Free Republic

Deep in the tissues of sea anemones, corals, and jellyfish are strange yellow cells which are genetically distinct from the marine animals. More than a century after these cells were first assigned a now forgotten genus, a new paper has resurrected the name and described six new species from around the world. First described in 1881, the yellow things were originally classified under the genus Zooxanthella by scientist Karl Brandt. Brandt also coined the term zooxanthellae, which is used colloquially to this day. However, another scientist – a Scotsman called Patrick Geddes - was investigating these yellow cells at the...

Almost half of San Francisco residents are planning on moving out of the city due to rising crime and a deteriorating quality of life, according to a recent poll. The poll of 500 San Franciscans, commissioned by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, showed that just over 40% of residents plan to move out of the city in the next few years. Additionally, 8 out of 10 people polled said crime has increased in the city, and almost 90% of those polled said they believe that the homeless crisis has gotten worse. Roughly three-quarters of residents in San Francisco said...

Former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes formally announced his run for Arizona Secretary of State Tuesday. In a tweet, Fontes said he officially declared his candidacy for Secretary of State on the six-month anniversary of the U.S. Capitol riot.

The following events have happened in the last few days. These and all the things that are going down seem to indicate that history is at the end of the age. One, concerning Jerusalem: on Thursday, June 24, 2021, Honduras became the fourth nation to move its Embassy to Jerusalem, thus recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (the other 3 are the U.S., Guatemala, and Kosovo). Two, concerning control of the Temple Mount: on June 27, 2021, because of threats against Jews visiting the Temple Mount, a large group of police escorted a Jewish politician named Itamar Ben-Gvir on...

You know what to do.

In order to determine where Americans have the most red, white and blue pride, WalletHub compared the states across 13 key indicators of patriotism. Our data set ranges from the state’s military enlistees and veterans to the share of adults who voted in the 2020 presidential election to AmeriCorps volunteers per capita. Overall Rank State Total Score Military Engagement Civic Engagement 1 Montana 61.91 22 1 2 Alaska 56.64 1 19 3 Maryland 56.12 24 5 4 Vermont 55.29 42 2 5 New Hampshire 53.55 32 4 6 North Dakota 53.28 20 8 7 Wyoming 53.01 8 11 8 Minnesota...

In a crushing blow to LGBT+ communities in China, WeChat has, for unspecified reasons, permanently banned nearly all public accounts created and run by LGBT+ groups at Chinese colleges. According to Weibo user Xiǎolán Sānhàojī @小蓝三号机 (in Chinese), who frequently shares information and news about LGBT+ issues, complaints about the removals started to roll in on the evening of Monday, when followers of the affected WeChat accounts discovered that they had been shut down. WeChat is Tencent’s messaging, social, and payment app, which has become essential to communication and daily life in China.

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL — President Joe Biden will be making his first presidential trip to Illinois Wednesday with a planned stop in Crystal Lake. The visit is also the first time a sitting president has ever stopped in Crystal Lake — a town with a population of about 38,000 located in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago. "We are thrilled and proud that President Biden has chosen our community as his first visit to Illinois as President," said Kristina Zahorik, chair of the Democratic Party of McHenry County. "We are excited the President is highlighting our great Community College and...

A golf pro who was gunned down at a Georgia country club over the weekend was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, police said Tuesday. Gene Siller, 41, was likely shot and killed Saturday because he stumbled on and “witnessed an active crime taking place,” Cobb County police told WGCL-TV. Cops said Siller, the director of golf at Pinetree Country Club near Kennesaw, was shot in the head when he approached a white Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck that had driven onto the course around the 10th hole. Police later found two more bodies in the truck.

CHICAGO, IL—Local second-grader Scotty Watkins isn’t able to read yet, but his teachers say he’s showing great promise in Critical Race Theory (CRT) classes and is currently racist at a 12th-grade level. “Scotty’s progress is truly remarkable,” said his teacher Sandra Martinelli. “Though he can’t read full sentences yet, he’s in the 99th percentile in CRT. Every time he sees a white person, he reflexively yells ‘RACIST’ and punches them in the groin. He's years ahead of his classmates!” Chicago added a CRT section to their standardized testing last fall which allows the district to compare students’ understanding of race...

U.S.—After falling short of his vaccination goals this month, the Biden Administration has announced a new effort to encourage people to get vaccinated. President Biden and Press Secretary Jen Psaki are now riding across the country on bicycles, going door-to-door to spread the good news. "Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior Dr. Fauci, and the salvation of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson?" said Psaki as a local homeowner opened his door. "We want you to know how you can be happy and secure forever. Would you like to talk a...

Watch the video here. https://ktla.com/news/ca-lawmaker-calls-for-mandating-vaccines-for-all-public-employees-amid-covid-outbreak-at-capitol/

The U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday announced that the agency was opening regional field offices in California and Florida to investigate threats to members of Congress in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Threats against members of Congress have increased in recent years. As of Tuesday, total threats so far in 2021 were double what they were at this point a year ago, according to Capitol Police. Home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and other prominent members of Congress, California gives the law enforcement agency a Western base...

A 24-year-old Turkish woman who lost both of her arms and legs after catching a life-threatening blood illness is hoping for a rare double-arm transplant to improve her life, according to reports. Dental technician Beyza Dogan contracted meningococcal meningitis while living in Cologne, Germany, four years ago, the UK’s Mirror reported. Her kidneys collapsed due to blood poisoning and she ended up having all four limbs amputated.

Eric Adams appeared on the brink of winning the city’s Democratic mayoral race on Tuesday after a pivotal release of absentee ballot results placed him at the top of the pack by a razor-thin margin over Kathryn Garcia. The Brooklyn borough president led Garcia by just 8,426 ballots after more than 120,000 newly counted absentee ballots were added to the unofficial Board of Elections tally.

This reminds me of the silly restrictions on firearms ownership from 1996. They were put in place because of one extreme event where 35 people were killed. The expense and restrictions on personal liberty could not possibly be justified. Now we see something similar with COVID-19.The government of New South Wales is requiring that all people be tracked at every business and organization, in the name of COVID-19 control, as of July 12, 2021.This correspondent first learned of this Orwellian control system from a friend living in Australia, yesterday. The first thought was this is an Orwellian conspiracy theory. A...

Newly launched social site GETTR suffered a data breach after a hacker claimed to use an unsecured API to scrape the private information of almost 90,000 members and then shared the data on a hacking forum. GETTR is a new pro-Trump social media platform created by former Trump advisor Jason Miller as an alternative to Twitter. As first seen by Alon Gal, co-founder and CTO of cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock, a group of hackers found an unsecured application programming interface (API) that allowed them to scrape the data for 87,973 GETTR members. After compiling the information, the data was published...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden wants to give U.S. farmers more power in negotiating the sale of livestock to big processors and in deciding who repairs their tractors, the White House said on Tuesday.The executive order, expected within days, will also address such competitive issues as delayed airline baggage, cellphone company practices and Pentagon contracts, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.The order would encourage the Federal Trade Commission to limit the ability of farm equipment manufacturers to prevent tractor owners from using independent repair shops or repairing their own equipment.Reuters first reported the action on repairs earlier on...

A California man on a boat on the Colorado River was ... sitting on the back of the boat’s swim deck when the wreck occurred Sunday The personal watercraft left the scene but lifeguards and boating officers were able to locate it, resulting in citation of the operator, a 16-year-old boy from Avondale, Arizona, for failure to use due caution to avoid a collision and rental contract violation, the department said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that while the biggest ransomware attack on record is not yet "fully" attributable to Russia, the Biden administration will "take action" if President Putin doesn't clamp down on cybercriminals within his country.