Free Republic

A man whose car had been stolen tracked down his vehicle to a Texas shopping center lot - before shooting dead one of the alleged thieves and wounding the other. Gunfire erupted in the parking lot outside South Park Mall, San Antonio, just before 1pm Thursday after the man figured out where his stolen car was located. The owner of the stolen car had ordered the driver and his female companion out of the vehicle - and sat them down by the tire at gunpoint while they waited for police. But the stolen car victim was hit with a bullet...

She said the locals 'did all they could' to help but TUI still charged for foodA woman from Swansea has slammed holiday company TUI for making people evacuated from wildfires on Rhodes pay considerable prices for sandwiches as they flew home. Katherine Waldemar Brown, 55, from Swansea, said locals fed her and others for free and were "incredible" in comparison. Ms Brown was on holiday with her family including her four children when they were evacuated from the Atlantica Dreams resort in south east Rhodes on Saturday, July 22. They had to sleep on the floor of a primary school...

RICHARD FEYNMANSCIENTIST. TEACHER. RACONTEUR. MUSICIANThe Mysterious 137If you have ever read Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feynman, you know that he believed that there were still many things that experts, or in this case, physicists, did not know. One of these ‘unknowns’ that he pointed out often to all of his colleagues was the mysterious number 137. This number is the value of the fine-structure constant (the actual value is one over one-hundred and thirty seven), which is defined as the charge of the electron (q) squared over the product of Planck’s constant (h) times the speed of light (c)....

The Latin Grammy-winning Andrade became a favorite of such giants as Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli.Leny Andrade, often referred to as the first lady of Brazilian jazz or “the Ella Fitzgerald of Brazil,” died in Rio de Janeiro on Monday (24) of Lewy body dementia, at the age of 80. The news was shared with NPR by Eliana Peranzzetta, who had cared for Andrade for several years with her husband, arranger, and pianist Gilson Peranzzetta. Andrade played piano as a child, her 65-year career started in her mid-teens as a club singer. “When you sing as a crooner at bailes...

Hunter Biden continues to be a "good standing" member of the Washington, D.C. Bar despite facing multiple criminal charges and violating the organization's rules of professional conduct. First reported by the Daily Caller, Biden told the judge during his first appearance in a Wilmington, Delaware federal court, in which his expected plea deal ultimately collapsed, that he was a member of the D.C. and Connecticut Bars. According to the D.C. Bar website, Biden remains a member in "good standing," despite the rules of professional conduct stating that it is misconduct for a lawyer to "commit a criminal act that reflects...

What happened? Who started it and why? When will it end? Will it ever end? Or is it over when it’s over for you, when you no longer can stomach it? Why have the most influential forces in sports — TV execs, advertisers, the media and the top administrative authorities — determined that our sports be denuded of sports? Why have the conceited, vulgar and selfish — assorted creeps antithetical to sports — been given the keys to the kingdom? Even if it remains flabbergasting, it’s hardly a surprise that Fox and marketing geniuses seized upon the overwhelming disgust with...

A man arrested in San Francisco and accused of allegedly assaulting an 88-year-old Asian American woman had hate crime charges against him dropped in 2021, the city district attorney’s office said. Oakland resident James Lee Ramsey, 27, was taken into custody Friday for allegedly kicking the woman to the ground and assaulting her, the district attorney said in a statement. He is also accused of attacking a witness at the scene. The woman was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Charges against Ramsey include several felonies: elder abuse, assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and battery...

When the United States Women’s National Team opened its play in the 2023 FIFA World Cup during a match against Vietnam last week, the players made headlines when the majority of the team chose not to single the national anthem before the match. And despite the backlash they received, those players stood silent once again on Wednesday night. As Yahoo Sports points out, the majority of the players in the starting lineup for Wednesday night’s match against the Netherlands refused to sing the national anthem or place their hands over their hearts as The Star Spangled Banner played before the...

Researchers have identified a potential dietary supplement that may improve recovery following acute kidney injury (AKI). The finding comes from a long-running research program investigating how cells take up a specialized omega-3 lipid called LPC-DHA. A major public health concern, AKI has a mortality rate of 20 to 50%. One of the main causes of AKI is ischemic reperfusion injury, which occurs when the kidney's blood supply is restored after a period of restricted blood flow and poor oxygen delivery due to illness, injury or surgical intervention. In particular, it damages a crucial part of the kidney called the S3...

In the mid-2000s, archaeologists excavating a burial site in France uncovered a 6,500-year-old mystery. Among the remains of more than 120 individuals, one grave stood out. It contained a nearly complete female skeleton alongside a few assorted bones that looked like they had been dug up and moved from another grave.Ancient DNA from the enigmatic relocated remains now shows that they belonged to the male ancestor of dozens of the other people buried nearby. This insight comes from a study that used ancient genomics to build the largest-ever genealogy of a prehistoric family, providing a snapshot of life in an...

