Free Republic

A new study published in Scientific Reports suggests that the connection between a young adult’s cognitive ability and their future socioeconomic status is largely driven by their genes. The findings provide evidence that genetic factors play a larger role in educational and occupational success than environmental conditions. This underlying biology may help explain why some social interventions aimed at reducing inequality tend to fall short over the long term.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, reversed himself on the Senate filibuster Wednesday after years of unflinching support for the 60-vote threshold to pass most bills. Now, locked in a competitive Republican runoff for his Senate seat and eyeing President Donald Trump's endorsement, Cornyn says he'll support "whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary" to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul bill that Trump has called his No. 1 priority. Cornyn's comments are part of an op-ed he wrote in the New York Post published Wednesday, titled: "Why the SAVE Act matters more than the filibuster." The...

Mojtaba Khamenei has been named Iran’s new supreme leader, succeeding his father just more than a week after he was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes. A statement from the Assembly of Experts — the panel of Shia clerics responsible under Iranian law for choosing the country’s top leader — said Mojtaba Khamenei had been selected as the third leader of the Islamic Republic, according to reports from IRIB state TV and the Fars, Tasnim and ISNA news agencies. Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is widely viewed as a hard-line figure with close ties to the powerful...

President Trump announced Thursday on social media that he was firing his homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and wanted Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma to replace her. Mr. Trump said Ms. Noem, whose tenure had been marred by a string of controversies, would move into a previously nonexistent security role. Ms. Noem is the first cabinet member to be ousted in Mr. Trump’s second term. She faced intense questioning this week from congressional Republicans about a $220 million advertising campaign in which she figured prominently, and Mr. Trump on Thursday contradicted her testimony that he had signed off on the...

The resolution, adopted last week, made a host of recommendations for the EU to pursue at the 70th annual UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is set to take place next month. Among the recommendations was a proclamation emphasising the “importance of the full recognition of trans women as women, noting that their inclusion is essential for the effectiveness of any gender-equality and anti-violence policies”. Other proclamations referencing LGBTQ+ people included the need for a “comprehensive tool to monitor and counter democratic backsliding and backsliding in women’s rights”, as well as the acknowledgement of a rise in attacks...

Gus Kenworthy, a British-American Olympic skier who is set to compete for Great Britain in freestyle skiing, posted a graphic anti-ICE message on his social media as opening ceremonies were set to begin for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday. Kenworthy posted a photo on his Instagram that showed the words “f–k ICE” on snow in what appeared to be urine. He urged Americans to call their senators to pressure them into voting against Department of Homeland Security funding negotiations. “Innocent people have been murdered, and enough is enough,” he captioned the post. “We can’t wait around while ICE...

"Amazon fired 16,000 employees last week. At first glance, the terminations appeared standard. Online retail demand fluctuates with the seasons, and orders always decrease following the holidays. Factor in a few extra weeks of busyness due to post-Christmas returns, and late January makes sense as a time for layoffs. The gift-giving rush is over, so warehouses no longer need as many people. That is not a defense of a multi-trillion-dollar company pulling the plug on $15-per-hour workers, but if you’re a shrewd capitalist, the justification checks out. But there’s more to the story. It turns out the 16,000 fired Amazonians,...

Five months after her boyfriend’s headless body was discovered inside her home, a California woman who had been working as an exotic dancer has been extradited from Mexico to face murder charges. Alyssa Marie Lira, 23, of Anaheim, faces one count of murder with a felony enhancement for personally using a weapon, prosecutors announced Thursday. On Aug. 25, 2025, the decapitated body of 55-year-old Enrique Gonzalez-Carbajal was found inside Lira’s Anaheim home. Homicide detectives quickly identified Lira as the suspect, prosecutors said, and learned she had fled to Mexico. The couple had been dating for about two months and met...

Everyone keeps repeating the same two claims about the Pretti shooting: “He had a right to carry.” “He had a right to film.” Both statements are true. And both are meaningless without context. In this episode, I explain why focusing on abstract rights while ignoring real-world behavior leads to bad conclusions — and dangerous lessons. Carrying a firearm doesn’t make you more entitled to confrontation. It makes you more responsible for avoiding it. Filming law enforcement doesn’t mean you can interfere with an active operation. And slogans about “rights” don’t override duty-to-retreat laws, lawful orders, or basic survival reality. This...

