Free Republic

— Surgeons in Sri Lanka removed the record-setting stone earlier this monthSurgeons in Sri Lanka have removed the largest and heaviest kidney stone on record from a 62-year-old patient, according to Guinness World Recordsopens in a new tab or window. The stone measured 5.26 inches in length and 4.15 inches in width, and weighed in at 1.76 pounds, according to the publication. It broke the previous size record, set in 2004 when a 5.11-inch stone was removed from the kidney of a man in India. It also beat the previous weight record of 1.36 pounds, set in 2008 by a...

At Tyler Malek's ice cream parlors, one cook's trash is another chef's frosty treat. The head ice cream maker at the Portland, Oregon-based Salt & Straw uses the whey leftover from yogurt makers in upstate New York to make his lemon curd flavor. For chocolate barley milk, he mixes in the remnants of rice and grains from beer brewing to give it a light and creamy taste. "Instead of calling this food waste, we need to call it wasted food and start decreasing how much wasting we're doing," Malek said. Malek's ice cream chain is among those at the forefront...

Tonight, footage taken on the streets of Moscow showed armoured vehicles racing to secure the Duma building, Russia’s parliament. Tanks and armoured vehicles were seen on the streets of Rostov, an important military outpost in Russia, from where Prigozhin reportedly believes the missile attack was personally directed by Shoigu. Roadblocks manned by special forces were set up around Moscow, as footage showed an armoured motorcade whisking Putin to the Kremlin for an emergency meeting. It is understood the shady Wagner thugs have already passed the first checkpoint on their way to Novocherkassk, where the army headquarters are. In a videotaped...

Researchers have developed a new design for computer memory that could both greatly improve performance and reduce the energy demands of internet and communications technologies, which are predicted to consume nearly a third of global electricity within the next ten years.The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, developed a device that processes data in a similar way as the synapses in the human brain. The devices are based on hafnium oxide, a material already used in the semiconductor industry, and tiny self-assembled barriers, which can be raised or lowered to allow electrons to pass.This method of changing the electrical...

The Left is celebrating after having apparently shut down the diffusion of a film that counters the LGBT agenda.The documentary No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care was supposed to hit theaters on July 21. But AMC, the largest chain of cinemas in the United States, has reportedly pulled the plug in reaction to a campaign against the film organized by The Queer Trans Project, which has called the documentary “hateful.”The film follows the stories of five “detransitioners,” individuals who underwent sex change therapy but then repented and went back to identifying as their biological sex.According to Fox News,...

Officers arrived at the apartment on June 17 to investigate a report that a man had gone into cardiac arrest on the premises of a public housing complex. Police found six adults at the apartment and quickly located four children ranging in age from five to 10 who were being hidden from police in a back room by one of the men, who claimed to be the children’s father and was wearing a wig. All of the adult parties were being uncooperative and did not provide helpful information. All adults present denied having children inside the apartment,” an incident report...

A Cambridge University scholar was examining medieval manuscripts in the hushed rooms of the National Library of Scotland when he found himself laughing out loud. What he'd found were some jokes written down in the 15th century by a priest and scribe who had heard them during a live performance. Host Marco Werman speaks with James Wade, the scholar who discovered them, who is a medieval literature professor at Girton College at the University of Cambridge in England.

Whenever the question is do Russians do this or know that, invariably the only correct question is some do and some don’t. You can be sure some Russians are fully aware Putin’s regime is the main enemy of the Russian people, a few even go so far as to form armed battalions and fight for Ukraine in the war. At the same time there are also Russians who gladly lay down their lives for the enlargement of der Vaterland. There’s a full spectrum of those in between too, these are just the extremes. The problem with reaching Russians is manyfold....

The gruesome sight of a monitor lizard eating a dead cat has left netizens heartbroken. Taking to Facebook on the Wildlife @Pasir Ris & vicinity page on Wednesday (June 21), Warren Seah shared that he took the photos of the incident at Tampines Eco Green on April 20. "The cleaner pointed out this monitor lizard feasting on the carcass of a black cat," the man said, adding that the cat's head can still be seen in the photos. Seah did not share how the cat had ended up as the monitor lizard's meal. The Facebook post has garnered almost 200...

