Free Republic

Dear Sasha and Malia, I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re a part of the First Family, try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play. Then again your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ department. Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. And certainly don’t make faces during...

Charlier, for his part, has made a name for himself as a forensic scientist who has debunked several myths. Among them: that bone fragments in the Vatican's possession were those of Joan of Arc. He determined they were actually from a cat and Egyptian mummy.

That’s how I found myself, one dreary day when my Honda wouldn’t start, in my husband’s Mercedes at the WIC office. I parked gingerly over one of the many potholes, shut off the purring engine and locked it, then walked briskly to the door — head held high and not looking in either direction. To this day, it is the single most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done. No one spoke to me, but they did stare. Mouths agape, the poverty-stricken mothers struggling with infant car seats, paperwork and their toddlers never took their eyes off me, the tall blond girl,...

Would Putin commit suicide by letting his missiles fly against the United States? No. Rather, he would respond with a limited nuclear strike against a couple of European capitals -- not London or Paris, but smaller ones, presumably in Eastern European countries that have only recently joined NATO. Warsaw, against which Russia has already conducted a drill simulating a Russian nuclear attack, first comes to mind. Or, say, Vilnius, Lithuania's capital. The point is, Putin would bet on decision-makers in Washington, Berlin, London, and Paris not retaliating with nuclear weapons against Russia if it had "only" hit a city or...

Schrödinger's cat is the poster child for quantum weirdness. Now it has been immortalised in a portrait created by one of the theory's strangest consequences: quantum entanglement. These images were generated using a cat stencil and entangled photons. The really spooky part is that the photons used to generate the image never interacted with the stencil, while the photons that illuminated the stencil were never seen by the camera.

The Base Was the Last Government-Held Outpost in a Province Dominated by Islamic State BEIRUT—The extremist group Islamic State captured a major air base in northeastern Syria, marking another strategic gain and an end to any presence of Syrian regime forces in the province of Raqqa. Several opposition activists based in the Raqqa area said Islamic State fighters were able to pierce the defenses of the Tabqa air base earlier Sunday and take it over. The capture came after fierce clashes with regime forces for five days at the gates of the military installation located near a town and a...

"It is unjust when a patient is unable to access intensive care because ICU beds are occupied by patients who cannot benefit from such care. Our findings are particularly relevant in the U.S., but are also instructive elsewhere given universal concerns regarding providing treatments that are non-beneficial," the study states. "The ethic of 'first come, first served' is not only inefficient and wasteful, but it is contrary to medicine's responsibility to apply healthcare resources to best serve society. In the context of healthcare reform, which aims to more justly distribute medical care to the nation, opportunity cost is one more...

Liberian officials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital's largest slum after residents raided a quarantine centre for suspected patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses. The violence in the West Point slum was led by residents angry that patients were brought to the holding centre from other parts of Monrovia, Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant health minister, said. Up to 30 patients were staying at the centre and many of them fled at the time of the raid, said Nyenswah. Once they are located they will be transferred to the Ebola centre at Monrovia's largest hospital, he said....