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It's rarely great news when an area gets blanketed in volcanic ash – but University of Barcelona researchers have discovered it has a rare combination of useful properties, which make it remarkably useful as an energy storage medium. We've written a number of times about super-cheap thermal energy storage, and a number of other times about highly efficient heat batteries operating at super-high temperatures. The cheapest of these 'brick toasters' use the most abundant of materials, and the most efficient can handle extraordinarily high temperatures using materials like liquid tin and carbon materials – but volcanic ash, as it turns...

Ever since returning to the Chicago area after living for almost a decade in Switzerland, my nice suburban neighbors have scrutinized my parenting. The biggest shock to the community was when I decided that my 7-year-old daughter was responsible enough to walk five blocks to school alone. "You know, we'd be happy to drive her in the morning," said one neighbor. I've discovered that these parents are all lovely people and well-meaning, but they are also part of something my husband and I still — even after being "home" for a decade — can't bring ourselves to join: the school...

President Biden doesn't believe his bad poll numbers, and neither do many of his closest advisers, according to people familiar with the matter. Why it matters: The dismissiveness of the poor polling is sincere, not public spin, according to Democrats who have spoken privately with the president and his team. That bedrock belief has informed Biden's largely steady-as-she-goes campaign — even as many Democrats outside the White House are agitating for the campaign to change direction, given that Biden is polling well behind where he was four years ago. The public polling simply doesn't reflect the president's support, they say....

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. ISAIAH 1

A New York county executive plans to "deputize" legal gun owners to help law enforcement officers during emergencies, but the move is facing pushback from critics who say it will lead to acts of vigilantism. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said the deputies must be over 21 years old, be U.S. citizens and Nassau County residents, undergo a full background check, take a drug test and have a valid firearm license. They would be paid $150 a day for their service, according to the plan. "They will have to be trained on the law and use of force," Blakeman, a...

A second amended complaint filed Friday in Manhattan federal court by six victims of Jeffrey Epstein who are suing the V.I. government for alleged violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act claims territory officials actively conspired with the late multimillionaire to perpetuate his sex-trafficking scheme for their own gain. In effect, the U.S. Virgin Islands became “a government-sanctioned sanctuary” for wealthy men who paid Epstein “substantial” sums of money to travel from New York to engage in commercial sex acts with women also traveling from that state, the amended suit alleges. Epstein would then deposit the funds in his New...

Timothy Bundren must have heard wrong. The sun wasn’t up yet. He was still groggy from starting his morning routine of walking through chicken barns. His phone rang and his contact with the global meat company headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas, just two hours south of his farm, started telling him he would no longer be raising chickens. Bundren, 52, didn’t believe him at first. Just hours later, he was supposed to meet with the bank about another loan to buy the farm down the road. Bundren waited an hour and then called the man back. The news didn’t change, but...

Yo Snopes, I need a fact check. We've got an election denier over here!! We can't let this misinformation be shared - it's a threat to democracy! For some reason, the 84-year-old Pelosi thought it would be a good idea to debate Winston Marshall, the former banjo player for Mumford & Sons, on the subject of elites who are disconnected from reality, and to do so at the historic Oxford Union. Real Clear Politics has the full transcript and the video. Marshall's case? "Populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy." Meanwhile, here was Pelosi telling us that...

ATLANTA — Several other co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case have filed their own appeals over the ruling that allowed the Fulton County District Attorney to stay on the case and are asking that Fani Willis be removed from the case. Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Cathy Latham, and Michael Roman all filed appeals Monday in the case. They now join former President Donald Trump and former Georgia GOP head David Shafer in appealing the ruling. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Willis could stay on the case if former special prosecutor Nathan Wade stepped down after...

Wherin Ukies neglect to fortify the Kharkov region and then embark upon a maximal campaign of provocation in the region...

Houston’s police chief has resigned after emails obtained by a local news outlet appear to show that he knew about massive failures in the department well before he said he did. Within hours of issuing a statement about the findings, he resigned. In February, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner first announced that the Houston Police Department dropped 264,000 crime reports, including violent crimes and sexual assaults, which weren’t investigated because a “lack of personnel” code was assigned to them, The Center Square reported. In March, new Houston Mayor John Whitmire appointed an independent panel to review an internal HPD investigation...

New data on Gazan fatalities cited by UN agency also separates ‘identified’ deaths in hospitals from some 10,000 alleged deaths based on Hamas ‘media sources’ In a dramatic development, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has sharply revised downward the number of “identified” female and child fatalities in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The data now differentiates between the total number of deaths reported by Hamas (over 34,000) and the number of “identified” fatalities (over 24,000). The new figures reported by OCHA reduce by more than half the number of women and children that it previously...

The northern border shares something in common with the southern border of the United States - it is understaffed and Border Patrol agents are stretched thin. Despite a lack of proper support, agents at the northern border continue to apprehend a record number of illegal border crossers. In the busiest northern border sector of Swanton, Border Patrol agents made history by apprehending the greatest number of illegal border crossers in sector history of 1,109 in March, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. While the numbers are significantly lower than those apprehended at the southwest border, they are out...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Ukraine as weapons from a new American aid package begin arriving at the front line. His visit comes as the country struggles to hold back a major Russian incursion near its second biggest city of Kharkiv. Ahead of Mr Blinken's arrival in Kyiv, a senior US official said the American-funded weapons now arriving at the front line included air defence interceptors, artillery and ATACMS long-range precision guided missiles. "We have already started to flow in artillery [and] long-range ATACMS that can range any part of Ukraine, and also other air defence...

Nearly three years ago I wrote about a mandatory diversity training that took place at UNC-Chapel Hill after the conservative paper on campus got an audio recording of the event.Ms. Parle started the presentation with an ‘indigenous land recognition,’ after which the hundreds of Greek attendees were advised that they should make a habit of repeating the political catechism in their daily lives and taught how to do so. After establishing her lecture was on stolen land, Ms. Parle asked students their feelings about ‘the system.’ Were they warm towards it? Apathetic? Or, the last option: ready to dismantle it?The...

On Monday, conservative attorney, legal scholar, and commentator Jonathan Turley weighed in on the day's testimony by Michael Cohen in the ongoing New York trial of former President Donald Trump. Mr. Turley's comments about Cohen were, to say the least, sharply pointed.Michael Cohen apparently wants a reality show but, if his testimony Monday is any indication, reality is about to sink in for not just Cohen but the prosecutors and the court.In stoking interest in his own appearance, the former Trump counsel promised the public that they should be “prepared to be surprised.” Thus far, however, Cohen has offered nothing...

On May 6th, the 2024 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund was released. It’s a very long title for a report that simply tells us the financial state of Medicare and project the future financial solvency of the program. One claim of the report is Medicare solvency has been extended 5 more years than the 2023 projection, and won’t go broke until 2036. But as with all things involving the Biden Administration, that isn’t the entire story.The 261-page report should be a purely factual...

@RepThomasMassie Listen to this $300,000 hit piece on me by foreign interest lobbyist group AIPAC. @ 0:12 “15 times in April, Massie was the only Republican voting…” @SpeakerJohnson, why did the U.S. House of Representatives vote 15 times in April on Israel’s issues, but not on our own?

The economy is experiencing a golden moment thanks to exports and tourism after cleaning up its accounts. But the country has paid a price in migration of qualified workers and reduction of public services. Ten years after the departure of the “men in black” — the international managers of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank who cleaned up Portugal’s accounts with a machete, the country has emerged as the most diligent student in southern Europe. In 2023, for the first time, public debt fell below 100% of GDP (it stood at 98.7%) and there was a...