New York Post reported: “Damon Lawner, the founder of Snctm, identified the first son as an ex-member of the private club in a since-deleted Instagram post, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday. Lawner alleged that Hunter’s behavior at his first sex party was so bad that he had to boot him from the club. “Hunter was a member at Snctm and I canceled his membership after 1 party because he’s a scumbag,” Lawner wrote in the post. After the revelation, Lawner was banned from the very club he founded, and later sold for $1 million, because, as a private...

Yeonmi Park’s account of the horrors of North Korea made her a human rights celebrity. Her new claims that America is on the same path have made her a right-wing media star.

After MeToo, a regressive vision of masculinity became increasingly popular. Here’s a guide.More than five years ago, the MeToo movement exploded and our culture shifted. But what actually changed? This project seeks to reexamine the era by asking how it will alter the lives of the next generation. One of the consequences of the revelations that many prominent men behaved poorly in private was a very public effort to grapple with the whole concept of masculinity. Boys have long been mired in a well-publicized and seemingly endless “crisis.” But MeToo raised another question: Who would speak to these men? Over...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has quietly published an overdue overstay report showing that more than 850,000 [LEGAL] foreign visitors overstayed their authorized stay in FY2022, which is probably a record high. The total overstay rate for 2022 was 3.64 percent, which is more than double the rate of recent years [stayed past their visa mandatory exit date].

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to...

Matthew 6:19-23Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples not to store up treasures for themselves on earth but to store up treasures in heaven, “where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.”St. Augustine once said that since every creature is made ex nihilo, it carries with it the heritage of nonbeing. There is a kind of penumbra or shadow of nothingness that haunts every finite thing. This is a rather high philosophical way of stating what all of us know in our bones: no matter how good, beautiful, true, or exciting a thing or state...

The White House did its best to fend off questions about how much Joe Biden knew about his son's business affairs on Friday, amid fresh evidence that the two may have been in cahoots. Once again officials insisted that they stuck by their line that Biden was not involved in Hunter Biden's dealings. But as reporters repeatedly asked about a newly revealed WhatsApp message, in which Hunter said he was with his father as he pursued a Chinese contact to make good on a deal, officials stonewalled. First came National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. 'I am not going to...

Russia’s FSB security service has opened a criminal case for armed mutiny against Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin after the mercenary chief accused the Russian military of targeting his forces and vowed to “destroy” his rivals, in an unprecedented escalation of infighting among Russia’s elite. The FSB said that Prigozhin’s statements “had no basis” adding that it had launched a criminal inquiry. The FSB later added that Prigozhin’s statements and actions constituted “calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation.” The security service urged Wagner fighters “not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any...

Obama: Kenya My Country - Tussker My Beer! The Other "Big One" Operating Behind The Throne in the Oval Office That No One Will Talk About

The contretemps, two and a half years ago, over First Lady Jill Biden’s problematic degree and her too-earnest desire to be addressed as “Doctor” opened discussion about a problem in higher education that didn’t go quite far enough. Just what is this “EdD,” and why is this chit so important to so many people—but only the people who clutch it tightly, even as they behave as if, at any moment, they may be found out? It is impolite and sometimes impolitic to point out the clear and documented deficiencies of advanced degrees in “higher education,” of the people who teach...

Siemens Energy announced Thursday that it will be undergoing a technical review after it was found that up to 30% of its wind turbines could have faulty components, according to statements made by the company. Siemens Energy, an international energy company that seeks to “decarbonize global energy systems,” announced that it is withdrawing its profit guidance for the year after subsidiary Siemens Gamesa found that there was a “substantial increase in failure rates of wind turbine components.” The company believes that between 15% and 30% of its installed fleets are suffering from component failures, Jochen Eickholt, CEO of Siemens Gamesa,...