Free Republic

More Idahoans under the age of 30 have registered to vote in the past month than any other age group, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. Between Sept. 3 and Oct. 3, 2024, over 25,000 people registered to vote, with 38%, or 9,400 people, between ages 18-29. This continues a trend observed in recent months. When Biden announced his withdrawal July 21, within two days, 1,200 Idahoans had registered, and 518 were under age 30. ...after Taylor Swift endorsed Harris on Sept. 10, 3,440 Idahoans registered within two days. Many of these new voters, or 45% of them,...

An Arkansas father is facing a potential murder charge after reportedly shooting and killing a man in his 60s who was found in a vehicle with his missing 14-year-old daughter. According to a release from the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded Oct. 8 to reports of a missing juvenile in the county, which is located about 75 miles north of Hot Springs. While en route, they learned the missing 14-year-old girl’s father, Aaron Spencer, had found his daughter in a vehicle with Michael Fosler, a man in his 60s, the sheriff’s office told USA Today. READ MORE: Body parts...

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common mental disorder caused by severe stress. Recent research suggests that exercise can help prevent and treat PTSD. However, the specific effects of light-intensity exercise (LIE) on PTSD symptoms remain unclear. One hypothesis is that the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays a crucial role in eliminating fear memories. This molecule's expression in the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for memory and learning, is known to increase with habitual exercise. Researchers used an animal treadmill exercise model specifically designed to determine exercise intensity based on lactate threshold. This model allowed them to explore...

A research team is the first to reveal that a molecule in the brain—ophthalmic acid—unexpectedly acts like a neurotransmitter similar to dopamine in regulating motor function, offering a new therapeutic target for Parkinson's. The researchers observed that ophthalmic acid binds to and activates calcium-sensing receptors in the brain, reversing the movement impairments of Parkinson's mouse models for more than 20 hours. The disabling neurogenerative disease affects millions worldwide over the age of 50. L-dopa, the front-line drug for treatment, acts by replacing the lost dopamine and has a duration of two to three hours. While initially successful, the effect of...

By double-digit margins, swing-state voters prefer the former president over Harris when it comes to dealing with both conflicts. WASHINGTON—With wars in Ukraine and the Middle East looming over the U.S. election, voters give former President Donald Trump the edge over Vice President Kamala Harris on who would better navigate the country through both conflicts, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll of seven battleground states. Trump leads Harris among swing-state voters, 50% to 39%, on who is best able to handle Russia’s war in Ukraine and has a wider advantage, 48% to 33%, on who is better suited...

Iran has made enormous progress in its nuclear weapons program during the Biden/Harris administration and reportedly can now enrich enough weapons-grade uranium to fuel nine nuclear bombs in one month. Although Iran may be nine months to a year away from having an operational nuclear weapon, recent attacks by Iran and Israel against each other’s territory have raised concerns that Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program could lead to a nuclear war in the Middle East.Biden/Harris administration officials have tried to blame President Trump for the advances in Iran’s nuclear program because he withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran,...

Do you want to live in a society where you are required to have your face scanned wherever you go? If not, you may want to speak up now while you still can. As you will see below, the U.S. government is aggressively expanding the use of facial recognition technology for identification verification purposes. For now, the use of facial recognition technology will be optional. But as we have seen before, once a voluntary option is adopted by enough people our leaders have a way of making it mandatory. Of course it isn’t just our government that is pushing facial...

Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard University, was recently given a “Leadership and Courage” award despite her controversial response to anti-Semitism and the plagiarism allegations that surrounded her time in Harvard’s leadership.The Harvard Black Alumni Society granted the award to the former Harvard president on Sept. 28 at a gathering of the school’s black alumni. Harvard Black Alumni Society President Monica M. Clark praised Gay and said: “This reunion — all these people who were expressing all this support for her — they were all there. Celebrating her, and clapping for her, and cheering her on.”One alumnus, Thomas G....

In the past year, several high-profile Texas megachurch pastors have either stepped down or been dismissed due to what's been labeled as “immoral behavior” or “conduct unbecoming of a pastor.” These terms may sound vague, but they point to a troubling pattern of persistent wrongdoing, ranging from sexual misconduct to financial dishonesty and abuses of power.Tony Evans resigned from his pastoral duties at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, in June 2024 due to “past sins.” While he clarified that he had not committed a crime, he admitted to a failure to exercise righteous judgment. The specifics of the...

As Florida and North Carolina recover from Hurricane Helene and Milton, concerns about how voters will access the polls heighten. Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) is urging voters to begin making plans for how they will vote, with the election being only three weeks away, millions of people still without power, and many with no reliable source of transportation. In Florida, Hurricane Helene tore through the state, resulting in billions of dollars of destruction and more than 230 people dead. “There will likely be some people out there that, for one reason or another, will not be able to exercise their...