There’s a new charge of weaponization of the government against the Biden team.This one is going back some ways and it’s from Bill Stevenson, Jill Biden’s first husband. Stevenson was married to Jill between 1970-1975, including while she was still in college.Stevenson had already thrown a big wrench in the story that Joe and Jill tell of how they met. Joe claims that they met on a blind date. But Stevenson said that they all met when Joe’s first wife, Neilia, was still alive and Bill and Jill supported Joe in his first run for political office, long before the...

In May 2014, the Obama/Biden White House was scrambling to deflect questions related to Hunter Biden’s new gig as a board member at Burisma, the compromised Ukrainian energy conglomerate; the news came just a few weeks after Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev and promised Ukrainian leaders that the U.S. was “ready to assist” the country’s efforts to accelerate natural gas exploration. (At the time, Burisma was Ukraine's biggest natural gas producer.) (snip) Smith—appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland last year to take over DOJs dual investigations into Donald Trump for alleged mishandling of classified documents and the events of...

Electric vehicle manufacturers have exaggerating the driving range of their vehicles by more than twice as much as advertised in some cases, according to a study by SAE International. On average, electric vehicles (EV) fall short of their advertised range by 12.5%, according to a study by SAE International. The study included 21 different brands, and revealed that EV manufacturers as a whole inflate the range of their vehicles far beyond their actual capabilities. Tesla seems to be inflating the numbers far more than other brands. SAE International revealed that the range displayed on Tesla vehicle’s dashboard is 26% lower...

Circuit de Spa-FrancorchampsFirst Grand Prix1950Number of Laps44Circuit Length7.004kmRace Distance308.052 kmLap Record1:46.286 Valtteri Bottas (2018)

Randall Herman Meisner, a skilled musician and a founding member of the Eagles, died on Wednesday at the age of 77.The band released a statement which said:Randy was an integral part of the Eagles and instrumental in the early success of the band. His vocal range was astonishing, as is evident on his signature ballad, “Take It to the Limit.”Meisner’s musical career began in 1968 when he joined the band Poco with Richie Furay and Jim Messina. He appeared on their debut album, “Pickin’ Up the Pieces,” but quit the band before it was released owing to a disagreement over...

To their credit, some members of Congress (amazingly including some Democrats) have not lost sight of earlier reports indicating that more than 85,000 children seem to have gone missing after crossing the border into the United States illegally. Some of them may (hopefully) have wound up safely with family members around the country while others were tragically fed into a sex trafficking pipeline. But another large number of them have turned up working, sometimes in forced labor situations. This led to the questioning of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra yesterday over how his Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)...

The Harvard/Harris polls are substantial outliers. This could mean that their methodology is substantially better, worse, or they have been having a bad run of luck when it comes to sampling.Or, of course, they could be trying to lie to you.But they sure don’t look similar to other polls out there.2) First, the poll has a basic methodology issue:Matching panelists to the voter file is expensive, which is why most public polls don’t.Penn uses an unverified panel. Fine in corporate market research, but doesn’t work for politics where a point can make a difference.pic.twitter.com/ldf4hNzKyt— Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA) July 26, 2023Before...

resident Joe Biden faced reporters for the first time since a federal judge picked apart a plea deal that would keep his son Hunter out of prison, turning away amid a barrage of inquiries. The resident appeared at the White House Thursday to discuss the heat emergency scorching parts of the nation, but got grilled himself amid the sudden legal turmoil for his son. Among questions he faced was one about whether he would pardon his son, who continues to face legal jeopardy after a federal prosecutor said in court the investigation of him is 'ongoing.' U.S. Attorney Leo Wise...

Last summer, World Aquatics, the group that oversees most international swimming competitions, angered the trans community when they changed their rules to bar most male athletes from competing against women unless they had “transitioned” prior to the age of 12. It was one of the most sensible moves we’ve seen throughout this entire debate, but they were hit with the usual charges of transphobia, hate speech, and all the rest. It appears that they were not entirely insensitive to the complaints and they have been working since then to formulate a new compromise. This week, the group’s president announced that...

A drone attempting to attack Moscow shot down early Friday... "The Far Right Is Emboldened. Palestinians Are Afraid. Protests Certainly Continue As Well" Some of the opening statement from CNN's Wolf Blitzer as he questioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...Netanyahu's responses included these comments regarding the judicial reform issue in Israel: "we're not trying to weaken the Supreme Court we're trying to bring balance between the three branches of government which is the essence of democracy..."... Russian President Vladimir Putin stressing more trade with Africa including food and fertilizers. Speaking at the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg... US coalition planes...