Free Republic

Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran shot outside the U.S. Capitol Speaker’s Lobby by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021, was “murdered … under the color of authority,” a use-of-force expert concludes after reviewing video footage of the incident. Just prior to 2:45 p.m. on January 6, Ashli Babbitt began climbing through the side window leading into the Speaker’s Lobby and was shot in the left anterior shoulder by Byrd. She was pronounced dead a half-hour later at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Stan Kephart, who has testified in court more than 350 times as an expert...

Contemporary Christian musician Amy Grant has been named one of the Kennedy Center’s five honorees for 2022. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine ever receiving this prestigious Kennedy Center Honors,” Grant said in a statement. “I cannot wait to celebrate with my fellow honorees, friends, and family. Thank you for widening the circle to include all of us.” The center plans to fete Grant in its 45th class of honorees that also includes actor George Clooney, singer Gladys Knight, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tania León, and the rock band U2.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — As one of two Republican members of Congress from Washington to have voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler faces one of her toughest primaries since she was first elected to represent the southwest region of the state in 2010. The number of Republicans in the race — including a former Green Beret endorsed by Trump — and the anger that the six-term congresswoman sparked among some in her party with her impeachment vote means Herrera Beutler could face a scenario that seemed unfathomable in her previous re-election bids: not making it...

Establishment Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is underwater with Alaskan Republican voters, according to a Monday Morning Consult poll. Only 41 percent approved of Murkowski’s job performance, while 46 percent disapproved. The polling comes as Murkowski, who is supported by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), hopes to defeat Donald Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka in the August 16 Republican primary. In March polling, Murkowski trailed Tshibaka (45.4 to 28.7 percent). Murkowski’s campaign has been flooded with donations from large political action groups. Murkowski ended the second quarter with $6.1 million in her campaign account with a second quarter raise of $1.7 million. In contrast,...

A 15-year-old boy was killed in a stabbing that started out as an attempted robbery on a CTA Red Line train on the South Side Monday, Chicago police said. An armed robbery aboard a CTA Red Line train led to the fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old boy, police said. At about 3:04 a.m. in the 200-block of West 63rd Street, police said the boy was armed with a gun and was a part of a group of seven people who were attempting to rob a person on the train, Chicago Police Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said. The person they...

An international team of scientists has discovered a molecule that prevents tumor cells spreading from a primary cancer site to colonize other sites in the body. The multidisciplinary research team, from the University of York, Leiden University and Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), discovered that the small, sugar-like molecule maintains the integrity of tissue around a tumor during cancer. They have shown the sugar-like molecules markedly reduce cancer spread in mice, paving the way for development towards clinical application. How cancer cells invade Metastasis, the spread of cancer cells to distant sites in the body, is what makes cancer so...

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department on Monday announced it intends to loan a joint venture of General Motors and LG Energy Solution $2.5 billion to help finance construction of new lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facilities. The conditional commitment for the loan to Ultium Cells LLC for facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan is expected to close in the coming months and comes from the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program, which has not funded a new loan since 2010. The plan, first reported by Reuters, would mark the Energy Department's first loan exclusively for...

A majority of people in the U.S have had Covid-19 at least once — likely more than 70% of the country, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said on Thursday, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many have been infected multiple times. In a study that has not been peer viewed that looked at 257,000 U.S. veterans who'd contracted Covid at least once, 12% had a reinfection by April and about 1% had been infected three times or more. This raises an obvious question: What is keeping that shrinking minority of people from getting sick?...

Brian Herbst had a banner Alaska vacation. He caught rockfish and halibut, saw moose and bears, stayed in a yurt — and in a moment of perfect timing, managed to snap a photo of a minke whale mid-breach, suspended above the waters of Kachemak Bay. Using his daughter’s high school yearbook camera and a borrowed lens, he started snapping photos. He knew he’d gotten the perfect shot. It’s not known why the whales breach, powering up out of the water and flying into the air, Webber said. It could be a way to signal to other whales by making a...

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia tightened its gas squeeze on Europe on Monday as Gazprom said supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany would drop to just 20% of capacity. Gazprom said flows would fall to 33 million cubic metres per day from 0400 GMT on Wednesday - a halving of the current, already reduced level - because it needed to halt the operation of a Siemens gas turbine at a compressor station on instructions from an industry watchdog. Germany said it saw no technical reason for the latest reduction, which comes as Russia and the West exchange economic blows...

