Free Republic

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ deputy mayor — whose purview included oversight of the city’s fire department — was placed on administrative leave last month after the FBI raided his home in connection to an alleged bomb threat he made against city hall. The Los Angeles Police Department said at the time that Deputy Mayor Brian Williams was likely the “source of the threat,” but the feds later took the lead on the investigation due to Williams’ close connections with the LAPD. Williams was hand-picked by the embattled mayor in February 2023, and given significant public safety responsibility in his...

A man who police say had a toxic relationship with a woman that included a history of domestic violence was charged Tuesday with killing her and dumping her body in a remote area of Tooele County. Nestor Oved Rocha-Aguayo, 24, is charged in 3rd District Court with aggravated murder and aggravated kidnapping, first-degree felonies; three counts of obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony; and abuse or desecration of a dead body, a third-degree felony. Police say Rocha-Aguayo was living in West Valley City when he was deported on Dec. 24. He returned to Utah less than a week later

California Democrat Gavin Newsom continued his undisputed reign as the worst governor in America as deadly wildfires destroy his state. In the latest debacle, Newsom‘s giddy demeanor and bizarre antics ignited speculation that he might be high on drugs, or something worse, after he repeatedly wiggled his shoulders and swayed back-and-forth during a news conference Monday. Shockingly, the failed governor smiled inappropriately several times while speaking about the horrific wildfires. One X user called it a “cocaine-induced shoulder wiggle.”

As raging wildfires incinerated the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles County, an enormous source of water lay tantalizingly within reach: the Pacific Ocean. But for a variety of reasons, seawater—which has been used to some extent against the Palisades fire—isn’t ideal for fighting fires. It damages the environment, is corrosive and difficult to access. Firefighters spray blazes with water because it wets and cools down materials that are burning or could catch fire. In that regard, saltwater and fresh water are basically the same, said Michael Gollner, a University of California, Berkeley, fire scientist. However, when seawater is dumped...

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who headed Congress’s special investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Tuesday that he has been in talks with the White House about presidential pardons. His comments confirmed a report, published hours earlier by Punchbowl News, that Thompson had at least one conversation in December with the White House counsel’s office about a potential pardon. He emphasized that he wasn’t lobbying for any special favors. “It wasn’t preemptive,” Thompson said. “We had a discussion about pardons. It wasn’t a particular pardon. … I said for me, as a member of the...

LONDON — Authorities in the United Kingdom were outwitted once again this week, as to avoid prosecution on charges of sexual assault, famed author Neil Gaiman joined an Islamic grooming gang. The writer had come under fire in recent weeks due to accusations from multiple women that he had forced himself on them over the years but would apparently now escape being held accountable for the crimes due to aligning himself with a grooming gang in Rotherham. "Better luck next time, bobbies!" Gaiman was heard shouting as he taunted police. "I've joined up with these other rapists, and there's nothing...

Burrows’ effective governing coalition is 36 Republicans and 49 Democrats — and is the first time a speaker was elected in the official vote with a minority of his own party behind him in recent memory.

Sleep disorders like insomnia and sleep apnea can significantly impact health and quality of life. Poor sleep often precedes the onset of neurodegenerative diseases and is a predictor of early dementia. Research describes for the first time the tightly synchronized oscillations in the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, cerebral blood, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that combine during non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep in mice. These oscillations power the glymphatic system—a brain-wide network responsible for removing protein waste, including amyloid and tau, associated with neurodegenerative diseases. The study also holds a warning for people who use the commonly prescribed sleep aid zolpidem. The drug...

A common refrain among observers of American higher education is that it changes at a glacial pace—if even that fast. The structure of our colleges and universities serves largely to protect faculty and administrators who are comfortable doing things pretty much the same way they were done a century ago. Many argue that our colleges desperately need to make changes but cannot. One of those observers is Brian Rosenberg, former president of Macalester College in Minnesota. He has written an engaging, informative, and sometimes frustrating book entitled Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Resistance to Change in Higher Education. In...

