Free Republic

BLUE MOUNDS, Wisc. – Ridglan Farms, a breeder of beagles for scientific experiments, has withstood attacks from the animal rights movement for years. Activists have broken into its buildings to document the conditions inside them, rescued some dogs, and pushed Wisconsin authorities to cite the company for animal abuse. On April 30, Ridglan finally buckled to the public pressure, handing the movement against animal testing one of its biggest triumphs. Big Dog Rescue and the Center for a Humane Economy announced that the groups reached an agreement to purchase 1,500 beagles for an undisclosed amount of money. The dogs are...

The numbers don’t add up! New York City is already dumping a record $43 billion into its public schools while spending heaps more per-student than any other large US district — despite plummeting enrollment and mediocre test results. The massive price tag for educating Big Apple students could grow even more as Mayor Zohran Mamdani is finalizing his first budget proposal and as the city is already spending $44,000 per student — an unsustainable level of spending, budget watchdogs and education analysts said. The spending is also unacceptable, given Big Apple students’ middle-of-the-pack showing among urban school districts on standardized...

Area 51 experienced at least 17 earthquakes in a single day this week, with stumped experts admitting the behavior is highly “unusual.” The secretive Nevada Air Force base, long associated with reports of UFOs, was hit by comparatively shallow quakes, prompting conspiracy theories about nuclear testing. The cluster of earthquakes ranged in magnitude from 2.5 to 4.4 and struck near the base, which is about 80 miles from Las Vegas, according to US Geological Survey (USGS) data. The first, most powerful quake, struck 2.5 miles below ground just after 3 p.m. Wednesday local time, followed by more than a dozen...

In 1963, USS Thresher imploded at test depth killing all 129 aboard—the Navy blamed a "piping failure" and closed the case. But declassified documents from the 2000s revealed the submarine had over 800 documented defects before diving, whistleblower testimony proved inspectors were pressured to approve faulty welds, and acoustic analysis of the final moments shows the crew knew they were dying for nearly 5 minutes as water flooded in. The Navy knew Thresher wasn't safe, sent her down anyway, then spent 60 years hiding that 129 men died from institutional negligence, not accident. 26 Minute VIDEO AT LINK...............

🚨 BREAKING: President Trump's FDA is ABOLISHING inhumane treatment and testing of beagles, chimpanzees and other animals Good! This is common sense! STOP abusing dogs. Commissioner Makary says ALL beagles that the FDA housed were removed from custody "Scientists have really preyed on beagles because beagles are docile animals...Those kennels are EMPTY, and so we are making massive strides to reducing animal testing in different classes of medications on a roadmap that we have." "I'm also proud to report that you no longer need to submit data using 144 chimpanzees for a class of drugs called monoclonal antibodies. That was...

TEMPERANCE, Mich. – Several grass roots champions and rookies of the year will make their first laps at Daytona International Speedway during the ARCA Menards Series “Road to Daytona” program at the series’ annual pre-race practice on Jan. 9-10. Drivers from the ARCA Menards Series East and West, NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, NASCAR Weekly Series, ASA CRA Super Series, ASA Midwest Tour, and ASA Southern Super Series will make laps in cars prepared by 1995 ARCA Menards Series national champion (Indiana) Andy Hillenburg’s Fast Track High Performance Racing Team with support from Ilmor, Hoosier Tire, Sunoco, Eibach Springs, and JRI...

Kirill Dmitriev — Vladmir Putin’s special envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — is suddenly ubiquitous. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been largely quiet since his maximalist negotiating approach with Team Trump failed. Moscow, presumably largely guided by Lavrov, after winning a concession on Tomahawk missiles, opted to continue Putin’s hardline demands for ending the war in Ukraine ahead of the proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. NATO would have to admit that it was the root cause of the war. Kyiv would have to cede all of the Donbas, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine would...

In this fraught international context, Trump is acting totally saneDonald Trump has exercised the nuclear option, sort of. Sitting somewhere in South Korea, the President launched a Truth Social post on the topic of nukes: “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” Then he thanked the world for its attention and sallied into a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.That timing isn’t coincidental. The Red Dragon has spent the last decade hoarding nuclear warheads – almost as if there...

A California man was charged Monday with operating a ring of illegal test-takers who helped dozens of Middle Eastern nationals obtain U.S. student visas by passing proficiency and college-placement exams for them. Eamonn Daniel Higgins, 46, of Laguna Niguel made an appearance in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana on one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud as immigration agents arrested 16 of his suspected clients who remained in Southern California... The allegations revealed a potentially dangerous security breach in the country's student visa system and underscored the vulnerability of a tracking process that relies on schools to verify...

