Free Republic

Archaeologists in Mexico found stone tools and other signs that people were living in North America 30,000 years ago, much earlier than widely believed, according to new research reshaping the debate over the origins of people in the Americas.In a study reported Wednesday, scientists led by archaeologist Ciprian Ardelean at Mexico’s University of Zacatecas said that they had unearthed hundreds of unusual green limestone spear points, blades and other implements from a lofty cavern in the central Mexican highlands. For wandering hunter-gatherers, the cave served as a makeshift tool shed possibly beginning as early as about 33,000 years ago, the...

NHL center Colby Cave, who played for the Edmonton Oilers and the Boston Bruins, has died. He was 25. The Edmonton Oilers and Cave's family announced the news on Saturday morning. He passed away days after doctors at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto operated to remove a colloid cyst putting pressure on his brain, according to NHL.com. He had been in a medically induced coma since suffering a brain bleed overnight Monday, his team said.

Humans have been living in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula since at least the Late Pleistocene (126,000-11,700 years ago). Much of what we know about these earliest settlers of Mexico comes from nine well-preserved human skeletons found in the submerged caves and sinkholes near Tulum in Quintana Roo, Mexico. The analysis showed Chan Hol 3 was likely a woman, approximately 30 years old at her time of death, and lived at least 9,900 years ago. Her skull falls into a mesocephalic pattern (neither especially broad or narrow, with broad cheekbones and a flat forehead), like the three other skulls from the Tulum...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waited more than three weeks to deliver the impeachment articles for President Donald Trump -- a seemingly odd move after Democrats spent weeks arguing that removing Trump was urgently needed to protect the integrity of the 2020 election. Even as some Democrats joined Republicans in calling for the articles to move, Pelosi coolly responded that she would do so only when she was good and ready. "It cracks me up to see on TV, ‘Oh, the pressure,'" Pelosi told reporters Friday, just moments before telling her colleagues in a letter that she was ready to send...

Petty Officer 1st Class Beirut Pakbara was receiving treatment for the infection, but his condition worsened when it spread to his bloodstream, according to a Facebook post from the Royal Thai Navy. He died this week and was buried Friday at the Talosai mosque in the Langu district of the Satun province, reported the Bangkok Post. A Royal Thai Navy spokesman told the Bangkok Post that Beirut will be posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Beirut is the second diver to lose his life as a result of the cave rescue. Saman Kunam, a retired Thai navy diver, died...

WASHINGTON — The White House argued Sunday that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put herself in an untenable position by stalling House-passed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in hopes of shaping the upcoming Senate trial. **SNIP** “She will yield. There’s no way she can hold this position,” said Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence. “We think her case is going nowhere." **SNIP** Short called Pelosi’s delay unacceptable, saying she’s “trampling” Trump’s rights to “rush this through, and now we’re going to hold it up to demand a longer process in the Senate with more...

On Cavuto show that the tariffs scheduled to go into effect cancelled.

As NASA makes a big push to land humans on the moon's surface by 2024, the European Space Agency (ESA) wants to learn more about the lunar caves that lie beneath. "Exploring and mapping these tubes could provide new information about the moon's geology, but they could also be an interesting option as long-term shelter for future human visitors to the moon," Franceso Sauro, director of ESA's Pangaea planetary geology astronaut training, said in a statement. "They would shield astronauts from cosmic radiation and micrometeorites and possibly provide access to icy water and other resources trapped underground." The missions have...

A little more than a week after pulling state incentives from Nike following its decision to pull its Betsy Ross Flag shoes after former NFL star Colin Kaepernick raised issues around them, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) reversed his stance. Ducey tweeted Thursday welcoming a Nike facility to Goodyear, Ariz., saying the company will bring more than 500 jobs and $184 million to the state. Ducey was one of many conservatives to publicly blast Nike and announced he would instruct the state to pull financial incentives for Nike after the company decided not to fully release a Betsy Ross flag...

MOUNT SODOM, ISRAEL — Israeli researchers said Thursday they have surveyed what they now believe to be the world’s longest salt cave, a network of twisting passageways at the southern tip of the Dead Sea. A recently completed survey of the Malham Cave determined the labyrinthine cavern stretches more than 6 miles in length. That puts it well ahead of Iran’s Namakdan Cave, previously thought to be the longest salt cave. **SNIP** The Malham Cave’s main outlet yawns not far from a salt pillar named “Lot’s wife,” after the biblical character who was petrified for looking back at the destruction...

I keep reading here and other places that Trump caved on the wall. Die hard Conservatives who praised Trump are losing faith because they are saying he broke his promise to build the wall. Conservatives are in a panic, which is exactly what the Democrats and their media lemmings wanted. I submit to you, like the Democrats, you are not seeing the big picture.

President Trump tweeted in real time as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was addressing the partial government shutdown during her weekly news conference and declared “We will not Cave!” on the wall. “Nancy just said she ‘just doesn’t understand why?’ Very simply, without a Wall it all doesn’t work,” Trump said in a posting as she was meeting with reporters on Thursday. “Our Country has a chance to greatly reduce Crime, Human Trafficking, Gangs and Drugs. Should have been done for decades. We will not Cave!”

Once again those in the weak-kneed majority think Democrats run Congress and the country.

ChuckGrassley ChuckGrassley @ChuckGrassley Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. It’s not my normal approach to b indecisive

GOP thinking about delaying hearing

The White House on Monday afternoon re-lowered its flags to half staff after drawing significant backlash for returning them to full staff less than 48 hours after the death of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Multiple reporters noted on social media that the flags were flying at half staff once again. The White House did not immediately respond to questions for comment on why the change was made.

Eleven of the Wild Boars youth football team were ordained novices in memory of a diver who died during their rescue. Their 25-year-old coach, who has received monk's orders, will stay on for three months. One of the boys did not participate as he is a Christian

Of course, the practical skills of engineers, technology experts, divers and military top the list of what enabled this rescue effort. But there’s another story here — one of quiet emotional fortitude, solidarity and spiritual strength. Surely if the boys or their coach had panicked or turned on one another in the darkness, they couldn’t have survived. The boys’ coach, 25-year-old Ekapol Chanthawong, had worked with them — even choosing the name “Wild Boars” (“Moo Ba” in Thai) — to build their self-esteem. Mostly poor children who, in a soccer-obsessed country, had been rejected by their school teams, the boys...

The rescuers were aided by a combination of luck and an outpouring of support from a motley group including military experts, international cave-divers, medical personnel and a Thai rock singer and her fan club. One team—three U.K. cave divers who had participated in numerous rescues in Europe—came at the suggestion of a British spelunker who lives near the caves and had explored them several times... Another group of Thailand-based cave divers was pulled together by Narinthorn Na Bangchang, a Bangkok-based actress/ singer who saw the boys’ plight on TV and decided she had to do something. Ms. Narinthorn flew to...

New information suggests the 12 Thai boys trapped in a cave were medicated and carried out on stretchers during the rescue operation... ...told AFP on Wednesday that the boys were “sleeping or partially-conscious as they were passed from diver-to-diver through the cave.”... “boys were wrapped up in stretchers already when they were being transferred” while doctors posted along the 2.5-mile long escape route checked them along the way.