After two pandemic years of stocking up on stuff – desk, chair, bookshelf, dresses, blender, knives – Rachel Premack is now all about travel and saving what she can. Last year, she had the stimulus dollars and nowhere to go; now, she's got weddings and family visits and worries about rising prices. This, on a nationwide scale, became the recipe for a whole new problem for some U.S. stores: a glut of inventory. "It is just a really bizarre back and forth kind of situation," says Premack, who has followed all this as an editorial director at the logistics outlet...

A breaching whale landed on the bow of a fishing boat off the coast of Massachusetts on Sunday in a dramatic moment caught on camera. No one was injured and the boat was not seriously damaged, town officials said. CBS Boston reports the incident happened around 10 a.m. a few hundred yards off of Manomet Point in Plymouth, where whales have been spotted in the area feeding. Last week, a photographer captured an image of a whale surfacing not far from a paddleboarder. Because the whales have been in the area, a Plymouth Harbormaster boat was monitoring the waters this...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has been found guilty of contempt of Congress, which is one of the evilest crimes one can commit against Congress. While prosecutors expressed relief at the verdict, they also warned that there are still 330 million Americans with extreme contempt for Congress who are still roaming around freely. "At last the monster Steve Bannon who dared to have contempt for the sacred Select Committee will face justice," said prosecutor Molly Gaston to reporters. "Sadly, he's not the only danger to our hallowed democracy. I have just received word that there are over...

Getty Paul Sorvino, famous for his work in "Goodfellas," has died at the age of 83 ... TMZ has learned. A rep for the actor tells us he died this morning with his wife Dee Dee by his side. Dee Dee says, "Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage.”

While not of great speleological significance...[a]s an archaeological monument it forms part of a complex of 50 archaeological monuments that make up the ancient pre-Christian Connaught royal site of Cruachán. It is therefore of special importance as a cultural adaptation of a natural geological feature...Originally, an earthen mound surrounded the entrance but this was almost entirely removed in the 20th C. construction of the access laneway (Waddell, 1983). Thankfully, however, what is below ground is preserved in excellent condition. This consists of a double souterrain (which is closed-in on one side) leading, after 3m, to a natural cave. In the...

It’s been stupidly hot here in Texas lately and as you’ve likely heard, the state’s power grid is straining to meet record-high electricity demand. Twice in mid-July, ERCOT, the state’s grid operator, was forced to ask the state’s consumers to reduce their power use. On the afternoon of July 13, the system had less than 3,000 megawatts of spare capacity as demand hit nearly 80,000 megawatts. That’s not nearly enough reserve capacity. Since February 2021, when the Texas grid nearly collapsed during Winter Storm Uri, scads of reports and opinion pieces have been written to explain why the electric grid...

The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday is set to release the second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) numbers. And if they’re negative, that will mark two consecutive quarters in which the economy has contracted — something that is generally understood to mean a recession. How real and politically sensitive is that possibility? Real enough that the Biden administration is seeking to preempt it. Late last week, the White House issued a document stating that two straight quarters of negative GDP “is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle.” Treasury Secretary Janet L....

One of Jupiter's tenuous rings can be seen in this infrared image. (NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Judy Schmidt) Given its similarities to its neighbor, Saturn, it seems natural to ask why Jupiter doesn't also have a magnificent, extensive system of visible rings. Alas, it's not the reality. While Jupiter does have rings, they're thin, tenuous, flimsy things of dust, visible only when back-lit by the Sun. According to new research, these discount rings lack bling because Jupiter's posse of chonky Galilean moons keep discs of rock and dust from accumulating the way they do around Saturn. "It's long bothered me why Jupiter doesn't have...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration on Monday announced plans to replant trees on millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change. The U.S. Agriculture Department said it will have to quadruple the number of tree seedlings produced by nurseries to get through the backlog and meet future needs. That comes after Congress last year passed bipartisan legislation directing the Forest Service to plant 1.2 billion trees over the next decade and after President Joe Biden in April...

Just over one year ago, Cairn University, a small, private, Christian school in southeastern Pennsylvania, made a strategic institutional decision to eliminate its School of Social Work and all related degrees and programs, thus bringing to an end a 50-plus-year run. Closing what was a pioneering program with a long history and a sound reputation was not an easy decision, but it was a clear one. The Board of Trustees approved a recommendation from the administration to close the school based upon multiple factors. Among these were declining enrollment and an associated and growing disparity between revenue and expenses. Also...