Free Republic

Grizzly bears in Wyoming and the rest of the Lower 48 will remain under endangered species protection, federal officials announced — a decision immediately blasted by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon. In a statement released Wednesday just after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced its intention to keep grizzlies listed, Gordon implied it was a political move in the last days of President Joe Biden’s administration. “It has always been clear the Biden administration had no intention of delisting the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear,” Gordon says in the statement. “This latest move to keep a fully-recovered population on...

WASHINGTON — The destruction caused by the Los Angeles-area wildfires, possibly the worst ever in California, is almost certain to rank as one of the most costly natural disasters in U.S. history, with the total economic toll well into the tens of billions of dollars.One preliminary estimate calculated by AccuWeather, the weather forecasting service, put the damage and total economic loss at $52 billion to $57 billion — a sum that could rise if the fires continue to spread. J.P. Morgan on Thursday doubled its expectations of economic losses from a day earlier, saying they would be closer to $50...

Updates Palisades And Eaton Fire still zero percent contained Winds picking up again and smoke plumes currently growing Structures lost: Palisades Fire - “thousands” announced at today’s presser Eaton fire - 200-500 as of yesterday presser (likely higher) Forecast: Multiple high wind events One tonight One around Sunday And another Tuesday (could be very strong) High wind warnings and red flag warnings re-issued

The New York Times wrote a few days ago, “President Biden is bequeathing his successor a nation that by many measures is in good shape, even if voters remain unconvinced.” Just how good are things? Here’s how the Times described the state of the economy:For the first time since that transition 24 years ago, there will be no American troops at war overseas on Inauguration Day. New data reported in the past few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below where it was when Mr. Trump left office and roaring...

Companies started pulling back from the state as earlier fires made it harder to turn a profit. Experts warn the exodus could grow.It’s too soon to know the financial cost of the wildfires burning around Los Angeles. But the toll on California’s troubled insurance market could be enormous.The fires struck just as California officials have been working to stop insurance companies from fleeing their state. That exodus, driven by rising losses from wildfires that have grown larger and more frequent, could accelerate because of this week’s fires, experts said.“The California insurance market has been balanced on a knife edge,” said...

Chantee Lans reports on the county's legal challenge against the federal government.

Gun owners in Ohio won’t have to worry about firearm purchases being tracked by financial institutions or having to carry liability insurance. Senate Bill 58, one of a series of bills signed into law late Wednesday by Gov. Mike DeWine, received backing from pro-gun organizations like the National Rifle Association and Buckeye Firearms. But the Ohio Mayors Alliance and the Ohio Municipal League both opposed it. Known as the Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act, the new law stops government entities from keeping a list of privately owned firearms or firearm owners and prohibits banks and other financial institutions from assigning...

President-elect Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attended President Jimmy Carter’s funeral and were seated with other former presidents and their spouses in a single pew, where Trump had a long conversation with former President Barack Obama. The Trumps were the first to enter. The President-elect met with and shook hands with former Vice President Mike Pence and former Vice President Al Gore before taking his seat. The seating order, from left to right, was by presidential seniority: former President Bill Clinton, first lady Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, first lady Laura Bush, Obama, Donald Trump, and...

Los Angeles has lost sight of the reason fire departments exist.As relentless fires burn in Los Angeles, thousands of residents who fled their homes are just learning how poorly public officials prepared for such an event. Emergency response leaders following bad public policy have been too focused on sending firefighting equipment to Ukraine, keeping the homeless safe, protecting fish, and adopting green policies to focus on things like making sure there is enough water to feed fire hydrants and guaranteeing that the strongest, best-trained, most-skilled firefighters are leading operations.Officials seem to believe that when fire forces you to flee your...

...there are still many in academia who claim that changes to the climate and the outbreak of plague were catastrophic for the eastern Roman Empire... Our findings reveal that there was no decline in the 6th century, but rather a new record in population and trade in the eastern Mediterranean...Previous research claimed that this site declined in the middle of the 6th century... The decline only started in the 7th century.Large-scale data included new databases compiled using archaeological survey, excavation and shipwreck finds. The survey and excavation databases, which were made up of tens of thousands of sites, were used...

