding program. Once you choose to get a dog from a breeder, it’s helpful to arm yourself with facts, so you understand the cost of raising a litter of responsibly bred puppies. Costs vary widely across different breeds and specific litters. This article outlines the general costs and how much effort, work, and sacrifice goes into a litter. The price varies from program to program, but paying more money for a puppy that comes from a thorough and ethical breeding program can help save costs...

The Harris-Biden administration’s campaign to censor COVID-related content on Facebook during the height of the pandemic – as revealed by a remorseful Mark Zuckerberg this week – was so aggressive that it even cracked down on lighthearted memes, satirical posts and regular old jokes. On Monday, Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that “senior Biden administration officials, including the White House, “repeatedly pressured” Facebook parent Meta to “censor” pandemic-related content in 2021, as well as The Post’s exclusive reporting on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. The takedown requests included posts that Zuckerberg considered...

A shadowy for-profit company and its nonprofit counterpart provide free services to at least 40 far-left prosecutor offices, raising questions about whether it’s working on behalf of taxpayers or of donors who have essentially bought government. The Wren Collective is a shadowy group that emerged from a Cold War-era initiative aimed at promoting Soviet films in the United States. Its current iteration — funded by a former Enron executive and host of other leftist megadonors — claims that America’s “system of policing and mass incarceration is deeply flawed and intractably racist.” The group has intervened on specific criminal cases, written...

In a bombshell development that has rocked the political landscape, federal investigators have uncovered financial transactions linking Tyler Robinson, the confessed assassin of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). According to sources familiar with the ongoing probe, Robinson received multiple wire transfers from DSA-affiliated accounts in the months leading up to the fatal shooting in Orem, Utah. The funds, totaling over $50,000, were funneled through shell organizations ostensibly for "community organizing" efforts but appear to have directly supported Robinson's logistics, including travel and weapon acquisition. Prominent DSA members, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and New...

A pair of Cornell University students killed a 120-pound black bear before bringing the carcass back to their dorm, where they skinned and butchered the remains, officials said Thursday. The two undergrads who had “valid New York State hunting licenses killed a bear lawfully over the weekend,” a Cornell spokesperson said in a statement. The students then “brought the animal into a Cornell residence hall for processing on Saturday” before a “police report was made when a complaint was filed late Sunday night,” the school official said, adding that “no charges have been filed.” An investigator with the Department of...