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U.S. — According to sources, a plane carrying emergency supplies and $10 Billion in disaster relief flew over the Hawaiian island of Maui on its way to Ukraine. Island residents were at first delighted to see the disaster relief plane on the horizon until they saw it adjust its course to avoid the heavy smoke. "Where are you going?! Help us!" said a mother of four who had become homeless overnight when the fires took her home. ... At publishing time, the pilot had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for expertly navigating the plane around the pillar of...

Please get your donations in and let's get 'er done! Way to go FReepers! Thank you all very much! God bless.Please get your donations in and let's get 'er done! Way to go FReepers! Thank you all very much! God bless.

Memorial of Saint Clare, Virgin Matthew 16:24–28 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Even a cursory reading of the Gospels reveals that Jesus’ death is the center and goal of the narrative, that which animates and gives verve to the story.How can we make sense of this stubborn cruciformity of Christianity? We can do so only if we remember that God is love. In our pride, our rebellion, our cruelty, and above all our fear, we human beings had changed ourselves into a dysfunctional...

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sent to jail Friday to await trial after a bail hearing for the fallen cryptocurrency wiz left a judge convinced that he had repeatedly tried to influence witnesses against him. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered Bankman-Fried’s bail revoked after prosecutors said he’d tried to harass a key witness in his fraud case last month when he showed a journalist her private writings and in January when he reached out to the general counsel for FTX with an encrypted communication. His lawyers insisted he shouldn’t be jailed for trying to protect his reputation against...

Lahaina Front Street, the second most visited spot in Maui, has always held a special place in the hearts of our family. From our childhood visits in 1990 to our recent trip in June, Front Street has been a constant source of joy and memories. During our last visit, we felt compelled to record a video capturing the essence of this vibrant street. Little did we know that this would become a poignant reminder of what once was. Today, on August 9, 2023, devastating news of the billions of dollars in damage to Lahaina and its surrounding communities, particularly Front...

Prior research has shown that use of coal as a fuel source goes back many thousands of years, and its systematic use approximately 2,500 years. In this new effort, the researchers found evidence of systematic use approximately 3,700 years ago....two civilizations lived there nearly 1,000 years apart. The bottom level, the oldest, has been studied by other groups. The team on this new effort focused their attention on the layer that preserved evidence of habitation between 3,000 to 3,700 years ago—during the Bronze Age.In addition to many artifacts, dig teams have unearthed coal from ancient fireplaces, storage pits, homes, smelting...

DeSantis sticking with 'culture war' message after campaign staff reshuffle. Ron DeSantis largely dismissed his own decision to replace his campaign leadership team as he returned to Iowa in the midst of a weekslong reset. The Republican presidential hopeful also made no mention of the two rounds of campaign layoffs he made recently in response to unexpected fundraising troubles. Instead, the Florida governor on Thursday leaned into his central message — a self-described “war on woke” — and flashed a big smile as he courted an audience of roughly 200 cheering Republicans gathered at a family restaurant for the first...

The New York Times has an article written yesterday noting how the DeSantis team has a special agreement with the RNC, via WinRed, to hide the small donor contributions to their campaign.Knowing how the Big Club operates within the private corporation known as the RNC, and with small donor contributions being a debate qualification, it makes you wonder if this “special RNC agreement” with the DeSantis team might carry a motive to ensure a debate hurdle is overcome.(New York Times) – When WinRed, the company that processes nearly all online Republican campaign contributions, recently released its enormous trove of donor...

A 30-foot humpback whale was found dead on the shores of Fire Island on Friday morning — at least the 18th doomed humpback discovered on the East Coast this year. The tragic majestic mammal was found belly-up on the eastern side of Smith Point County Park in Shirley, Long Island, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The animal’s body has been collected for a necropsy, NOAA told Patch in a statement. The cause of death is unknown.

Archaeologists from the University of Gdańsk conducting excavations in Barczewko near Olsztyn discovered a deposit of about 150 14th-century bracteates, as well as a medieval sword pommel and other military items....at an early stage of its development, the city of Wartberg was completely destroyed by the invasion of the Lithuanian army of princes Kęstutis and Olgierd in 1354. It was never rebuilt or repopulated, so the ruins have been remained intact for centuries...Analysis will also reveal whether, apart from the Teutonic coins from the mints in Toruń and Elbląg, there are others that could indicate the existence of a bishop's...

