Free Republic

NASA's InSight lander arrived in November 2018 and started listening for Mars' heartbeat, we learnt something really remarkable: Mars is rumbling. To date, InSight has detected hundreds of marsquakes – enough to give us a detailed map of the Martian interior. Tkalčić and his colleague, geophysicist Weijia Sun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wanted to look for quakes that might have gone unnoticed in the InSight data. They used two unconventional techniques, only recently applied to geophysics, to hunt seismic events in the InSight data. Based on nine templates of known marsquakes, the pair detected 47 new seismic events,...

The US will announce new sanctions on Russia Wednesday in coordination with Group of 7 nations and the European Union, according to an administration official. The official said the sweeping package "will impose significant costs on Russia and send it further down the road of economic, financial, and technological isolation." The new sanctions package will ban all new investment in Russia, increase sanctions on financial institutions and state-owned enterprises in Russia, and sanction Russian government officials and their family members. The new sanctions package will mark the latest escalation in efforts by the US and its allies to impose costs...

NBCUniversal says “SNL” comedian Horatio Sanz was off the clock when he allegedly groomed and sexually assaulted a teenage girl, so there’s no way the network should bear any responsibility in the case, according to new court documents. The network says that it can’t be held liable for what the TV actor allegedly did to his 17-year-old accuser “after hours” when he “was not performing his job,” according to papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by lawyers for NBCUniversal on Friday. The company added that there is no evidence to show the network knew about Sanz’s “alleged predatory behavior.”

A California judge on Thursday denied an appeal for qualified immunity from a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department sergeant who is accused of shooting and killing a man with excessive force. Nearly every key detail of the years-long case against the sergeant and the county is disputed, including whether the man was retreating from the property at the time of the shooting; whether he was holding a baseball bat in an upright position or with its tip pointed down; and whether he posed a threat to bystanders. Sgt. Dan Ponder contends that the man, Clemente Najera-Aguirre, stood facing him as he...

Republican politicians routinely claim that cities run by Democrats have been experiencing crime waves caused by failed governance, but a new study shows murder rates are actually higher in states and cities controlled by Republicans. “We’re seeing murders in our cities, all Democrat-run,” former President Donald Trump asserted at a March 26 rally in Georgia. “People are afraid to go out.” In February, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., blamed Democrats for a 2018 law that reduced some federal prison sentences — even though it was signed by Trump after passing a GOP-controlled Congress. “It’s your party who voted in lockstep for...

Three red states — Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri — have filed suit to block the Biden administration from lifting Title 42. The administration said on Friday that it would lift the public health policy that has been in place since the Trump administration, which enabled border enforcement to summarily expel millions of aliens who attempted to enter the country at the southern border. The order is set to be lifted on May 23 — at which time DHS estimates the already overwhelming influx at the southern border may increase to as many as 18,000 apprehensions per day.On Sunday, the attorneys...

A regiment of elite Russian fighters have suffered heavy losses at the hands of the fierce Ukrainian resistance, it has been reported. The 331st Guards Parachute Regiment are considered among the most fearsome and well-trained in the Russian army, having fought for the city of Ilovaisk in the Donbas in 2014. Their involvement in Russia's invasion of Ukraine this year, and fatalities they've suffered, is indicative of how the invasion hasn't gone as planned. The regiment's commanding officer, Col Sergei Sukharev, was killed in Ukraine on 13 March - a major blow for any military unit. His deputy Major Sergei...

Scientists at a laboratory in England have shattered the record for the amount of energy produced during a controlled, sustained fusion reaction. The production of 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds at the Joint European Torus – or JET – experiment in England has been called "a breakthrough" by some news outlets and caused quite a lot of excitement among physicists. But a common line regarding fusion electricity production is that it is "always 20 years away." We are a nuclear physicist and a nuclear engineer who study how to develop controlled nuclear fusion for the purpose of generating...

Current White House chief of staff Ron Klain approached Hunter Biden in September 2012 for help raising $20,000 for a foundation that looks after the vice president’s residence, but told the now-first son to “keep it low key” to prevent “bad PR,” according to emails obtained by The Post In a Sept. 21, 2012 message to Hunter Biden, first reported by Fox News, Klain said he needed to “tackle a piece of unpleasant business.” “The tax lawyers for the VP Residence Foundation have concluded that since the Cheney folks last raised money in 2007 and not 2008, we actually have...

