Free Republic

Most of the budget cuts that Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has proposed for the Police Department were identified in response to the coronavirus pandemic - before Black Lives Matter protests surged in the city - rather than in response to police defunding demands made by protesters. But City Council members will meet Wednesday to continue dissecting the Police Department’s budget and discussing additional cuts they could make. Durkan proposed about $20 million in cuts to the Police Department last month, among other changes to Seattle’s 2020 budget that she said would address unexpected city spending related to COVID-19, account for...

In 1940, George Orwell reviewed Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf." In explaining Hitler's rise to power, however, Orwell, explained much of what we see around us now. David Wood discusses the review and the lesson for today. #GeorgeOrwell #Hitler #MeinKampf

The couple was married on this day in 1946. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are celebrating their 74th wedding anniversary. The couple was married on this day in 1946 in Plains, Georgia, when he was 21 and she was 18. Throughout their marriage, the Carters have journeyed from Plains to Georgia’s Governor’s Mansion to the White House.

July 7 (UPI) -- New York regulators announced Tuesday a $150 million penalty on Deutsche Bank tied to suspicious transactions involving Jeffrey Epstein and two foreign banks, Danske Estonia and FBME Bank. Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $150 million as a result of "significant compliance failures," Linda Lacewell, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, said in a statement. These failures were related to its banking relationships with Epstein and the two foreign banks. The statement said the settlement marks the first enforcement action by a regulator against a financial institution for dealings with registered sex...

Calls to ban statues, flags and images of groups that were involved in slavery would have to include the Democrat Party's Donkey and Islam's Crescent, as both of these institutions were involved in the enslavement of Africans. Beginning in colonial times, approximately 350,000 African slaves were brought to America. This number grew to nearly 4 million slaves prior to the Civil War. Slaves were purchased at sharia Muslim slave markets. Sharia Islam defended the right to own slaves, as its founder, Mohammed, owned slaves. Beginning in 622 AD, the next 1,400 years saw an estimated 180 million Africans enslaved in...

Both served in the Continental Congress and both signed the Declaration of Independence. Both served as U.S. Ministers in France. One was elected the 2nd President and the other the 3rd. Once political enemies, they became close friends in later life. An awe swept America when they both died on the same day, JULY 4, 1826, exactly 50 years since they approved the Declaration of Independence. Their names were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson's handwritten Declaration of Independence used the wording "inalienable" rights as seen in the copies at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, the New York...

"After a decade of studying the cultural evidence yielded from the three seasons of archeological excavations at Kaldar Cave, the recent results show that a Paleolithic layer in the middle of this the cave is more than 63,000 years old," CHTN quoted Iranian archaeologist Behrouz Bazgir as saying on Sunday. Kaldar is a key archaeological site that provides evidence of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in Iran. The cave is situated in the northern Khorramabad valley of Lorestan province and at an elevation of 1,290 m above sea level. It measures 16 meters long, 17 meters wide, and seven...

Interestingly, there is no evidence that this community ate any marine or freshwater fish, despite the fact that it would have been readily available in their coastal location. Archaeological evidence of naval bases, depictions of boats and sea beasts on Pictish stones, and references in literature demonstrate that Pictish communities had a relationship with the sea and would have been able to fish. However, images of salmon in Pictish carvings could indicate that fish had some symbolic importance, and it has been suggested that the consumption of all fish was deliberately avoided, or reserved for a select few. The Picts...

Last year, scientists from Newcastle University in the UK suggested that pig fat could have been used to move the stones to create Stonehenge. Archaeologists may have debunked the theory that stones for the world famous Stonehenge were sent via rafts from Wales to Salisbury Plain, a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science says. The recent study using chemical analysis showed that the six-tonne sandstone from Stonehenge matches rocks in Abergavenny, just a few miles from the English border. Thus the study shows that the stones could have been carried overland, debunking the theory that they were taken...

Over 3,500 years ago, a potter finished shaping a new jug in Gath, a settlement in the Judean foothills overlooking the southern coastal plain of Israel. Before firing the vessel in the kiln, maybe the artisan looked at it, even touched it one last time, perhaps feeling proud of the work, without imagining that a couple of millennia later, a group of researchers would not only find the artifact, but also identify the fingerprints on its surface, reconstructing the age and gender of the jug's ancient manufacturer. As explained to The Jerusalem Post by Bar Ilan University archaeologist Aren Maeir,...

