Free Republic

Death Wish 3--Charles Bronson Blows A Guy Away With Rocket Launcher

TRAPPIST-1e TRAPPIST-1e is a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of a star 39 light-years from Earth and may have water and clouds, as depicted in this artist’s impression. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1e ************************************************************************ To search for alien life, astronomers will search for clues in the atmospheres of distant planets – and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just proved it’s possible to do so. The ingredients necessary for life are spread throughout the universe. While Earth is the only known place with life in the universe, detecting life beyond our planet is a major goal of modern astronomy and planetary science....

Vaccinated people are now more likely to be hospitalized or die from Covid, even after adjusting for fact they're older than the unvaccinated, according to official government estimates from the Canadian province of Manitoba. In May, the most recent month for which figures are available, only 9 percent of Covid deaths and 14 percent of hospital admissions in Manitoba occurred among unvaccinated people, even though they are 17 percent of the population.Manitoba, which has about 1.4 million residents, also provides figures that are adjusted for the fact that vaccinated and boosted people tend to be older. Those show that in...

The mayors of New Jersey's largest cities hope to see a decrease in gun crimes because of a change in the state's bail law. A CBS2's Tony Aiello reported Monday, it makes it easier to detain people charged with serious gun offenses. The number of shooting victims in New Jersey surged up more than 40 percent in the last two years. Paterson is one of the five large cities most impacted. "I think it's very bad, horrible. It's very devastating," said Marcuasia Pauling, who lives in Paterson. Advocates hope a change in the bail law eases the toll by denying...

SNIP Therapists like Maggie Osinski know a thing or two about these bodily fixations. “Body dysmorphia is essentially a preoccupation with perceived flaws in one’s physical appearance that causes a significant amount of emotional distress,” Osinski, an eating disorder specialist in Brooklyn, New York, told HuffPost. “Like most mental health disorders, the cause of body dysmorphia is due to a variety of factors, including environmental, psychological and neurobiological factors.” Body dysmorphia is the general term used by many who have experienced these feelings, but it’s also part of a clinical diagnosis known as body dysmorphic disorder that affects about 1...

News that former New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio used accounting gimmicks to conceal more that $200 million in losses on the City's ferry system resulted in a vigorous protest against suspicion that corruption was involved. DeBlasio insisted that "the cover-up was innocent. There was no corruption on my part. I received no kick-backs or remuneration of any kind. It was just your typical run-of-the-mill government waste and mismanagement of the kind we regularly see with all of our public transportation systems." The former Mayor explained that "the creative bookkeeping was purely a defense mechanism. For one, I was running...

I remember this commercial, but completely forgot about it. A must watch classic commercial. If we only knew then what we know today. We would have clamored for him to run in 2020. Love this guy, and RIP Ivana.

Traditional debt crisis signs of crashing currencies, 1,000 basis point bond spreads and burned FX reserves point to a record number of developing nations now in trouble. Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Russia, Suriname and Zambia are already in default, Belarus is on the brink and at least another dozen are in the danger zone as rising borrowing costs, inflation and debt all stoke fears of economic collapse. Totting up the cost is eyewatering. Using 1,000 basis point bond spreads as a pain threshold, analysts calculate $400 billion of debt is in play. Argentina has by far the most at over $150...

(CNN)Despite running as a staunchly anti-transgender and anti-abortion candidate, far-right Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake once posted in support of transgender youth and asked her followers about aborting fetuses who would be born with disabilities in social media posts from 2015 and 2016 reviewed by CNN's KFile.

Thirteen-year-old prodigy Alena Analeigh Wicker just reached an awe-inspiring accomplishment.Thirteen-year-old prodigy Alena Analeigh Wicker just reached an awe-inspiring accomplishment as the youngest Black person in the country to ever be accepted to a medical school. Capturing the attention of University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine, Alena hopes to become a doctor. After already more than halfway done with her undergrad at Arizona State University and Oakwood University in just one year, Alena expects to reach her goal at 18. "I really want to leave my mark on the world. And lead a group of girls that know...

