Free Republic

A horrifying spider has been found chowing down on bats in the UK. The eight-legged venomous menace known as the noble false widow was found sucking the guts out of a baby bat. Over a mortifying two days, bats living in Ben’s attic were found entangled in the spider’s web below the entrance to their roost. A second, much larger adult bat, was also captured and trapped in the web but it was still alive. Fortunately, the lucky bat was rescued and released.

A JetBlue pilot is out of a job and in huge trouble after he was pulled from the cockpit for being drunk. This all unfolded Wednesday morning at the Buffalo Airport, just before takeoff, with a plane full of passengers. Pilot James Clifton, 52, was in the cockpit, getting ready to fly 133 passengers from Buffalo to Fort Lauderdale around 6:15 a.m. when NFTA officers pulled him from the plane. TSA agents suspected something was off about Clifton when he was checking his gun through security just minutes earlier. “There was some questions and some suspicion. That’s when we became...

Posted at 7:34 AM, Mar 03, 2022 and last updated 5:41 AM, TAMPA, Fla. — If Florida's “Stop WOKE Act,” also known as House Bill 7 or Senate Bill 148, passes, it would be the strongest legislation of its kind in the nation. “Essentially what this piece of legislation would do is it would prohibit businesses and educational institutions from providing certain types of training or education for their employees or students that may for whatever reason make those employees or students feel uncomfortable,” said Kelly Flannery, President and CEO of the South Tampa Chamber of Commerce. HB7 would prohibit...

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was one of the reasons he got into politics.After leaving his career as a comedian and entertainer and becoming Ukraine’s president in April 2019, Zelenskyy hailed Trudeau as “one of those leaders who inspired” him “to join politics,” when he became Ukraine’s president in 2019.While Zelenskyy has shot to stardom from relative obscurity from the perspective of the West since the Russo-Ukrainian conflict became international news last week, his admiration for Trudeau comes as less of a surprise when looking into his background.Like Trudeau, Zelenskyy is an acolyte...

In a short, powerful speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tells Russia to 'go home' and says they are confused. in a powerful speech.

The trade turnover between the United States and Russia shows that 51 percent of all US imports account for petroleum products and minerals. The list continues with metals (14 percent) and precious metals and stones (14 percent). Cooperation with the Russian Federation is of great importance for the Americans. Russia stops oil supplies to United States Shipments of petroleum products account for a bulk of all goods that the United States buys from Russia. An increase in the cost of goods has already led to the suspension of certain production in the EU. Many of those branches were owned by...

René Magritte’s Surrealist masterpiece L’empire des lumières sold for a record £59.4 million (US$79.8 million) at a Sotheby’s sale on Wednesday, achieving a world auction record for the artist. The 1961 painting, with a paradoxical image of darkened home lit from within yet under a bright blue sky of floating clouds, was sought by three telephone bidders over more than seven minutes before a winning hammer offer of £51.5 million, before fees, was secured by Alex Branczik, the auction house’s chairman of modern and contemporary art in Asia. Magritte’s previous auction record of US$26.8 million was achieved for a 1937...

Ukraine says it has agreed with Russia to create safe corridors backed by cease-fires to evacuate civilians, deliver aid.

California's governor proposed a plan on Thursday to force homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders into treatment. The proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom would require all counties in California to set up a mental health branch in civil court to assist people in need of help but who won't accept services. The state would require counties to provide comprehensive treatment to those suffering from debilitating psychosis and people would be obligated to accept the care. Some advocates for the homeless have objected to forced care, but Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle it is past time to...

Ukraine, with Russian troops on its borders, is pressing for membership. But President Biden and European leaders are not ready for that step. WASHINGTON — The tense talks this week among the United States, Russia and European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have made one thing clear: While the Biden administration insists it will not allow Moscow to quash Ukraine’s ambitions to join NATO, it has no immediate plans to help bring the former Soviet republic into the alliance. If Ukraine were a NATO member, the alliance would be obligated to defend it against Russia and other adversaries....

At right, a Russian armored vehicle sits at a railway station in Rostov Oblast, Russia Feb. 25, awaiting deployment to Ukraine. At left, a Soviet tank sits on St. Joseph Boulevard in Budapest, on Nov. 6, 1956, two days after helping to crush the uprising in Hungary. I’m being asked for a sense of historical perspective to capture the gravity of what Vladimir Putin and his Russian troops are doing right now in the Ukraine. Is this unprecedented? Is there a parallel in recent Russian history? In recent Russian history, no. Modern Russia is post-Cold War Russia, the once-hopeful product...