Archaeologists have unearthed what could potentially be the oldest Viking settlement in Iceland. It's an ancient longhouse that is reckoned to have been built in around 800 AD, which is decades earlier than the Vikings were thought to have colonised that part of the world. Oh, and it was found beneath another slightly less old longhouse that was packed with treasure, according to archaeologist Bjarni Einarsson, who was in charge of the excavations at the site. He told Live Science that the longhouse above was probably that of a chieftain, saying: "The younger hall is the richest in Iceland so...

The small communities were hiding in the overgrown landscape of the Middle East, but scientists say they hold vital clues to ancient civilisations that once inhabited this area. By combining spy-satellite photos obtained in the Sixties with modern satellite images and digital maps of Earth's surface, the researchers created a new method for mapping large-scale patterns of human movement. The approach, used to map sites spanning eight millennia across 23,000km of northeastern Syria, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jason Ur, an archaeologist at Harvard University and study co-author, said in 2012: "Traditional archaeology goes...

Excavators uncovered a seal and a bullae -- a seal impression use to sign documents or containers during ancient times -- in the Givati Parking Lot Excavation of the City of David in Jerusalem. These two artifacts were found next to the rubble of a structure that was destroyed during the 6th century BC by the Babylonians... The researchers said the finding was very rare and reveals just how badly Jerusalem was damaged during the Babylonian destruction. "The finding of the stamp and seal impression in the City of David indicates that despite the city's dire situation after the destruction,...

Early on the morning of June 15, a fire broke out in an annex of the Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Though quickly contained, storage rooms that housed portions of the museum's 260,000 piece collection were affected. The cause of the fire is not known. The museum, known as MHNJB, is part of the Federal University of Minas Gerais and is home to archeological artifacts (including human skeletons that are thousands of years old), archival documents, Brazilian folk art, plants, insect specimens, and more. Two of the affected rooms were severely damaged by smoke and...

Last spring, York's Guildhall found itself in dire straits. Water dripped from the 15th-century meeting hall's ceiling, and cracks in one of its walls were so large that visitors could stick a hand straight through them, reported David Dunning for local radio station Minster FM at the time. That fall, the local government launched a £16.5-million construction project aimed at restoring the historic building -- which has stood on the banks of the River Ouse in the northeastern English city for more than 500 years -- to its former glory. But the work has revealed more than just dilapidated walls:...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Yesterday was the day appointed by the Governor of New-Jersey for the execution of the sentence imposed upon JACOB S. HARDEN for the murder of HANNAH DORLAND HARDEN, his wife. The facts connected with the death, arrest, trial and conviction, have, in full details, been given to our readers, and it now remains for us to present the last dark picture in the tragedy, and leave the rest to be settled between the murderer and his Maker. Is a pretty country town, at the further end of the State of Jersey, nestled snugly and sweetly in the valley of Pequest....

An Instagram story post featuring a fake quote from Adolf Hitler resulted in Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson insisting he has no hatred toward the Jewish community, then posting the same Hitler quote again. The 33-year-old receiver drew a backlash on Monday for his initial post, which featured the fake quote in which Hitler supposedly said he would start World War III to stop white Jews in America from oppressing the Black community. Snopes has identified the quote as a fabrication originating in June 2017 and claimed to be from a book that, in reality, made no argument that...

On the issue of American slavery, I am an absolutist: enslavers were amoral monsters. The very idea that one group of people believed that they had the right to own another human being is abhorrent and depraved.

Lin-Manuel Miranda took to social media Monday to respond to critics calling for Hamilton to be canceled for its glorification of slave owners. The 40-year-old playwright responded on Twitter in a thread debating critiques of the musical that debuted Friday on the Disney+ streaming service. Tracy Clayton tweeted that Hamilton the play that debuted in Broadway in 2015 and the movie version 'were given to us in two different worlds & our willingness to interrogate things in this way feels like a clear sign of change'.