After months of speculation and sky-high conspiracy theories, the mystery around those mysterious drones has finally been grounded. Sort of. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt relayed a message “directly” from President Donald Trump during her first press briefing on Tuesday, Jan. 28, addressing the drones that have been seen over the tri-state since late last year. “After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) for research and various other reasons,” Leavitt quoted Trump as saying. “Many of these drones were also hobbyist, recreational, and...

Tonight is the first launch attempt for Blue Origin's New Glenn orbital glass rocket. This is Blue Origin's first orbital attempt. They've been to the edge of space with their New Shepherd rocket.

Moscow has warned Donald Trump against resuming the testing of nuclear weapons when he takes office, saying it would “not rule anything out” in response to US aggression. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister who oversees arms control, noted that Mr Trump refused to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty during his first term. Referencing this refusal, Mr Ryabkov said: “American policy in its various aspects is extremely hostile to us today.” “So the options for us to act in the interests of ensuring security and the potential measures and actions we have to do this - and to send politically...

BANGKOK, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Tuesday said part of the government's vaunted 450 billion baht ($13.1 billion) "digital wallet" handout will be distributed in cash, in another change to its flagship populist policy. Details are still being finalised and will be announced in a policy statement to parliament, she added. The digital wallet handout had previously entailed transferring 10,000 baht ($292) in credit to 50 million Thais via a smartphone application to spend in their localities within six months.

Iran is reportedly advancing its secret nuclear weapons program, bringing it closer to the capability of building a nuclear bomb, according to an exclusive report citing Iranian officials published on Wednesday by Iran International. Three independent sources in Iran, who have chosen to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the information, told Iran International that the Islamic Republic has made significant progress in its nuclear program.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif gave an interview Sunday night urging folks to not bully Olympic athletes online, but her compassion was completely misplaced - it focused solely on her, not the women she and fellow alleged XY-chromosome holder Lin Yu-Ting have physically bullied over the past week, women whose lifelong dreams were shattered. In an AP article headlined, "Olympic boxer Imane Khelif calls for end to bullying after backlash over gender misconceptions," Khelif is quoted as saying: “I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- During the height of the pandemic, many Bay Area school children took part in what families say was advertised as free COVID-19 testing at schools covered by the CARES Act. But now three years later, some families say they're still receiving bills from the lab that conducted the tests. That lab is now suing health insurance companies for reimbursements they say they're owed. As COVID raged during the early pandemic, COVID testing at schools was critical and welcomed. "The testing was supposed to be free testing that we got that was performed by a laboratory that...

head of President Biden’s first address in the Oval Office since announcing he was dropping out of the presidential race, the North American Aerospace Defense Command Public Affairs (NORAD) says it sent out fighter jets to intercept two Russian Tu-95 "Bear" bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers off the coast of Alaska. In a press release from NORAD, the agency confirmed that they detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian TU-95 and two PRC H-6 military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on July 24.

WASHINGTON — Amid delays and cost overruns for key F-35 upgrades, officials have increasingly emphasized the need to tackle a top issue for the Joint Strike Fighter enterprise: a limited and aging testing infrastructure, whose woes could delay or endanger future upgrades to the jet. And now that a brand new F-35 test jet crashed last week, the stealth fighter’s testing problems could get even worse, fleet numbers shared exclusively with Breaking Defense show. “Any crash of our military aircraft is of utmost concern. While we know that expanding F-35 test capacity is the first step to fundamental F-35 transformation,...

Yale University will once again require standardized testing for students applying for admission in the fall of 2025. The decision, announced today, ends the test-optional undergraduate admissions process that had been in place at Yale since the pandemic. According to the announcement, the past four years of test-optional admissions had given Yale what it described as “an invaluable opportunity to think deeply about testing policy and to generate new data and analyses. With testing availability now fully restored for prospective applicants around the world, we have reevaluated our policy with the benefit of fresh insights.” Yale is describing its new...

Nearly four years after announcing it would temporarily remove the testing requirement for applicants, Dartmouth has announced it is reinstating the SAT.When Dartmouth suspended its standardized testing requirement for undergraduate applicants in June 2020, it was a pragmatic pause taken by most colleges and universities in response to an unprecedented global pandemic. At the time, we imagined the resulting "test-optional" policy as a short-term practice rather than an informed commentary on the role of testing in our holistic evaluation process. Nearly four years later, having studied the role of testing in our admissions process as well as its value as...