There's a report of another shooting involving ICE in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to Fox News' Bill Melugin: BREAKING: I’m told by four law enforcement sources there has been another ICE involved shooting in Minneapolis tonight. I’m told ICE was making contact with a target who then allegedly assaulted an officer with a shovel or swung a shovel, shots were fired, and the suspect ran back to a house. No info yet on if anyone was actually shot - just that shots were fired. Very preliminary info - more as we get it.Melugin later confirmed that the man was shot, was...

“The U.S. State Department and Virtual Embassy Tehran issued a sweeping warning to American citizens in Iran to “leave now,” citing a surge in nationwide protests, violence and internet blackout. The advisory came Monday as Iran entered its third week of anti-government demonstrations, with hundreds killed and thousands detained, according to rights groups and news reports.”

The family-owned company that operates The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said on Wednesday that the newspaper will cease publication on Sunday, May 3, signaling the end of a publication whose origins date to 1786. The company, Block Communications, said it had lost more than $350 million over the past 20 years while publishing the newspaper. In a statement, it said the financial pressures facing local journalism had made “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.” The company cited recent court decisions that required The Post-Gazette to operate under the terms of a 2014-17 labor contract, which it described as imposing...

“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump wrote in a post on social media. Large institutional investors such as Blackstone, JPMorgan Chase, and other banks and investment firms have increasingly snapped up family homes in recent years, eyeing rising returns on home prices. These investors often buy and rent out homes

The ongoing Somali fraud scandal has brought an end to Governor Tim Walz’s political career in Minnesota. He announced this morning that he will not seek a third term. Here is Walz’s full statement via KTTC: In September, I announced that I would run for a historic third term as Minnesota’s Governor. And I have every confidence that, if I gave it my all, I would succeed in that effort. But as I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all....

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz abruptly dropped his bid for a third term on Monday, amid a growing fraud scandal in which allegedly billions of taxpayer dollars were swindled on his watch. Democrat Walz, former Vice President Kamala Harris’ veep pick in 2024, had launched his campaign for a third term back in September. No Minnesota governor has been elected three times since the term of office was doubled to four years in the 1960s. “In September, I announced that I would run for a historic third term as Minnesota’s Governor. And I have every confidence that, if I gave it...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said on Tuesday that he plans to “go on offense” against federal agents in California, charging them with crimes and preventing them from driving in the state. If elected governor in November, “what I’m going to do is make sure that they take off their masks and show their faces, that they show their identification, and if they commit crimes, that they’re going to be charged with crimes,” Swalwell said on MS NOW’s All In. “I also think if the governor has the ability to issue driver’s licenses to people in California,” he continued, “if you’re...

Most of us have moved on from the global warming hoax — but not the moonbats running New York, unfortunately for kids. Via Fox Business: Parents in western New York are raising alarms over cold rides and breakdowns after officials mandated that all school bus purchases must be electric by 2027. Kids come home frozen in the Lake Shore Central School District. Already nearly half of its buses are electric. Running the heat drains their batteries. Several parents told the outlet that they heard of at least one instance of the buses breaking down, in addition to the heating issues....

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the US "needs" Greenland for security reasons and has refused to rule out using force to secure it.Denmark summoned the United States ambassador on Monday (Dec 22) after US President Donald Trump appointed a special envoy to Greenland who immediately vowed to make the Danish autonomous territory "a part of the US". Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has repeatedly said the US "needs" the resource-rich Arctic island for security reasons and has refused to rule out using force to secure it. On Sunday, Trump appointed Louisiana governor Jeff Landry...

PHOENIX — For a second day in a row, a long-brewing internal fight among MAGA influencers spilled onto the stage of Turning Point USA's first annual conference since the September slaying of Charlie Kirk, the organization's co-founder.Podcaster Ben Shapiro, speaking on the AmericaFest convention's opening night Thursday, ripped into right-wing broadcasters Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, as well as white nationalist Nick Fuentes.At the core of his argument is a case that Owens has peddled conspiracy theories, without objection from Kelly and other prominent conservatives, about Kirk's assassination. Those theories include suggestions that foreign governments —...

The federal government will launch a new gun buyback scheme in response to the Bondi beach terror attack in what Anthony Albanese says will be the biggest collection of weapons since the Port Arthur massacre nearly three decades ago. It comes as New South Wales announced a suite of gun control measures including capping the number of firearms most recreational shooters can hold at four. Costs for the buyback, which is expected to see hundreds of thousands of weapons destroyed, will be split between the federal government and the states, the prime minister said on Friday. States and territories will...