Free Republic

Using information from ESA’s Cluster and Swarm missions along with measurements from the ground, scientists have, for the first time, been able to confirm that curiously named bursty bulk flows are directly connected to abrupt changes in the magnetic field near Earth’s surface, which can cause damage to pipelines and electrical power lines. The magnetosphere is a teardrop-shaped region in space that begins some 65,000 km from Earth on the day side and extends to over 6,000,000 km on the night side... formed through interactions between Earth’s magnetic field and supersonic wind flowing from the Sun. These interactions...comprise complicated magnetic...

Every empire at one point had some beauty and/or uniqueness that made it stand apart from all the rest. At one point in their being, each empire/kingdom/nation had signs of their distinctive existence dotting their landscape and was reflected by the vibrant towns and cities teeming with their people and customs. However, just as with the laws of thermodynamics regarding entropy, every empire returns to the common ground of absolute zero after they are collapsed. “When we look back through the remnants of the once-great kingdoms, we repeatedly see man’s attempt to thwart the ravages of time. Great structures, towering...

How lonely sits the city That was full of people! How like a widow is she, Who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces Has become a slave! Lamentations 1:1 The thought of ghost towns has been on my mind as of late. Not so much the dilapidated wooden remnants of the old gold and silver prospecting communities scattered about the old American West, but the abandoned cities in the central and eastern United States. Some of these were abandoned when the local steel or paper mill closed down. Others were closed due to some type of...

CORONAVIRUS disruptions have continued in China’s Ningbo, where the world’s third-largest container port is striving to maintain operation levels. Truck entry into the port area remains restricted while some container freight stations have halted operations due to roadblocks and other lockdown measures in the city’s Beilun District, home to a string of large box terminals. The latest infection wave, which emerged on January 1, have so far been contained within the district, where 26 local cases were confirmed as of 2000 hrs local time on January 4, the Ningbo government told a press conference today. Most of them are from...

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland says the Department of Justice could charge people who were not physically present at the Capitol on January 6. Garland spoke the day before before the White House and Congress are set to mark the first anniversary of the attack. CBS News national affairs and justice correspondent Jeff Pegues joins CBSN to discuss the announcement.

Bethenny Frankel is heartbroken over the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic — particularly the sight of kids and the elderly still wearing masks all day. “It all makes me sad but the elderly & these young kids in school, having to live entire days in masks, is really upsetting,” Frankel, 51, tweeted on Tuesday. She added, “It’s terrible for everyone but seeing a baby or a disabled elderly person with a mask breaks me.”

A police officer who was killed at a northern Illinois hotel pleaded for her life before a man allegedly shot her with her own gun after she was disarmed during a struggle, a prosecutor said. Bradley police Sgt. Marlene Rittmanic and her partner, Officer Tyler Bailey, were shot on Dec. 29 while investigating a noise complaint regarding dogs barking in a parked car outside a Comfort Inn. Bailey remained hospitalized Monday and is “fighting for his life,” Kankakee County State’s Attorney Jim Rowe said during a bond hearing for Xandria Harris. Rowe said during Monday's hearing that Harris' co-defendant, 25-year-old...

The juror has granted multiple media interviews over the last two days.Defense attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell want a new trial following post-verdict comments made by one of the jurors who helped convict Maxwell of sex trafficking crimes, according to a court filing Wednesday. Earlier Wednesday, federal prosecutors in New York asked a judge to oversee an inquiry after the juror granted multiple media interviews in the last two days that have raised questions about the integrity of jury selection. The juror, identified using his first and middle names, Scotty David, told Reuters, the Daily Mail and The Independent that during...

A new video of solar streamers evokes the streaking stars seen during spacecraft hyperdrives in "Star Wars." The new NASA video from the Parker Solar Probe shows these mysterious sun structures up close for the first time, flowing past the spacecraft like interstellar fireflies. Previously, we could only catch a glimpse of streamers during solar eclipses. But with Parker specially shielded for heat-searing passes by the sun, the spacecraft has been making daring approaches closer and closer to our starry neighbor, finally reaching inside the corona during an April flyby.

Video of @tedcruz today that the Jan 6th mass trespassing event violently cracked down by police was a “violent terrorist attack on the capitol.” The game is over, folks. Go home and get a life. You are wasting your time with the GOP.