I recently wrote that the 2024 election won't be that close. Part of my thinking was that pollsters have yet to solve their "Trump problem." The pollsters have tried different methodologies, different algorithms. and different ways to contact voters, all seeking to address the "missing Trump voters" that fail to show up in their polls but end up voting by election day. Everyone has their own theory about how to measure Trump's support but the bottom line is that we won't know how successful or unsuccessful the pollsters are until the voters are counted. That's going to take a while,...

No, I am not going to make a "Red Wave" argument. I got caught up in the excitement in 2022 and got burned. It happens, but it shouldn't happen to ME! Kamala Harris CAN win, but you don't have to be able to read the entrails of chickens or the scatterings of tea leaves to see that the campaign is panicking, and rightly so. It is obvious to the meanest intelligence. Imagine how alarming internal DNC polling must be for them to run “its first-ever” attack ads on Jill Stein.They assumed Arab, Muslim and leftists would snap into line and...

For all the talk we've heard about the critical nature of early voting, you might be tempted to believe that the election is all but over already. Republican analysts have frequently blamed Donald Trump's loss in 2020 on the reluctance of traditionally conservative voters to vote early or by mail, claiming that they then had to play "catch up" on election day. The party stressed the need to overcome that reluctance and get their own voters to the polls in advance. Meanwhile, the Democrats continued their push going door to door, registering voters, and directing them to early voting locations.Something...

There's something of a truism in American elections that in states that allow early voting, Democrats are more prone to vote early, while Republicans are more prone to vote on the traditional election day. These opportunities vary from state to state, and we can argue whether this is or is not a good practice, but we can take that up at another time. Alaska, by the way, does allow early voting, but the early voting station is 30 miles away and in the rip-roaring big city of Wasilla, so we're passing; we'll vote on November 5th at our little local...

The galaxy NGC 1549, seen 700 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: JADES Collaboration =================================================================== Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted an ‘inside-out’ galaxy that formed around 13 billion years ago. Like a large city, the galaxy has its densest collection of stars at its core. However, that density decreases as one moves from the city center to the galactic ‘suburbs,’ giving the galaxy its inside-out shape. Although scientists have seen similarly shaped galaxies form in the last 10 million years, the unique ability of the JWST to peer billions of years back in time has...

In 2001, digital cameras were a rare commodity. They were expensive, bulky and captured images that were inferior to the organic look of film. After you downloaded and edited those whopping 3.1 megapixel images, you had very few options of where you could publish them online. Remember when Shutterfly and Snapfish were a thing? Contrast that to today where you have people shooting magazine covers on cell phones and uploading over 500,000 images to Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook every minute. We don’t hear about national tragedies on the news anymore, we read about them in our Twitter and Facebook...

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO/Gray News) – Authorities in Colorado have identified recently sold remains that were found stored in a freezer nearly 10 months ago. The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office said the grim discovery was made shortly after a home in Grand Junction had been sold in January. According to deputies, the remains of a human head and set of hands were found by someone who arrived to claim the freezer, which was being offered for free by the new owner of the recently sold property. Investigators have confirmed the remains belong to Amanda Leariel Overstreet, a girl who had...

A heated election debate has erupted in Kentucky as voters clash over a ballot amendment that bars 'idiots and insane persons' from voting. Despite the recent uproar, the phrase actually already exists in the state's constitution and the rule has been in place for decades. However, its mention in the recent amendment has brought the state's prohibition of 'idiots and insane people' from voting back into the spotlight for everyone who was unaware that the controversial language was already in place. Democratic Sen. Reggie Thomas from Lexington said referring to 'idiots and insane people' as groups of people prohibited to...

While millions of people in Florida fled Hurricane Milton, Mike Smalls Jr ventured into the violent winds in Tampa, Florida, holding a blow-up mattress, an umbrella and a pack of ramen noodles. He went outside Wednesday evening as the storm pounded the US state and livestreamed on the platform Kick. He told his online audience if he reached 10,000 views, he would launch himself and his mattress into the water. Once he hit the threshold, he took the plunge. Then he got worried: “The wind started picking up and I don’t know how to swim…so I had to grab on...

For days, residents of Florida's Gulf Coast were warned to evacuate as Hurricane Milton approached - less than two weeks after the south-eastern US was thrashed by Hurricane Helene. But from her home in Tampa, squarely in the path of the coming storm, Chynna Perkins decided to stay. By Thursday morning, she said she, her husband Sterling and their pets had weathered the storm but lost power. As the storm came and went, Perkins talked the BBC through her situation with a series of voice notes and calls, describing how Milton barrelled through her neighbourhood of West Tampa. Her decision...