Free Republic

NFL draft prospects opting out of their bowl games to avoid injuries has become commonplace in college football. Miami quarterback Cam Ward did something on Saturday that takes opt-outs to another level. Ward played in Miami’s bowl game, threw three touchdown passes in the first half and then sat for the second half as his teammates lost a 42-41 heartbreaker to Iowa State.

University of Miami journalism professor Tsitsi Wakhisi remembers Trayvon Martin. Ten years ago, Sybrina Fulton joined the Black mothers’ crying line. She had lost her 17-year-old son, Trayvon, after he had walked too slowly in the rain at his father’s housing complex in Sanford. It made his killer, George Zimmerman, think he was “suspicious.” Since then, more Black mothers have joined Fulton in the crying line, and still more are coming. But Black mothers have been crying for centuries, mourning the sons they got … but did not get to keep. Not in America. Whether slave owners yanked your child...

Fresh off of renewed questions about a grant given to a health organization that worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the National Institutes of Health is in the spotlight for giving grants to a man charged with illegally supplying high-tech medical equipment to Iran.According to a Justice Department news release, Dr. Mohammad Faghihi was charged Tuesday with conspiracy to commit money laundering, unlawful exports of goods to Iran, smuggling goods out of and into the U.S., wire fraud and making false statements.Faghihi, a former associate professor at the University of Miami who was born in Iran, was charged in...

Former NFL star Kellen Winslow Jr., 35, was convicted on Monday of raping a 58-year-old homeless woman in Encinitas last May by a jury in Southern California. Winslow was also found guilty of indecent exposure toward the woman and of lewd conduct. But the jury remained deadlocked on six other felony charges, including two more counts of rape involving a 54-year-old hitchhiker last year and an unconscious 17-year-old girl in 2003.

Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled her long-awaited “Green New Deal," a plan aimed at drastically reducing carbon emissions in the next ten years. The plan has already received the endorsements of Democrat presidential candidates, like Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris but, for others, it has turned heads for its drastic approach to fighting climate change. Among the proposals initially listed in the plan were moving away completely from oil, coal, and natural gas within ten years, creating a high-speed rail system to help eliminate air travel, and renovating every home in America. Ocasio-Cortez has since removed the document...

...the University of Miami received a donation in late April from a wealthy atheist to endow what it says is the nation’s first academic chair “for the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics.” ...established after years of discussion with a $2.2 million donation from Louis Appignani, a retired businessman and former president and chairman of the modeling school Barbizon... ....“I’m trying to eliminate discrimination against atheists,” said Appignani, 83, a Florida resident. “So this is a step in that direction, to make atheism legitimate.” ....It took some persuading for the University of Miami to agree to create a chair...

There’s no danger that the tax subsidy granted to donors to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation will be used to benefit conservatives. Not if the new president of the 2-billion-dollar slush fund foundation has anything to say about it. The Daily Caller reports: The outgoing University of Miami president tapped to head the Clinton Foundation once tried to block a conservative group founded by four female students from organizing on campus. Donna Shalala, who also served as former President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, was recently hand-picked to take over as CEO of the Bill,...