California’s indoor mask mandate has been extended one month, through at least Feb. 15, amid surging cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly announced Wednesday.

Comedian Jon Stewart, formerly of The Daily Show, has just accused J.K. Rowling of anti-Semitism. And why? Because her depiction of the “goblins” who run Gringotts, the underground bank where everyone’s gold is stored is, in his opinion, an anti-Jewish stereotype. He wonders why the “goblins” are the underground bankers… Get it? Apparently, fiction, even fantasy, must conform to rigid speech code rules. But unlike Wagner’s Nibelungen, Albrecht, (a “dwarf” or a descendent of a “race of dwarfs’) who stole and who hoards the gold which can control the world in Wagner’s four part opera The Ring Cycle—Rowling’s “goblins” merely...

Scott has already mentioned the 48-mile traffic backup that occurred in Northern Virginia yesterday. Reportedly, cars were stopped on I-95 for more than 24 hours in freezing temperatures. It must have been awful, but it could have been worse. And, as Charles Lane explains, it would have been much worse if there had been many more electric vehicles (EVs) in the traffic jam. Sometime after 3 a.m. Tuesday. . .a long-haul trucker from Canada heard a knock at the door of his cab. It was one of the hundreds of other motorists stuck in subfreezing temperatures with no food or...

Did former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il invent the burrito? A North Korean state-run news outlet claimed Kim Jong Un's father developed the Tex-Mex delight, according to a report. Kim developed the concept for what he called "wheat wraps" shortly before his 2011 death, according to the North Korean propaganda. The state-distributed material included footage of citizens devouring the "wheat wraps," disregarding massive food shortages in the communist nation.

After almost three years of crisis, with Boeing still facing immense challenges, two top Boeing leaders in exclusive interviews laid out their strategy: hunker down, fix the litany of current problems and rely on a revamp of the company’s engineering culture to restore Boeing’s stained reputation. Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal said Boeing, for all its current problems, is in a better position than it was a year ago. “We see a much clearer path” in 2022, he said. Boeing Chief Engineer Greg Hyslop said recovery begins with the company’s 52,000 engineering staff. “We’re going to lead with engineering excellence,”...

Donald Trump on Tuesday abruptly gave up his plan to deliver a press conference on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, leaving President Joe Biden to address a divided nation. Trump's decision to ditch his planned press conference in Florida means Americans will be spared a split-screen moment on Thursday. If it had gone ahead, Biden would have marked what he calls "one of the darkest days" in U.S. history, while Trump, just a few hours later, was expected to comment on the day as while while also referencing his claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election....

Religious persecution an ‘insane’ act, pope saysTo discriminate against or persecute those who profess their faith is an intolerable act that threatens the fraternal bonds shared by humanity, Pope Francis said.“How can we allow that in this society — which is so civilized — there are people who are persecuted simply because they publicly profess their faith? Not only is it unacceptable; it’s inhuman, it’s insane,” the pope said.In a video message released by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network Jan. 3, the pope offered his prayer intention for the month of January, which he dedicated to people who suffer from...

The NFL, not surprisingly in the midst of a rise in COVID-19 cases, has looked into other potential sites for next month's Super Bowl. That's not unusual because the league does so every year. But with Los Angeles the site for this year's title game, and restrictions increasing for attendance at indoor events, it has become more noteworthy. "We plan on playing Super Bowl 56 as scheduled at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 13," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Wednesday. "As part of our standard contingency planning process that we conduct for all regular and postseason games,...

SEOUL: South Korea has grounded its entire fleet of advanced F-35 fighter jets, officials said Wednesday (Jan 5), pending a probe into a dramatic emergency landing. After the landing gear on a South Korean F-35A stopped working during a major systems malfunction, the pilot chose not to eject and instead landed the jet on its belly, walking away without any injuries. The heart-stopping incident on Tuesday, at an air force base in the west of the country, has prompted a probe during which South Korean F-35s will be grounded. "With the investigation under way, the entire (F-35) fleet is suspended...

Explanation: Does the Sun always rise in the same direction? No. As the months change, the direction toward the rising Sun changes, too. The featured image shows the direction of sunrise every month during 2021 as seen from the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The camera in the image is always facing due east, with north toward the left and south toward the right. As shown in an accompanying video, the top image was taken in 2020 December, while the bottom image was captured in 2021 December, making 13 images in total. Although the Sun always rises in the east...