Free Republic

mitation might be the sincerest form of flattery but that’s not how Costa Rica took it. Ecuador, looking to encourage its citizens to travel within their own country, carried out an elaborate ruse to convince a group of 40 tourists that they were taking a trip to Costa Rica. After hiking, swimming and rafting, authorities revealed to the group that they had never left Ecuador. The stunt carried out by the Ecuadorean airline Tame, Ecuador’s Tourism Ministry and Ministry of Transport and Public Works triggered a firm response from the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), Casa Presidencial and the Foreign...

According to a 2014 survey by the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was ranked by its employees as the worst place to work among the government’s 37 large departments or agencies, Congress was told Thursday. The department, which includes agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), received an index score of 48 on global satisfaction in 2014, compared to a score of 62 in 2010. Last year’s score marks the lowest ranking of any government department that year. …

The oil-rich nation is opening its stock market -- the largest in the Middle East -- to foreign investors on June 15, the government announced Thursday. The Saudi market -- worth an estimated $530 billion -- is more than double the size of the Tel Aviv stock exchange in Israel. Previously, only Saudi-based investors could buy stocks there. By mid-June, international firms will be able to buy stocks in the country's exchange, the Tadawul All Share Index. This will likely encourage mutual funds and ETFs to add some Saudi stocks to their holdings, especially in emerging market funds. The move...

Instead of spending money on a bullet train, California should build desalination plants. We cannot live without water or food. California supplies 70 percent of the food for the country and we have cut off water to the farmers to save the smelt fish. The legislatures are more interested in catering to their money backers than doing what is right for the citizens of California. Which sounds better, water or rain? Anyone with an ounce of common sense and a firm grasp on reality would say water is the only answer. We don’t need a bullet train that starts in...

Somebody call the X-Men. A 40-pound wolverine escaped from its metal carrier at Newark Airport and had to be shot with a tranquilizer dart, officials said Wednesday. The male European wolverine broke out of the carrier around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday inside a transport van. The wolverine was en route from Norway to Alaska through Newark, officials said. A veterinarian from the Bronx Zoo tranquilized the animal so he could be safely moved to a secure carrier. Wolverines are part of the weasel family. The wolverine is owed by the Alaska State Zoo, which had a representative traveling with the wolverine....

Mars has liquid water just below its surface, according to new measurements by NASA's Curiosity rover, The Guardian reports. Until now, scientists had thought that conditions on the red planet were too cold and arid for liquid water to exist, although there were known to be deposits of ice. Professor Andrew Coates, head of planetary science at the Mullard Space Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, said, "The evidence so far is that any water would be in the form of permafrost. It's the first time we've had evidence of liquid water there now." The latest findings suggest that...

Immediately after takeoff from Sea-Tac, the pilot “reported hearing banging from beneath the aircraft,” according to the airline. “The captain immediately returned to Seattle, declaring an emergency for priority landing,” the statement said. “The aircraft was in the air for 14 minutes. After landing, a ramp agent was found inside the front cargo hold, which is pressurized and temperature controlled.”

The experimental espresso machine is intended for International Space Station astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy. It was supposed to arrive in January, shortly after her arrival, so she could get some relief from the station's instant coffee. But it ended up on the back burner after a station shipment from Virginia was lost in a launch explosion. The espresso maker is dubbed ISSpresso—ISS standing for International Space Station. Italian coffee giant Lavazza joined forces with the Turin-based engineering company Argotec and the Italian Space Agency to provide a specially designed machine for use off the planet. NASA certified its safety....

Because no one wants to arrive in their hotel room and find used soap awaiting them in the shower, guests are always given a fresh bar upon checking in. While many of those partially used bars surely end up wasted in the trash, one non-profit group is collecting a bunch of leftover hotel soaps to help people in need. Clean the World started seven years ago, founded by a tech company worker who traveled often. He tells the Associated Press he was hit with a thought one night while staying at a Minneapolis hotel. “I picked up the phone and...

It has been said that the period between 760 BCE to 656 BCE in Egypt was the 'age of the black pharaohs'. It was during this time that ancient Egypt was ruled by a dynasty or succession of kings from Nubia, the Kingdom of Kush, a rival African kingdom just to its south in what is today northern Sudan. Beginning with king Kashta's successful invasion of Upper Egypt, what became known as the 25th Dynasty achieved the reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and also Kush (Nubia), the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. They introduced new Kushite cultural...

