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Rice University evolutionary ecologists have discovered huge quantities of one of North America's most venomous caterpillars. Texas Medical Center (TMC)—which is visited by 10 million people seeking health care each year—are routinely netted to discourage pesky birds such as grackles and pigeons. Now Rice researchers have learned the netting has an unintended consequence: Chasing away birds that eat insects has created a haven for a flourishing population of Megalopyge opercularis, commonly referred to as asps. When a human is stung by an asp, it can cause localized pain that is compared to blunt-force trauma or a bone break. Egan's team...

Please join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and for America: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (I John 5:14) Religion forum threads labeled “Prayer” are closed to debate of any kind.

Pierce Brosnan saved the world four times as James Bond, a career milestone he cites as his biggest achievement. The actor says now is the time to pass the legendary role onto a woman, as Lashana Lynch is rumored to take over as the next 007 from Daniel Craig in the upcoming No Time to Die installment. “Yes!' Brosnan said of the prospect of a female Bond. "I think we've watched the guys do it for the last 40 years, get out of the way, guys, and put a woman up there. I think it would be exhilarating, it would...

Like Jordan Peterson’s reputation, Lionel Shriver’s conservative credentials were burnished by leftist idiocy. In Peterson’s case it was his interview on the UK’s Channel 4 by Cathy Newman. In Shriver’s case it was Yassmin Abdel-Magied walking out of the Brisbane Writers’ Festival in 2016 in protest at Shriver’s views on identity politics and cultural appropriation. Neither Peterson nor Shriver are my kind of conservatives and, to be fair, I am sure they would not claim to be or would want to be. That’s fine. What I would like to say is that conservative warriors are now needed more than ever.......

Residents in one Canadian community say they’ve noticed the local raccoons staggering drunkenly and passing out on the ground in the middle of the day. Emily Rodgers told CBC News she called the city after seeing one apparently inebriated raccoon in her backyard. “He couldn’t really move. He was dragging his legs, he was wobbling, having a hard time standing up,” Rodgers said. “You could tell something was wrong with him for sure.” An Ottawa naturalist told the station that raccoons are likely consuming more alcohol than they can handle from fruit fermenting on the ground.

Subheading: The recommendation that people move to plant-based diets carries the risk of worsening a brain health nutrient deficiency due to low dietary levels of choline, warns a leading nutritionist. This has been challenged by other experts. The concern has been raised by Dr Emma Derbyshire, of Nutritional Insight, a consultancy specializing in nutrition and biomedical science, who has written a paper published in the British Medical Journal. Her research focuses on the British population. Dr. Derbyshire is concerned about choline levels. Choline is a water-soluble vitamin-like essential nutrient, important for brain health, particularly during fetal development. The nutrient also...

Earlier this year, I had just finished with the “Snowfall” writers’ room for the season when I took a similar job on a different show at a different network. I’d been in the new room for a few weeks when I got the call from Human Resources. A pleasant-sounding young man said, “Mr. Mosley, it has been reported that you used the N-word in the writers’ room.” I replied, “I am the N-word in the writers’ room.” He said, very nicely, that I could not use that word except in a script. I could write it but I could not...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - RIVERSIDE, Calif. (Associated Press) - A relative of NBA star Kawhi Leonard has confirmed his sister is one of two women accused of robbing and killing an elderly woman at a Southern California casino. The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports the aunt of 35-year-old Kimesha Williams confirmed Saturday that Williams is the sister of the Los Angeles Clippers forward.

Look who’s talking. Kirstie Alley, known for being outspoken about hypocrisy in Hollywood, had some words for people in Tinsel Town who don’t want to work with President Trump supporters: stop it. The drama started after a pair of tweets last weekend, when “Will & Grace” stars Debra Messing and Eric McCormack called for the Hollywood Reporter to expose a list of Trump donors ahead of a campaign fundraising event in Los Angeles. “Please print a list of all attendees please. The public has a right to know,” Messing tweeted. Alley isn’t having it.

Glenn Beck told FNC's Sean Hannity that "radicals, the anarchists, the Islamists, the socialists" have come together to work to destabilize Europe and America in an interview. "If the Republicans don't win in this next election, I think we are officially at the end of the country as we know it," Beck said Monday. "We may not survive even if we win, but we definitely don't if the Republicans lose with Donald Trump."

