Free Republic

Florida is taking a strong stand against retail theft and “porch piracy.” Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed into law a bill that would crack down on criminals participating in shoplifting rings and engaging in other types of property crime. While doing so, he took some shots at California and New York for going easy on those committing these offenses. Amid widespread retail theft occurring across the nation, state and local governments are grappling with putting a stop to these operations while others are simply responding with a shrug. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, DeSantis announced...

Pythons turn their food into meat pretty efficiently, a study finds, making them an intriguing alternative to climate-unfriendly cows. Put aside your chicken cutlets and meatloaf and say hello to python curries and satay skewers. Some snake scientists think eating these reptiles—already customary or at least acceptable in parts of the world—might help lessen the damage our food choices have on the environment. With some eight billion people on the planet today, all of whom require protein to stay healthy, finding new sources of these nutrients is a crucial issue. But how do you get from the challenge of providing...

A massive new species of anaconda that could potentially be the largest currently in existence has been uncovered in the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador, according to newly published findings that expand our understanding of these massive snakes and their habitat. The discovery was made during fieldwork by a team of researchers with the University of Queensland, who traveled to the region in search of an undocumented variety of northern green anaconda spoken of by its indigenous residents. According to accounts shared by the Waorani people of the Ecuadorian Amazon, stories of a variety of large anacondas said to exist in...

Two German tourists became lost in their four-wheel-drive vehicle in a remote part of Cape York after trusting Google Maps. They ended up having to camp for about a week before walking out to safety. What's next?: The pair are safe, but local rangers say it could have been so much worse and are warning people to take care. Two young men are lucky to be alive after walking for several days in the Cape York wilderness when their car became bogged after they followed Google Maps directions. German tourists Philipp Maier and Marcel Schoene left Cairns on February 4...

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — A new book reveals that Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) “threw Trump under the bus” during Graham’s secret grand jury testimony in the Georgia election subversion case.The new revelation was unearthed by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman in “Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election” ($30), on sale Jan. 30:“After fighting a four-month legal battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to block his grand jury subpoena — and losing — South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham turned on a dime ‘and threw Trump...

"I noticed that he threw -- um -- Vivek under the bus. I've seen a candidate run for an office and basically campaign for another candidate in the same race before, but that's what's happened. And the minute he wasn't useful they dropped the hammer on him. That's just the way they are. We're going to go forward as a party. We can go forward in a way that's focused on peoples' issues and a great agenda for America, or we can go forward with Trump, which will be focused, the 2024 election, on legal issues, criminal trials, convictions, on...

A Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden employee was hospitalized Thursday after she was bitten by a highly venomous rattlesnake. The eastern diamondback rattlesnake snapped at the employee around 4 p.m. in a “behind the scenes area” not open to guests, the zoo’s communications director Michelle Curley told the Cincinnati Enquirer. The unnamed staffer — who works in the reptile house — was taken to the hospital in stable condition. She had only received a partial bite and did not require antivenom, Curley said, adding her prognosis is good.

John Cornyn is a snake in the grass.Forever war enthusiast Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) declared Tuesday that the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House was tantamount to a “terrorist attack,” suggesting that the eight House members who voted with Democrats to remove McCarthy were, themselves, terrorists.“We saw a similar thing happen to Boehner, Ryan, and now McCarthy. I’m sure the next speaker is going to be subjected to the same terrorist attacks,” Cornyn said. Later, Cornyn doubled down on his remarks, writing on X, “A handful [of] House members just want to blow up the institution and...

Progressive culture teaches white liberals that standing up to specific individuals—mainly black folks—makes them racist. According to this twisted ideology, resisting theft, assault, or even murder from these people will get them labeled “racists.” And God forbid some white liberal calls the police during an attack and actually gets the perpetrator arrested; they’ll find themselves canceled and their lives upended. It’s better for white liberals to just endure the assault and quietly move on. So, when a Forbes “30 Under 30” CEO, a standout entrepreneur with a bright future, was murdered by a black man in her apartment building—a stranger...

When I first heard the story of the woman attacked by a snake that fell from the sky and then saved by a hawk after calling out, “Jesus, help me,” I thought that it was an urban myth. Every detail seemed too clever to be real. And yet that’s exactly what happened just the other day to a woman in Texas. Peggy Jones, of Silsbee, Texas, was sitting on her tractor mower in the garden of her house when a snake suddenly dropped from the sky, wrapped itself around her arm, and began to strike at her face. Not only...

