Free Republic

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will become the longest serving party leader in Senate history on Tuesday. McConnell, 80, will remain the Republican minority leader in the 118th Congress and thus eclipse the late Sen. Mike Mansfield’s time as Democrat leader from 1961 to 1977. McConnell overcame ten Republican “no” votes in November to remain minority leader. The votes against McConnell marked the first time McConnell had received a “no” vote as leader, a sign the GOP has begun to turn against his establishment agenda.

The first lava began spewing out of a fissure close to Mount Fagradalsfjall on the evening of March 19 on the Reykjanes peninsula to the southwest of Reykjavik. And the ensuing spectacle—ranging from just a slow trickle of lava at times to more dramatic geyser-like spurts of rocks and stones at others—has become a major tourist attraction, drawing 300,000 visitors so far, according to the Iceland Tourist Board. Iceland's sixth volcanic eruption in 20 years is already longer than the preceding one in Holuhraun, in the centre-east of the island, which lasted from the end of August 2014 until the...

Democrats are struggling to come up with a way to provide back pay for low-wage contractors losing income because of the partial shutdown, a complicated process that hasn't been tackled during previous government closures. Contracted maintenance workers, cleaners, security guards and cafeteria staff at government buildings are among the hardest hit by the shutdown, which began Dec. 22. Unlike the hundreds of thousands of affected federal employees who often receive back pay after a shutdown ends, low-wage contractors are not afforded compensation once the government reopens. While President Trump is expected to sign legislation that would eventually give back pay...

Former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, now a Fox News commentator, predicted Sunday the partial government shutdown would continue at least through President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, and Republicans would be seen as the winners. If the current partial shutdown continues through Friday, it would be the longest on the books. Chaffetz, speaking on Fox News Sunday, said he believes the shutdown would still be going on at that point, and would likely not end before President Trump gives his speech on January 29. "I think the next pressure point is the State of the Union at the...

Now this is what we call a long-haul flight. Air India has recently proposed a new flight route linking the IT hotspots of Bengaluru and San Francisco, located a staggering 8,699 miles (14,000km) apart. If approved, this particular path would be the world's longest non-stop commercial route with an estimated flight time of between 17 to 18 hours.

Pic and Video at link Eighteen-year-old Adrianne Lewis of Twin Lake, Michigan, has a tongue so long, it could make a giraffe blush. In fact, she believes she has the longest tongue in the world. It’s so long – at 4 inches – that she can even touch her eye with it. “I feel as though I may have inherited it, but I think with time and me sticking out my tongue a lot as a kid, [I] could have stretched it,” Lewis said. “My mom, grandmother and my great-grandfather all had very long tongues.” Lewis said children teased her...

Between commuting time and work hours, New York City residents have the longest work weeks among the country's 30 biggest cities, city Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a report released Tuesday. The report said a typical week for a full-time New York worker adds up to more than 49 hours, including an average of more than six hours of commuting time. That was more than four hours longer than in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the average work week was about 44 1/2 hours. Commuting time made up just under 3 1/2 hours of that. The report was based on data from...

WASHINGTON – Two years ago, presidential candidate Barack Obama drew 60,000 people to a riverfront park rally in Portland, Ore. Another 15,000 couldn't get in. But political organizers don't expect huge crowds when now-President Obama returns to Portland on Wednesday for the first time since that campaign heyday. Instead, the goal is for a far more modest showing of 5,000 people at a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber at the convention center. It's the mark of a presidency weighed down by a sluggish economy, high unemployment, a poor housing market, two wars and a public that largely disapproves...

Health experts have long warned of the risk of obesity, but a new Japanese study warns that being very skinny is even more dangerous, and that slightly chubby people live longer. People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people, the study found.

Longest laser link bridges the gulf of space 19:00 05 January 2006 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht Messenger blasted off in 2004, and will begin a yearlong orbital study of Mercury in March 2011 (Artist's impression: NASA)A laser communication link has been made across a record 24 million kilometres (15 million miles), between the Messenger spacecraft and instruments on Earth. The craft and the ground station transmitted pulses back and forth to each other, and although no actual information was transmitted, the experiment shows the potential for interplanetary laser links, says David Smith of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in...

World's longest-married couple clock up 80 years By Nick Britten (Filed: 01/06/2005) When Percy and Florence Arrowsmith walked down the aisle as husband and wife, the Queen had yet to be born and an obscure former German soldier called Hitler had set out his thoughts in Mein Kampf. Percy and Florence Arrowsmith at home in Hereford yesterday Today, as they celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary, they will write their own little piece of history by becoming the world's longest-married couple. The obvious question - how on earth they do it - is one Mr Arrowsmith, 105, and his 100-year-old wife...