Free Republic

Since the fourth millennium BCE, when urban civilizations first appeared in ancient Mesopotamia, humans have strived to achieve proper dental hygiene. Yet the nylon-bristled toothbrush we use today didn’t come along until the 1930s. For the thousands of years in between, people relied on rudimentary tools that evolved with scientific knowledge and technological advancements over time. Some of the earliest toothbrush predecessors date as far back as 3500 BCE. Here’s a look at how people kept their teeth clean before the modern toothbrush.AdvertisementChew Sticks and ToothpicksSometime around the year 3500 BCE, the ancient Babylonians (located near modern-day Iraq) created a...

Iran has for some two years inundated the West Bank with arms, employing a covert, multinational network of intelligence operatives, terror groups and criminal gangs as part of its multi-pronged strategy against Israel, The New York Times reported on Tuesday According to the report, citing three unnamed officials each from Iran, Israel and the United States, much of the contraband travels along one of two routes that pass through Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. The operation hinges on Bedouins who smuggle the weapons from Jordan across the border into the West Bank, Iranian officials were cited as saying....

Florida is taking a strong stand against retail theft and “porch piracy.” Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed into law a bill that would crack down on criminals participating in shoplifting rings and engaging in other types of property crime. While doing so, he took some shots at California and New York for going easy on those committing these offenses. Amid widespread retail theft occurring across the nation, state and local governments are grappling with putting a stop to these operations while others are simply responding with a shrug. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, DeSantis announced...

We all know life has gotten more expensive lately… but has anything provided more sticker shock than healthcare? Health insurance premiums rose 7% last year. Medical costs are expected to rise 7% this year after increasing 6% last year. And I’ve exclaimed “What?! That can’t be right!” after receiving a medical bill or checking out at the pharmacy more times than I can count. Yet my doctor friends claim they make less money and spend more time doing insurance paperwork than ever before. I felt bad that one of my physician friends recently had to spend time fighting with my...

Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2 Also today: 3 Democrat judges on DC appellate court declared that the US Capitol is no longer the "People's House." This relates to appeal of J6 defendant convicted of petty offense of "parading" in the Capitol--a misdemeanor ex-chief judge Beryl Howell admitted in 2021 that federal courts in DC never handle:

Whistleblower Sam Salehpour, a Boeing engineer, alleges that Boeing took shortcuts when manufacturing its 777 and 787 Dreamliner jets, and that the risks could become catastrophic as the airplanes age. His formal complaint to the Federal Aviation Administration, filed in January and made public on Tuesday, is not specific to the newer 737 Max jet that has been grounded twice… Salehpour on said his complaint raises “two quality issues that may dramatically reduce the life of the planes.” “I am doing this not because I want Boeing to fail, but because I want it to succeed and prevent crashes from...

Founder and CEO Mike Grondahl detailed a history of rampant abuse at the company and alleged it misrepresented its financials during a recent interview with controversial right-wing X user Libs of TikTok. This comes after weeks of calls for boycotts of the brand after the company canceled the membership of a Planet Fitness gym goer after speaking out about a biological male in the women's locker room. Planet Fitness's policy allows gym members to use the locker room associated with their gender identity. But this policy has led to a few high-profile cases of women feeling uncomfortable in Planet Fitness...

Following last week’s strike in Damascus and threats of retaliation from Iranian officials, Israel has signaled that it will attack targets in Iran if it were to launch a direct attack, according to an Arab report Monday. Citing an anonymous “Western security official,” the London-based Elaph News reported that Israel has been conducting air force drills in recent days that include preparing to target Iranian nuclear facilities and other key infrastructure. Unnamed US intelligence sources told CNN, however, that Iran is unlikely to attack Israel directly out of fear of American and Israeli reprisal, and will instead urge its various...

In Jerusalem tonight Ultra-Orthodox protesters at a road junction. Shouts of "Nazis" as the highway was blocked... A US warship shooting down a missile fired from Yemen early this morning... In the UK Conservative Member of Parliament William Wragg resigning the whip to sit Independent. This follows Wragg's admission he was compromised... US Central Command announcing transfer of small arms seized from ships bound for Yemen to Ukraine... The British Foreign Secretary David Cameron saying the US and UK are making progress on transferring seized Russian assets...to Ukraine... In Madrid, Paris and London heightened security for football... In Idaho and...

From the academic who warns of a robot uprising to the workers worried for their future – is it time we started paying attention to the tech sceptics? Eliezer Yudkowsky, a 44-year-old academic wearing a grey polo shirt, rocks slowly on his office chair and explains with real patience – taking things slowly for a novice like me – that every single person we know and love will soon be dead. They will be murdered by rebellious self-aware machines. “The difficulty is, people do not realise,” Yudkowsky says mildly, maybe sounding just a bit frustrated, as if irritated by a...