The Florida Python Challenge draws in hundreds of participants each year from as far away as Canada, Belgium and Latvia who are charmed by the prospect of fame and fortune, including up to $30,000 (£23,600) in prize money. Recent Python Challenge winners include a deaf science teacher who bagged a nearly 16ft snake with his bare hands, a father-and-son duo who rapidly despatched 41 snakes and a 19-year-old who said he would use his $10,000 prize to buy better snake-spotting lights for his truck. ..."Once it slithered out in the road, I got to see the massive size of this...

Hiss-terical video captures the moment an unsuspecting dad was greeted by a nonvenomous rat snake — which bit him on the head as he arrived home and entered his front door. Doorbell camera footage posted on TikTok shows the man unlocking the front door when the sneaky serpent, hiding on top of the door frame, struck. “Snake bites Dad on Head… haha he thought he was gone,” the man’s son Stevie Haven wrote alongside the clip, which has been viewed more than 34 million times. “I got bit! I got bit!” the dad then yells as he recoils in horror...

This is the shocking moment a snake hunter wrestled a 19ft Burmese python said to be the longest ever found in the US. The video, taken in the Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida, shows snake hunter Jake Waleri, 22, grab the 125lb python by the neck after it lunges at him with opens jaws. Mr Waleri grapples with the python, which is as long as an adult giraffe is tall, and wrestles it to the ground as onlookers exclaim: 'Oh my God! Let's go!' Another man asks: 'Have you got tape on you, I know you carry tape,' as they...

July 14 (UPI) -- The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said a train was taken out of service when a snake was spotted on board. At least one passenger captured photos when the snake was spotted on the floor of the Blue Line Train at Reagan National Airport. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority spokesperson Sherri Ly confirmed the incident. She said officials do not know how the slithering strap-hanger got onto the train. "It did not have a farecard and clearly slipped onto the train without tapping in," Ly told WDVM-TV. Ly said the train was removed from service and...

A Florida traveler tried to bring a real snake on a plane, claiming the animal was an emotional support pet. The boa constrictor, named Bartholomew, was caught in someone’s carry-on luggage during security screening at the Tampa International Airport, according to the Transportation Security Administration. The 4-foot-long snake was found coiled up inside the bag in December along with other items for the trip, TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein told Travel + Leisure. “Snake on a plane? This is a @TSA X-ray of Bartholomew, a boa constrictor who was in a traveler's carry-on bag at @FlyTPA last month,” Farbstein tweeted. “Woman...

Former Vice President Mike Pence was "angered" by former President Donald Trump's words and actions during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. In an exclusive interview with ABC's "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir, Pence described Trump's words as "reckless" and said they "endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building" during the riot. "I mean, the president's words were reckless. It was clear he decided to be part of the problem," Pence said.

The harmless garter snake turned up on United Airlines Flight 2038 from Tampa, FL shortly after landing Monday afternoon at Newark Liberty International Airport. According to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the serpent was found slithering about in business class. Crew members were quickly notified after passengers began shrieking and pulling up their feet as the snake moved throughout the cabin. It is unclear on how the snake got aboard the plane, but the snake was released back into the wild after it's two hour flight.

The rim rock crowned snake was found dead in the Florida Keys, locked in lifeless combat with a giant centipede it had managed to swallow halfway. Credit: Drew Martin The snake was recently spotted for the first time in four years. After a four-year absence, the rarest snake in North America, the Tantilla oolitica (rim rock crowned snake), was recently discovered at a park in the Florida Keys. The snake encounter was more of a source of astonishing awe than anything else, despite the fact that this would typically be a reason for joy among conservationists. The snake was discovered...

A Kentucky high school is "infested" after a snake and a mouse fell from classroom ceilings last week, according to a teacher. Nathan Spalding, an English teacher at Henry Clay High School in Lexington, wrote on Facebook that he found a baby rat snake that fell from the ceiling and appeared to "cuddle" his desk phone. "Our school is infested with roaches, spiders, and mice," Spalding wrote. "Our school now seems to also have a nest of snakes living in the ceiling."

Twice as nice: The two-headed garter snake is in the care of the Herpetology lab on East Campus. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln's herpetology lab is seeing double after securing a two-headed garter snake. The newborn bicephalic garter snake was discovered by Joshua Marshall of Hastings while clearing brush in Clay Center on Sept. 4. "I lifted up a log and wasn't surprised to see two small snakes, but then I realized that they weren't making great progress because there were two heads," he said. Once Marshall realized it was a two-headed snake, he placed it in a jar and...