A nuclear radiation warning sign was put up in Menlo Park Mall in Edison, New Jersey, in May, 2022. It preceded the NYC PSA "Duck and Cover" announcement. Nuclear Radiation Warning Sign Put Up In New Jersey Mall

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has voted to restore abortion rights nationwide in Democrats’ first legislative response to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The bill has little chance of becoming law, with the necessary support lacking in the 50-50 Senate. Yet voting marks the beginning of a new era in the debate as lawmakers, governors and legislatures grapple with the impact of the court’s decision. The legislation passed 219-210. The House was also voting on a separate bill to prohibit punishment for a woman or child who decides to travel to another state to get an...

President Joe Biden’s approval has fallen below 30 percent in the majority of states, a Civiqs survey shows.According to the survey, Biden has a net negative approval in every single state with the exception of Hawaii (47 percent approve, 40 percent disapprove) and Vermont (40 percent approve and 40 percent disapprove). What is more, Biden’s approval has fallen below 30 percent in the majority of states, less than two years into his presidency.As of Friday, 28 states have the president with an approval below 30 percent:Alabama: 22 percent approveAlaska: 28 percent approveArizona: 26 percent approveArkansas: 20 percent approveFlorida: 29 percent...

China-Australia relations are facing both challenges and opportunities at the present, and China is willing to "recalibrate" ties in the spirit of mutual respect, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. "The Chinese side is willing to take the pulse (on ties), recalibrate, and set sail again," Wang told Chinese media in the Guangxi region on Thursday (July 14), according to a foreign ministry statement on Friday. But Australia must correct its understanding of China and not hype up differences, and refrain from joining in with others in trying to contain China, Wang said.

President Xi Jinping spoke of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region "as an important window and bridge connecting the Chinese mainland with the world" in his keynote address on July 1 marking the 25th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to the motherland. The president singled out as a notable strength of Hong Kong that it is "enjoying the backing of the motherland while staying connected with the world". In an address on June 30, Xi had said that Beijing will support Hong Kong "in leveraging its strengths and role in advancing the Belt and Road Initiative" and Hong...

An Iranian man needed a seven-and-half inch (19cm) water bottle yanked out of his anus. The constipated 50-year-old, who wasn't named, was so scared of his wife's reaction he delayed seeking help for three days. She had taken him to hospital because she was concerned about his lack of eating, abdominal pain and inability to go to the toilet. But the man didn't tell doctors that it was because he had a 250ml bottle inside him. It was only spotted when he was sent for a CT scan. Writing in the journal Clinical Case Reports, they said he didn't want...

In a time when many Americans are struggling to make ends meet, President Joe Biden is ensuring that terrorist-sponsoring regimes stay well-funded. Biden made a commitment to provide hundeds of millions in taxpayer dollars to the Palestinians at a meeting with Palestinian authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on his Israel trip while reaffirming his commitment to the “two-state solution.” “Now, as president of the United States, my commitment to that goal of a two-state solution has not changed in all these years,” he said. “Two states along the 1967 lines were mutually agreed. The swaps remain the best way to achieve...

Researchers say they have debunked the urban myth that healthy underweight people “eat whatever they want and burn it off with exercise”. A study of healthy Chinese adults considered underweight, according to the widely used Body Mass Index (BMI), found they not only do not eat as much food as people with a “normal” BMI, they are also less physically active. More from AsiaOne Read the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite. “Our data suggests they eat about 12 per cent less than adults with a normal BMI,” the team of scientists wrote in an...

President Biden faces a Monday deadline to forestall a freight train rail strike that could further aggravate the nation’s supply chain problems. Railroads and union workers have been unable to reach an agreement on a new contract and the rail companies are now seeking intervention from the Biden administration, which is weighing the appointment of an arbitration board to recommend a settlement. The unions and rail companies are at the end of a 30-day “cooling-off” period that ends Monday, and without presidential intervention, a strike could be imminent.

X-rays conducted on a Vincent van Gogh painting have revealed a previously unknown self-portrait hidden on the back, according to a BBC report Wednesday. The discovery was made when experts at the National Galleries of Scotland scanned the work ahead of an upcoming exhibition. On the back of the early work Head of a Peasant Woman (1884), conservators noticed the profile of a bearded man wearing a brimmed hat and a neckerchief beneath the layers of glue and cardboard. Even though only the left side of his face is visible, the sitter maintains an intense, inescapable gaze. The discovery came...