Senator Rand Paul told Fox News Thursday that in the case of Anthony Fauci “I don’t think there’s ever been a clearer case of perjury in the history of government testimony, and I don’t say that lightly.” Paul explained that Fauci “said adamantly that the government never funded this [coronavirus] gain-of-function research.” “We now have the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, has admitted that the funding came from the NIH,” Paul continued, adding “We have the acting director [Lawrence] Tabak, of the NIH, admitting it in writing that it came from the NIH.” Paul further noted that “the smoking gun…...

AUSTIN [TX] — Austin Independent School District announced it will use buses to transport children and their families as well as staff to the “Austin Pride Parade” on August 12. “We are proud to celebrate our LGBTQIA+ students, staff, and families,” AISD said on their website, “and highlight our commitment to creating a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment for all!” The parade, which will start at the Texas Capitol, runs 1.2 miles and ends at Congress Bridge. According to the AISD website, the district encourages students to wear “Pride costumes and rainbow colors” and will also provide a limited number...

9:00 video. Graham says good things.

Four minutes and 21 seconds into his YouTube interview with podcast-journalist Aaron Mate, John Mearsheimer, a political scientist, says this: "Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg [former Norwegian prime minister] made it clear that Ukraine would not be admitted into NATO until it had prevailed in the conflict [with Russia]."The depravity of this reality notwithstanding, Mearsheimer addressed the purely pragmatic, utilitarian aspect of the geopolitical position into which Ukraine has been thrust. Ukraine cannot win the war with Russia. Therefore, deduces Mearsheimer, Ukraine will not be brought into the NATO alliance.America has engineered Ukraine's current existential reality by purging the...

The long-lost 'body' of mysterious ice age animal carving was discovered in German cave, but archaeologists aren't sure if it's a cave lion or cave bear.Archaeologists in Germany have discovered the missing piece of an ice age carving deep in a cave. But the new addition of the ivory carving, originally thought to depict a horse, has actually complicated matters: Now, researchers aren't sure if it portrays a cave lion or a cave bear.Researchers previously found the head of the 35,000-year-old figurine in the cave Hohle Fels in the mountainous Swabian Jura region in the southern part of the country....

Doctors are free to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19, a lawyer representing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said this week. "FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID," Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, said during oral arguments on Aug. 8 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. The government is defending the FDA's repeated exhortations to people to not take ivermectin for COVID-19, including a post that said "Stop it." .... The case was brought by three doctors who allege the FDA...

A team of paleontologists... analyzed the fossilized jawbone, partial skull and some leg bones of a hominin dated to 300,000 years ago.The fossils were excavated at a site in Hualongdong, in what is now a part of East China. They were subsequently subjected to both a morphological and a geometric assessment, with the initial focus on the jawbone, which exhibited unique features—a triangular lower edge and a unique bend.The research team suggests that the unique features of the jawbone resemble those of both modern humans and Late Pleistocene hominids. But they also found that it did not have a chin,...

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will not travel to Maui in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires because they “don’t want to distract” from the ongoing rescue efforts, the VP said today – while at least 1,000 people remain unaccounted for. “We don’t want to distract from the resources that need to go in to the victims of this tragedy, and of course the needs of the first responders have to be able to focus on that issue and not worry about focusing on us [because] we’re there,” Harris told reporters before boarding Air Force Two for Chicago...

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) reportedly reached out to Twitter in 2020 to censor users who criticized her 2017 posts uncovered by Breitbart News, in which she claimed former President Donald Trump had a “neo-nazi base.” Days after the 2020 election, Breitbart News reported that Hobbs said Trump had a “neo-nazi base” while she was serving as a Democrat state senator in 2017. Hobbs’ tweet appeared to be a reaction to the false narrative that Trump praised neo-nazi rioters in Charlottesville. -snip On Thursday, Fox News revealed that Hobbs emailed Twitter in an attempt to censor critics who were upset...

Singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony became an overnight sensation with his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” in August, and the story behind the hit sent chills up my spine. Anthony lives off-grid on 90 acres in Farmville, Virginia, with his three dogs, according to Whiskey Riff. You can picture Anthony’s life pretty easily through the heart-wrenching vocals and lyrics of his debut hit single. The song is one giant F-U to the men (and women) wearing suits in Washington D.C. and the corporate overlords who control them and screw up the rest of America for their own profits. An acoustic version...