Two urban high-school girls perform extended in-class beating of their teacher. No word on the condition of the teacher, the current legal disposition of the perps, or even in what part of the country this happened. Many states like California under Obama undertook the position that certain ethnicities more frequently were expelled. They therefore undertook new legal measures assuring that perps of this type cannot be expelled for similar actions. Publik Skool teachurz and there relatives are encouraged to chime in regarding similar experiences and stories. How much would you have to be paid in order to put up with...

Nike just lost about $3.75 billion in market cap after announcing free agent NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick as the new face of its “Just Do It” ad campaign. It’s the 30th anniversary of the iconic TV and print spots. At the time of this writing, the sneaker company’s intra-day market capitalization was $127.82 billion. On Friday, that number had been $131.57 billion. Market capitalization is the market value of a publicly traded company’s outstanding shares. Shares of NKE stock dropped about 4 percent on Tuesday morning, as #NikeBoycott has been trending on Twitter. The company’s valuation has since recovered a...

An arrest warrant for Los Angeles Lakers center DeMarcus Cousins on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge has been issued in Mobile, Alabama. The Mobile municipal court website lists a third-degree harassing communications charge against Cousins, but no other details have been disclosed. A police spokesperson told USA Today Sports that "an arrest warrant has been issued." Christy West, a former girlfriend of Cousins', is seeking a restraining order against him after she said in court documents and in a police report obtained by TMZ that he threatened her and has previously choked her.

While presenting their new film, "The Burnt Orange Heresy," at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, Mick Jagger and Donald Sutherland spoke extensively about their dislike for President Donald Trump. The Rolling Stones frontman, 76, blasted Trump for "tearing apart" America and not working hard enough to combat climate change. "The U.S. should be the world leader in environmental control but now it has decided to go the other way," he said, per THR. Jagger went on to slam Trump for dropping out of the Paris Agreement. “We are in a very difficult situation at the moment, especially in the...

The US is scrapping a ban on energy-inefficient light bulbs which was due to come in at the beginning of 2020. The rule would have prohibited the sale of bulbs that do not reach a standard of efficiency, and could have seen an end to incandescent bulbs. Many countries have phased out older bulbs because they waste energy. But the US energy department said banning incandescent bulbs would be bad for consumers because of the higher cost of more efficient bulbs. The Department of Energy said it had withdrawn the ban because it was a misinterpretation of the 2007 Energy...

        THOUGHT FOR THE WEEKEND There is a line separating dedication-to-duty from "work-a-holism". Dedication to duty is good, healthy, and positive. Work-a-holism, on the other hand, is negative, harmful and eats away at family relationships. We must know the difference between the two. Let me tell you about a man who was called the Greatest American Soldier of the 20th Century: General George C. Marshall. Born in Uniontown, PA in 1880, he graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1902. As a junior infantry officer in the US Army he served two tours in the Philippines, in...

With French President Emmanuel Macron moving forward on his pension reform plans that will create a single national pension system with higher contributions for individuals and lower ones for business, the potential for stronger protests is rising. As for the Yellow Vests movement, September 7th was billed as a come back from the summer break in France. Macron is not trusted on the pension issue by 70 percent of those polled. Its a plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 and a continuation of policies to tax people more to pay for the welfare state while cutting...

An American Airlines mechanic who is accused of sabotaging a commercial flight originally arrived in the United States from Iraq, Breitbart News has confirmed. On Friday, federal court records revealed that Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani allegedly tampered with a navigation system on a plane filled with 150 passengers set to take off from Miami, Florida and bound for Nassau, the Bahamas on July 17. Federal prosecutors allege that Alani put foam glue inside part of the plane’s navigation system. The alleged tampering was captured on surveillance footage that co-workers said showed Alani driving up to the part of the plane...

There was a shooting in Philadelphia every six hours in 2018. Jim MacMillan contends that didn’t have to be. “We know how to stop gun violence,” MacMillan, founder of IBGVR.org, the Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting, said Saturday at a conference designed to spread the word on what he and others contend are effective deterrents. Community activists; young people from the inner city; mothers of children killed by guns; and reporters from television, online, and print news outlets gathered to talk about how better to cover gun violence in the city and share commonsense solutions.

Republican Senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney have co-sponsored legislation that will prevent President Trump in the future of diverting federal funds to border wall construction. The two Republican senators name their bill the Article One Act and it will end all future emergency declarations made under the National Emergencies Act after 30 days unless Congress votes to extend them. Existing laws allow the president of the United States to reprogram existing appropriations for certain purposes. President Trump declared a national emergency Friday citing cartel violence, human trafficking and drug trafficking to access funds to build the border wall. So...