Joe Biden may have trouble getting on Alabama’s 2024 presidential ballot because DNC’s national convention occurs after the deadline to certify a presidential candidate. “It has recently come to my attention that the Democratic National Convention is currently scheduled to convene on August 19, 2024, which is after the State of Alabama’s statutory deadline for political parties to provide a certificate of nomination for President and Vice President on August 15, 2024,” Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News. “The certificate of nomination must be signed by the presiding officer and secretary of...

Fractured bones, a knocked-out tooth, deep bruises, and immeasurable heartache. Those are just some of the injuries suffered by at least three students with autism allegedly at the hands of a Littleton Public Schools paraprofessional trusted to care for them. The kids take a dedicated bus provided by the LPS transportation system to get to one of Colorado's most highly regarded private schools for students with autism – The Joshua School. Yet, as some parents discovered and told CBS News Colorado – that bus was a place of torture. -snip That video was shared Tuesday morning, showing Dax aboard that...

The Constitutional Coalition and former Attorney General John Ashcroft filed an amicus curiae (Friend of the Court) in the United States Supreme Court in the case United States v. Trump. The appeal to the Supreme Court concerns the question of presidential immunity. More specifically, whether a subsequent president may criminally prosecute his (or her) predecessor, and current political rival, for official acts the previous president took while in office. This amicus brief was not filed on behalf of either party – Special Counsel Jack Smith (hired by Attorney General Merrick Garland to prosecute former President Trump) nor on behalf of...

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to reinstate a 160-year-old abortion ban—and Republicans who previously backed it, including Senate candidate Kari Lake, immediately began flip-flopping. The court overturned a 2022 law that allows for abortions until 15 weeks, paving the way for an 1864 ban that prohibits the procedure in almost all cases, except to save the life of the mother.

Aimee Harris, 41, was sentenced by Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to prison, followed by a period of home confinement for her role in the alleged theft and distribution of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden. As previously reported by The Gateway Pundit, Ashley Biden, Joe Biden’s youngest daughter, left her diary under a mattress at the Palm Beach rehab home following a stay at a treatment facility. Two individuals who found Ashley Biden’s diary at a halfway house later sold the diary to James O’Keefe and Project Veritas. In a January 2019 entry, Ashley Biden recalled how she used...

Chief Justice John Roberts and Attorney General Merrick Garland paid tribute to legal aid lawyers on Tuesday evening, insisting more work remains to achieve equal access to the legal system. Both men addressed a crowd of hundreds gathered in the nation’s capital to mark the 50th anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), an independent nonprofit established and funded by Congress that provides civil legal assistance to low-income Americans.

We are patriots engaged in a battle of consequence! We are the workforce. We are also digital warriors, meme creators, artists, researchers, autists and ordinarily invisible people now considered dissidents in our own country. We are the backbone of industry, the people who keep it all functioning, the builders, diggers and blue-collar workforce that keeps everything functioning. We are the people they will never fully control. We speak in languages they do not understand, and we absorb targeted ridicule as fuel. We are the movers of goods, the truckers, the farmers, the nameless people behind the skilled trades that keep...

With tech layoffs at their highest since the 2001 dot-com crash, the job hunt is getting harder and many in the industry are being forced to settle for pay cuts if they can find a new gig at all. Allison Croisant, a data scientist with about a decade of experience in technology, was laid off by PayPal earlier this year, joining the masses of unemployed across her industry. Croisant has one word to describe the process of looking for a job right now: “Insane.” “Everybody else is also getting laid off,” said Croisant, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where she...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) claimed that Haitians trying to come to the U.S. “were met with whips and chains from like a bygone era and turned away.” Jackson later acknowledged after being corrected that Border Patrol agents didn’t whip migrants, but it “was a far cry from give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses that yearn to breathe free.” Jackson stated, “We’ve got a gentleman named Barbecue…in Haiti. … We can’t go in there and shore up what should be our longest, oldest ally in this hemisphere, Haiti,...

You might remember FISA warrants from the infamous and disgraceful Russia hoax saga. Well, they’re making headlines again as lawmakers debate bringing back the use of the 702 FISA warrantless searches that came about after 9/11 and during the Patriot Act frenzy and were used and abused against innocent Americans. ... Everyone’s favorite warrantless surveillance tool, FISA Section 702, returns to the US House of Representatives this week and is expected to go to a full House vote on Thursday. Or, it may all fall apart (again) in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday. This week’s congressional action follows an...