Free Republic

Pastor Y Hin Nie, 75, preaches the gospel from the comfort of his church in the US state of North Carolina. But as a young man he survived nearly two decades in the jungle, giving sermons to his comrades fighting Vietnamese troops long after the war had ended - his AK-47 never far from his side. On the run and cut off from the world, Hin Nie and his unit of insurgents foraged for food and hunted for tiger skins to pay the Khmer Rouge. His "forgotten army" did not give up arms until 1992, after Hin Nie negotiated their...

All the other parents I told about my plan for “dead week” reacted in the same way. “What a great idea! “Dead week” in Juneau is the week before school starts, when there are no camps, and the district-sponsored after-school and summer program takes a break to prepare for the school year...I realized that for $299, I could take my first-grader on an Alaska cruise. I’d never been on a cruise and, as someone who has lived in Juneau through the cruise industry’s explosive growth, I have mixed feelings about it... I booked last minute and the total came out...

August 18 marks the anniversary of one of the greatest enduring mysteries of US colonial history: the Lost Colony of Roanoke. While the bizarre incident is often dubbed "America's oldest unsolved mystery," we now have a pretty good idea of what occurred (it just took 400 or so years to get a clear idea). In 1587, colonizers from England, ...led by John White, landed on Roanoke Island just off the eastern coast of North America, in what is now Dare County, North Carolina. It was the second attempt to set up a permanent colony, the first having failed two years...

All over TikTok, “girl math” is being used to justify almost any purchase, from everyday things like $5 coffees to big-ticket items like concert tickets. While everyone’s version of girl math is different, it typically involves rationalizing your spending in often illogical ways. Say you buy your daily coffee with cash, rather than your credit card — it’s basically free, according to girl math. Or perhaps you make an expensive purchase, like a designer handbag — just use girl math to break the price down on a “cost per wear” basis so it doesn’t seem as pricey as it really...

It’s a party all around for this 6-year-old. Tiny trendsetter Rory Ehrlich took out the top spot for this year’s Kids Mullet Championships, with his hairstyle dubbed the “Cheddar Wiz.” A Pennsylvania kid’s professional-in-the-front, party-in-the-back hairstyle won in a hairy competition between 300 kids ages 3-8. “He was invited to the Phillies game and he got to meet with John Kruk and talk mullets,” Airen Ehrlich, Rory’s mother, told WPVI-TV. “Rory now thinks that John Kruk is his bestie.” In addition to becoming Kruk’s best friend, the 6-year-old won $5,000 in prize money. He has big plans for his winnings,...

It’s Tuesday afternoon, around 1 o’clock, and the main room at Whiskers and Soda cat cafe is buzzing with a low din of 30 cat-happy customers, many of them children. Shannon Regan, a computer programmer, sits at a table, wearing a headset. Once a week, he drives 30 minutes to the café to work remotely. And yes, cats do jump on his laptop’s keyboard and press buttons. He doesn’t seem to mind about the cats or the noise. After working in silence at home, “a little noise can be comforting,” he said. His kids clamor to go with him to...

Eric Roberts is the most hardworking, famous actor in Hollywood who you might not have heard of… but you’ve definitely seen him. That’s because he’s starred in approximately 667 movies and TV series – and has 77 upcoming (although that figure is sure to have changed by the time of publication). You may know him as the older brother of Pretty Woman icon Julia Roberts and the dad of horror scream queen and rom-com darling Emma Roberts, but this is one accomplished actor who deserves to be known in his own right. This year alone, Roberts, 67, has appeared in...

JTA — While the United States swung its door shut to most refugees during World War II, a young American in France saved thousands, including some of the 20th century’s defining artists and thinkers — such as Marc Chagall and Hannah Arendt — from the Nazis. The rescue mission of Varian Fry, which went largely unrecognized during his life, is the subject of Netflix’s new drama “Transatlantic,” launching Friday from “Unorthodox” creator Anna Winger. Starring Cory Michael Smith as Fry, the seven-episode “Transatlantic” aims to recreate his operation in Marseille after the Nazis defeated France and before the United States...

A good first line is not always necessary because who stops reading after one sentence? But it can be extremely useful in building expectations for the style and characterisation that will follow. While book jackets can indicate a broad genre, that line can define the subgenre. The opening may establish the tone, character, location, era or season but it can also pull a reader into the realm of the story that follows, and often into the head of the protagonist or into an alternate reality. When we open a book, we are ready to embark on a journey. The starter...

A man from Mississauga, Ont., told British customs agents at Aberdeen airport he didn’t have the padlock codes to open his two suitcases, but officers forced them open anyway. Inside they found nearly 33 kilos of cannabis. Pawlo Albanskyj, 29, was flying from Toronto to Birmingham, England, via Amsterdam, on Dec. 11, 2022, when his flight was rerouted to Aberdeen airport in Scotland, authorities said. U.K. Border Force agents asked him about his suitcases when he stopped at customs before leaving the departure area, according to the National Crime Agency, a national police force in the United Kingdom. Albanskyj said...