The Washington Post is dying, like Democracy does in darkness. Cringe-worthy slogans aside, the Washington Post's downfall is well deserved as the rag has become an ultra-biased outlet that not only proved itself to be an unreliable social narrator but proved that the ideology that it supported is an absolute failure. So it's not a surprise that over the course of the years, its audience has more or less completely abandoned it, leaving it a shadow of its former self, a Goliath in the news industry. According to Semafor.com, WaPo has bled out its traffic, and that bleed was heavy....

During Pete Hegseth's Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) asked Hegseth to explain the term "jagoff." See the moment. vid at link

Researchers at Mount Sinai have made a breakthrough in treating a type of liver cancer called hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This research tested a combination of treatments that could help patients live longer without their cancer getting worse. Liver cancer is a serious and deadly cancer. In 2023, liver cancer was the fourth most common cause of death globally, accounting for more than 800,000 deaths annually. Hepatocellular carcinoma represents approximately 90% of primary liver cancers. This cancer is most commonly found in people living with chronic viral hepatitis, heavy alcohol use, or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. This landmark trial demonstrates...

Researchers have made a rare discovery in an unlikely place: a previously undocumented aquatic species found in an ordinary shipment of aquarium pets. According to researchers in the Czech Republic who made the surprise discovery, a vibrantly colored new crustacean has been dubbed Cherax pulverulentus, which means “the dusty crayfish.” The findings were detailed in a study that appeared in the journal Zootaxa. A native to the freshwater streams of Indonesia and parts of New Guinea, the newly recognized species has long been a staple of the global aquatic pet trade. Sold under various names that often bespeak the creature’s...

Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Toluse Olorunnipa had a bout of the heebie-jeebies over history potentially not giving President Joe Biden the, er, “credit” his economic policies deserve. Oh, Biden’s getting credit alright, just not in the way Olorunnipa intended. “Biden’s agenda had a big impact. Will history give him credit,” read Olorunnipa’s Sunday propaganda piece disguised as a news item that also made its way into the Monday print edition of The Post. Olorunnipa mourned that Biden’s irresponsible infusion of trillions of dollars into the economy that set inflation on a collision course with people’s wallets wasn’t enough...

Fiber is well known to be an important part of a healthy diet, yet less than 10% of Americans eat the minimum recommended amount. A study might finally convince us to fill our plates with beans, nuts, cruciferous veggies, avocados and other fiber-rich foods. The research identified the direct epigenetic effects of two common byproducts of fiber digestion and found that some of the alterations in gene expression had anti-cancer actions. When we eat fiber, the gut microbiome produces short-chain fatty acids. These compounds are more than just an energy source for us: they have long been suspected to indirectly...

Explanation: Why is Polaris called the North Star? First, Polaris is the nearest bright star toward the north spin axis of the Earth. Therefore, as the Earth turns, stars appear to revolve around Polaris, but Polaris itself always stays in the same northerly direction -- making it the North Star. Since no bright star is near the south spin axis of the Earth, there is currently no bright South Star. Thousands of years ago, Earth's spin axis pointed in a slightly different direction so that Vega was the North Star. Although Polaris is not the brightest star on the sky,...

Donald Trump’s defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth refused to answer a series of important questions during his confirmation hearing Tuesday. “I have read multiple reports of your regularly being drunk at work, including by people who worked with you at Fox News,” Senator Mazie Hirono asked Hegseth. “Do you know that being drunk at work is prohibited for service members under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice)?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRj7aCxadEohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_by_ContractMurder by Contract is a 1958 American film noir crime film directed by Irving Lerner. Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Ben Maddow did uncredited work on the film. Centering on an existentialist hit man assigned to kill a woman, the film is often praised for its spare style and peculiar sense of cool.The film has exerted an influence on American cinema, most notably on director Martin Scorsese, who famously cited Murder by Contract as “the film that has influenced [him] most.”

Speaking before the Armed Services Committee, the Army veteran noted how the “the primary charge” given to him by Trump was to “bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense.” He subsequently detailed how he intends to make the Pentagon into an agency “laser focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness.”“The Defense Department under Donald Trump will achieve Peace Through Strength. And in pursuing these America First national security goals, we will remain patriotically a-political and stridently Constitutional,” Hegseth said. “Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans or...