For well over a year, the public has known about Brett Favre receiving $1.1 million in Mississippi welfare funds for apparent no-show appearances, which he has since paid back. Now, a new report from Mississippi Today has more details that tie Favre to potential political corruption in Mississippi. Favre, who played collegiately at Southern Miss, was linked on Monday to a scandal involving former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant. Mississippi Today reported connections between Favre, a drug company he invested in, public welfare funds, and Bryant. The hall of fame QB reportedly hoped to make a significant amount of money from...

The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at U.S. banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of dollars. Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at U.S. financial institutions were frozen. But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis. On Monday, as the...

On Monday night, special counsel John Durham released what could be the smoking gun in the case against Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann in his investigation of Russiagate. According to newly published documents, Sussman, who was indicted last September for concealing his clients, messaged the FBI general counsel on Sept. 18, 2016, and said unambiguously that he was not working for any client while he was, in fact, working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Sussmann’s lawyers claimed last year that the charges against their client were false and that they were made based on an unsubstantiated verbal statement. “The Special...

Vladimir Putin's horrendous war in Ukraine has revealed just how united and decisive we can be in the face of a crisis. Europe has once again flung open its doors to refugees fleeing destruction. Rousing gestures of humanity are seen every day. And this is despite the enormous economic costs — energy bills are surging, public money is pouring into Ukraine, sanctions are biting here as well as Russia. But it's the right thing to do and we know it. So why can't we do the same when faced with crises that threaten the existence of everyone on the planet?...

The European Union looks set to launch sanctions against Hungary after Viktor Orbán achieved a landslide victory in the country’s recent general election. It appears that the European Union is not happy with the result of Hungary’s recent general election, with many in Brussels seemingly hoping the country’s united opposition would manage to unseat long-running conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. However, after Orbán’s recent landslide victory, the EU looks set to take a different approach to tackling the populist administration. According to a report by Euronews, the European Commission has triggered the so-called “conditionality mechanism” over what are alleged to...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Monday night, Albuquerque city councilors’ motion to override the mayor’s veto of the Clean and Green Retail Ordinance passed on a 6-3 vote. The city’s plastic bag ban will be lifted.

Elon Musk’s 9.2% stake in Twitter and his newly announced board seat has sent the left into an anti-free-speech tailspin. Musk has been an outspoken proponent of free speech – which he says that failing to adhere to “fundamentally undermines democracy.” The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022 On Monday, CNN host Brian Stelter said there’s a ‘fear’ over Musk’s move. “There’s interest in billionaires, there’s celebration of the Musk. There’s also fear, I think, sometimes or wariness of- okay, so here’s the richest man on the planet who...

The inevitable bankruptcy of the Social Security system prompted Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to propose cutting the pensions of youthful workers as "the best way out of our dilemma. This would preserve the incomes of those already drawing Social Security by shifting the burden to those who will still be in the workforce for several more decades." "The political benefit of this approach is that it won't produce a backlash from those currently dependent on these benefits," he explained. "At the same time, the age cohort that will suffer is probably not even aware of whats going on." The Senator...

When Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard speaks, markets listen Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said the U.S. central bank will continue to tighten policy methodically and shrink its balance sheet at a rapid pace as soon as May. Brainard’s hawkish remarks sent bond prices crashing and 10Y bond yields up over 16 bps. While Bankrate’s 30Y mortgage rate is down slightly today, the surge in the 10Y and 2Y Treasury yields could push mortgage rates above 5% by tomorrow, Even Europe is feeling Brainard’s wrath. Italian 10Y sovereign yields are up almost 20 bps. The NASDAQ index is down 300...

While Shanghai continues its lockdown and massive PCR testing campaign as COVID-19 surges through the city, a CDC expert’s complaint about chaotic PCR test reports that have confused people was recently exposed online. Shanghai CDC issued a notice demanding staff answer public inquiries “in line with the policy.” There have been complaints about the conflicting PCR test results on Chinese social media because people receive a negative test result on their cell phones but then receive a positive test result from the CDC. Shanghai adopted the Healthcare Cloud app as its integrated Internet and Healthcare services platform. Locals register through...

A detailed list of the destroyed and captured vehicles and equipment of both sides can be seen below. This list is constantly updated as additional footage becomes available.