Europe's mysterious "Little Ice Age" has been traced back to a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia - thanks to Pink Floyd. It lasted centuries and led to the Thames Frost fairs, when the river froze over for months at a time - turning it into a skating rink. A generally warm medieval period was followed by a mostly cold spell - from the 14th to the 19th Centuries. The weather phenomenon has baffled climatologists for decades. A study - inspired by the 70s rock legends' Dark Side of the Moon - now shows it was triggered by a catastrophic eruption...

Ever since the first trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie dropped at New York Comic Con last fall, Nintendo fans have been expressing serious issues with Chris Pratt stepping into the role of the video game giant's mustachioed mascot. Specifically, they've been concerned about his speaking voice, which is a far cry from Italian-accented line readings like "It's-a me, Mario!" and "Let's-a go!" everyone knows and loves from Nintendo's deep bench of Super Mario games. But the Guardians of the Galaxy star feels that once they see the highly-anticipated animated movie, those concerns will vanish into one of the...

A reimagined version of Dolly Parton's hit song, "Jolene," featuring the late Olivia Newton-John was released on Friday and it's giving a glimpse into the two stars' friendship. Their duet, which will be part of Newton-John's last album that she recorded before her death, "Just the Two of Us: The Duets Collection," was released with a music video on YouTube. In the video, Newton-John says that she "always wanted to sing with Dolly." "I'm so excited to be working with Olivia Newton-John, one of my favorites of all time," Parton says in another clip. "We've always kind of stayed close...

Residents of Elon Musk’s “space city” in southeastern Texas blasted the SpaceX CEO’s treatment of them as he transformed their quiet beach town into his grand Starbase vision, a report said. Boca Chica was a small, seaside village at the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Mexican border with just a few streets before SpaceX moved in, promising to turn the town into a terrestrial terminus for space travelers. The company broke ground on its launch facility in 2014 and started testing rockets there in 2019. As work on the project progressed, SpaceX gradually bought up most of Boca...

An Alaska woman pleaded guilty to killing her "best friend" after a man she met online said he would pay her $9 million if she sent him photos and videos of her committing murder. Denali Brehmer, 22, pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder in the June 2019 death of Cynthia Hoffman, the Alaska Department of Law said. Hoffman, 19, died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Her body was dumped in the Eklutna River, about 27 miles northeast of Anchorage, court documents state. The Anchorage District Attorney’s Office previously said that Brehmer, who was 18 at...

Left-wing advocacy groups that have supported the controversial "defund" police movement have received tens of millions of dollars from a Texas billionaire who has backed efforts across the United States to overhaul the criminal justice system, records show. John Arnold, a former Enron executive, has emerged as a major donor to organizations that have supported policies such as cashless bail that Republicans argue lead to crime spikes. Through his limited liability corporation, Arnold Ventures, the billionaire has steered $17.2 million to four organizations behind efforts and calls to strip law enforcement of crucial resources, according to records reviewed by the...

They have the same name. They were born on the same day in South Korea. And they were both assigned the same Social Security number after they emigrated to the United States. This bureaucratic bungle has bedeviled Jieun Kim, of Los Angeles, and Jieun Kim, who lives just outside Chicago in Evanston, Illinois, for almost as long as they’ve been in this country. Over the past five years, the 31-year-old women have had their banking and savings accounts shut down. They have had their credit cards blocked. They have been suspected of engaging in identity theft. And, they say, the...

The flu season has been bad this year—and not just for people. Dog flu cases are on the rise in many areas of the U.S. this winter. In fact, veterinarians are suggesting that pet owners get their dogs vaccinated as soon as possible to potentially prevent this canine influenza. It is also advised that if you begin to notice symptoms in your dog like lethargy or coughing bring them in for a check-up. Although there are several reasons that your dog may develop a cough, it could also be one of the symptoms of the flu and is worth checking...

ANDERSON, S.C. (WSPA) – From the smell to the unsightly view and constant noise, living near a landfill can be a raw deal. What’s worse, is finding out an expanding landfill is taking in out-of-state trash from as far away as New York. In this Consumer Investigation, 7NEWS learned for one county in particular, that violates a written agreement, and dozens of irate homeowners nearby have filed a lawsuit against the landfill. ... The landfill used to be owned by Anderson County but in the 90s it was sold to private owners, changed hands a few times and has grown...

Fans of the 1990 horror comedy “Arachnophobia” may find their promised land in the rural Great Plains town of La Junta, Colorado. That’s because La Junta is ground zero for the annual mating ritual of tens of thousands aphonopelma, or Oklahoma brown tarantula. For a few months each year, this tiny community in southeast Colorado is prime viewing for fans of the brown-and-black arachnids, especially from August to October when the males emerge, looking for love. Rather than be repulsed when overrun by the large, hairy spiders, La Junta decided last year to embrace the annual ritual as a tourism...