Ukraine’s drone warfare has reached unprecedented heights, with 1.2 million drones produced in 2024 alone. Key components include FPV kamikaze drones, reconnaissance quadcopters, and long-range strike UAVs like the Lyutyy, which boasts a 600-mile range.

A remarkable archaeological discovery takes center stage in the upcoming season of BBC's Digging for Britain airing tomorrow at 8 pm on BBC2. The new season, showcasing some of the most important archaeological discoveries from the past year, opens with an exceptional unearthing—a huge hand-carved Roman stone coffin...The coffin, weighing 750 kg (about the same as a grown male polar bear), lay untouched for over 1,500 years until a team from Headland Archaeology dug it up. Archaeologists found this amazing artifact during roadworks on the A47 in Cambridgeshire, part of the old Roman road that linked key areas of Roman...

Tice, MP, Reform, wants to start an independent inquiry into the graping gang scandal, Reform mayoral candidate Tyce is leaving Reform, plenty of content, small time slot. Transcript linked below video.

California fires produce as much pollution in 2 days as all the state’s cars do in a year. Yet California Governor Gavin Newsom has never responded to this inconvenient fact in his quest to be the new Climate Change Czar, nor have the corrupt bureaucrats at California’s Air Resources Board.

89 year old Vietnam vet was called by "Publisher's Clearing House" (PCH) and was informed he had won $7.5M dollars. He was told that in order to collect, he would need to send $180,000 to cover taxes on the prize and he then sent this amount to the fake PCH. The real PCH stated that they never call winners in advance and they do not take taxes out of the prize money before issuing to the winner of the prize.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals have an artful knack for keeping the Russian military bear off-balance. On Sunday, they renewed their offensive in the Russian Kursk Oblast, once again catching the Russian high command, Kremlin, and many pundits by surprise. Reports of a demoralized Ukrainian army fighting to retain terrain captured during the August Kursk offensive — of which at least 40 percent has been lost — have circulated among western media and Russian milbloggers since November. So too reports that Ukraine’s 155th Mechanized Brigade — trained and equipped by France — was under-resourced in “first person view...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis’ remarks on sex abuse ring hollow after appointing McElroy as DC bishopWhile Pope Francis may call for better protection of the young and vulnerable, his elevation of Cardinal Robert McElroy as Archbishop of Washington, D.C., demonstrates that his actual regard for them is somewhat different to what his words suggest.Pope Francis with Cardinal McElroy (L), Cardinals Tobin & Cupich, on Oct 10, 2024.While Pope Francis decried any form of neglect or maltreatment of children on Wednesday, numerous commentators have opined that by appointing Cardinal Robert McElroy to the Archdiocese of Washington, Francis shows he has no...

Well-known academic and go-to source for U.S. intelligence and military agencies, Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University, insists that nothing bad was happening during the "five centuries of peaceful coexistence" between Muslims and Christians prior to the First Crusade, which was launched by cynical and evil Europeans, forever turning Islam against the West. Is that true? My answer follows:5 Centuries of Peace?

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck called US President-elect Donald Trump's demand that NATO allies increase their defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product unrealistic, in an interview out on Thursday. "What Donald Trump is proposing is unrealistic. We will not end up with 5%," Habeck told the Funke media group. The Greens minister called for increasing defense spending to 3.5% of GDP, stressing that the increase would be temporary. "3.5% is roughly what is currently being discussed in NATO as a medium-term goal... If we ensure a reasonable level of security for Germany...

[...]Our ever-expanding universe is incomprehensibly large – and its rate of growth is apparently accelerating – but if so it's actually in a very delicate balance. It's then incredible that the universe exists at all. Let us explain.In a 2004 review in Science of Searle's Mind a Brief Introduction, neuroscientist Christof Koch wrote:Whether we scientists are inspired, bored, or infuriated by philosophy, all our theorising and experimentation depends on particular philosophical background assumptions. [...] The main drivers here are some truly perplexing developments in physics and cosmology. In recent years physicists and cosmologists have uncovered numerous eye-popping "cosmic coincidences," remarkable...