The Secret Service has stepped out of its lane of protection to assist in another crucial task for the first family: teaching teenaged Malia Obama how to drive, CNN reports. First lady Michelle Obama revealed the details in an interview with television cook Rachael Ray for a show that will air Thursday, CNN said. "The Secret Service [taught her], actually, because they wouldn't let me in the car with her," Obama told Ray, adding that she hasn't been behind the wheel in several years, having been driven during her family's White House years.

There’s something new about the very old Great Serpent Mound, the earthen snake effigy that stretches a quarter of a mile along the terrain in Adams County in southern Ohio... What is new about Serpent Mound is that it might be far more ancient than currently thought. Some archaeologists have recently discovered evidence that it was constructed around 300 B.C. by the Adena culture. That contrasts with the prevailing school of thought that it is about 920 years old and was built by the Fort Ancient culture... For instance, the massive head of the snake effigy points to where the...

"During the month of Ramadan, clocks are expected to be turned back again one hour around June 18 and forward again around July 18, 2015. According to Law 35 issued in May 2014, Egypt returns to standard time during Ramadan, when Muslims are required to fast during daylight hours"

"We found that if lunar lava tubes existed with a strong arched shape like those on Earth, they would be stable at sizes up to 5,000 meters, or several miles wide, on the moon," said David Blair, a graduate student in Purdue's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary sciences. "This wouldn't be possible on Earth, but gravity is much lower on the moon and lunar rock doesn't have to withstand the same weathering and erosion. In theory, huge lava tubes -- big enough to easily house a city -- could be structurally sound on the moon." The researchers applied known...

[VIDEO] Anyone with some brains and lots of courage can build their own space rocket using everyday, off-the-shelf products. We recently flew to Denmark to meet the founders of Copenhagen Suborbitals, a non-profit open-source D.I.Y. space endeavor.

Electric carmaker Tesla announced Friday it delivered a "record" number of vehicles in the first quarter, as it began more timely reporting of sales figures. The California firm started by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk said it sold 10,030 cars in the first three months of 2015. "This was a new company record for the most cars delivered in a quarter and represents a 55 percent increase over the first quarter last year," the company said in a statement. Going forward, Tesla said it would publish the number of new car deliveries within three days of quarter end. "We have decided...

Much of a Pre-Columbian population in ancient Chile was poisoned by arsenic, say researchers. According to a recent study conducted by Jaime Swift of the Australian National University and colleagues from several other institutions in Australia and Chile, a significant part of a pre-Columbian population in northern Chile suffered from slow poisoning due to the intake of arsenic from water sources. The researchers performed plasma mass spectrometry trace element analysis of human bone and tooth samples from 21 burials excavated at the site of Caleta Vitor on the Pacific coast of northern Chile, a part of the ultra-dry Atacama Desert...

A team of researchers working in Italy has confirmed that Altamura Man was a Neanderthal and dating of pieces of calcite which were on the remains has revealed that the bones are 128,000 to 187,000 years old. In their paper published in the Journal of Human Evolution, the team describes how they extracted a small bone sample and examined it and what they found by doing so. Altamura Man was discovered in a cave in southern Italy in 1993 by cave explorers. The finding was reported to researchers at the University of Bari. The remains were embedded in rock and...

For most people, private jets such as the $65 million Gulfstream G650 or the Bombardier Global Series are the epitome of luxury air travel, but there are a select few who can afford more than that. They’re converting airliners into private flying palaces. To meet this demand, Airbus and Boeing have begun selling "VIP" versions of their airliners under the Airbus Corporate Jet and Boeing Business Jet brands. While most of these planes are based on smaller Airbus A320 series or Boeing 737 models, one recent VIP conversion took luxury to a new level. One very lucky, very wealthy, and...

Yes, she’s a little worse for wear, isn’t she? But then again, that’s what atmospheric re-entry and 2200 °Celsius (4000 °Fahrenheit) worth of heat will do to you! Such was the state of the heat shield that protected NASA’s Orion Spaceship after it re-entered the atmosphere on Dec. 5th, 2014. Having successfully protected the craft during it’s test flight, the shield was removed and transported to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where it arrived on March. 9th. Since that time, a steady stream of NASA employees have been coming by the facility to get a look at...