The NFL and the NFL Players Association have agreed to halt all aspects of their joint COVID-19 protocols, effective immediately. Following nearly two years of restrictions, operations will return to normal, the league relayed in a memo Thursday, obtained by NFL Network's Tom Pelissero. It is a long-awaited awaited announcement as there will be no more requirements for masks, tracking devices, surveillance testing or capacity limits, unless they are required by state or local laws. "Based on current encouraging trends regarding the prevalence and severity of COVID-19, the evolving guidance from the CDC, changes to state law and the counsel...

The move effectively cuts off Russia’s ability to book flights on its own airline. Sabre, one of the largest airline ticket booking companies in the world, is terminating its distribution agreement with Russian air carrier Aeroflot, the company announced Thursday. The move could further restrict Russian air travel, which has already seen its planes banned from most Western countries’ airspace. State-owned Aeroflot is the flag carrier and the largest airline in the Russian Federation. The airline has about 200 aircraft in its fleet and travels to 146 destinations around the world. Being shut out of online booking software could make...

While there is no official checklist for membership, the alliance maintains a list of minimum requirements that aspiring countries should be able to meet: New members must uphold democracy, including tolerating diversity New members must be making progress toward a market economy Their military forces must be under firm civilian control They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders They must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces Once a country makes its desire to join the alliance known, NATO may invite the country to join the Membership Action Plan, which is a program that helps nations...

Global supply chain pressures eased in February as backlogs and delivery times improved in several key markets and a measure of ocean shipping costs declined, according to new data from the New York Federal Reserve released on Thursday. The New York Fed’s supply chain pressure index, first published in January to measure the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on global production troubles and prices, remains at a historic high. But from a peak of 4.5 in December, it has fallen over consecutive months and hit 3.3 in February, with 0 representing the index’s long-term average. The index combines measures of shipping costs,...

Ukrainian forces are attacking the 40-mile-long convoy that is attempting to converge on the capital city of Kyiv, the chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said. “We are striking the enemy’s columns,” Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Military Times on Wednesday. “We burn many columns of the enemy.” “My intelligence officers and agents are directing and calling the strikes,” he said, adding that the forces are using Su-24 and Su-25 fighter jets, artillery, and missile barrages against Russian forces and equipment. The convoy of Russian troops was roughly 15 miles from Kyiv, a senior defense official told reporters on...

The YouTube oligarchs on Mount Censorlympus targeted one of its popular users An0maly for daring to post a clip of comments on masking by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). The video that sent the YouTube censors off showed DeSantis telling Middleton High School students at the University of South Florida: “You do not have to wear those masks.” An0maly, who has over 259,000 subscribers, suggested that either the war in Ukraine or terrible midterm polling numbers were causing Democrats to change their collective tune on COVID-19 and ease restrictions. “[N]ow that they’re easing off of restrictions, I think it’s really...

Nearly 90 years after the last thylacine died, a group of scientists at the University of Melbourne, Australia, are attempting to bring the extinct marsupial back to life Thylacines, also known as Tasmanian tigers (despite being a marsupial and looking nothing like a tiger apart from their stripy back), are thought to have gone extinct back in 1936, when Benjamin – the last confirmed member of the species – died in captivity at Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo. Reports of thylacine sightings in the wild continued long after Benjamin died, with many people hopeful that they might still be alive out there...

Among many challenges in treating tumors is the difficulty in getting anti-cancer drugs to the right locations, and in the right amounts. A new type of implant developed at Rice University tackles both these issues, carrying the cellular machinery needed to produce and deliver continuous doses of anti-cancer compounds, and doing so with such potency that they took out 100 percent of ovarian tumors in mice in the space of a week. The bioengineers behind this promising new form of immunotherapy treatment for cancer describe it as a "drug factory," in that once it is in place, it can go...

Notice Allegedly Posted by way of an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet taped to the front desk window at Jackson River Pediatrics in Covington, VA: "Student Athletes: "Sports physicals are done primarily to make sure you are not at high risk for sudden cardiac death on the playing field. "Covid vaccination affects your risk. "In response to worldwide experience and vaccine adverse-event monitoring, we are adopting a more precautionary sports physical sign-off policy: "If you have received doses of any COVID shot, we will not be able to clear you to compete in sports without performing lab work and perhaps...