Free Republic

Archimedes, one of ancient Greece’s most famous and influential physicists and engineers, left a legacy of writings that had been thought to be lost to time. Much of his work only survived through copies and translations by scribes. One of the most famous fragments of Archimedes’ writings was the Palimpsest, a manuscript which by the 12th century a monk had overwritten and repurposed as a book of prayers. To discover the writings of Archimedes in the manuscript, scientists recently used the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to reveal the iron content of the ink written under the monk’s prayers. The method...

Chris Rea, the rock singer who was best known for hits including “Driving Home For Christmas” and “Fool (If You Think It’s Over),” has died following a short illness. He was 74. “It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Chris,” a spokesperson for Rea’s wife and children told BBC News. “He passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family.” Over a 50-year career, Rea became best known for hits including “Driving Home For Christmas” and “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)”. Born in Middlesbrough in the North...

Most Americans are not antisemitic, but concerns over Israel reflect “a real backlash to consensus view in American foreign policy,” United States Vice President JD Vance assessed in a Monday interview… The vice president said Fuentes serves as a “useful foil” for some pro-Israel conservatives, allowing them to avoid a substantive discussion about US policy toward Israel. Vance said that while he believes “Israel is an important ally... we’re also going to have very substantive disagreements with Israel – and that’s OK.”

The infamous Black Death -- a pandemic that killed as many as one third to one half of Europeans within just a few years -- may have been aided in its devastation by an unknown volcanic eruption.That's the hypothesis presented in research published December 4 in Communications Earth & Environment, which argues that the eruption triggered several seasons of climate instability and crop failures. That instability, in turn, forced several Italian states to import grain stores from new sources -- specifically, from regions surrounding the Black Sea. Riding along on those grain stores, the researchers posit, were fleas infected with...

A Brown University custodian spotted depraved gunman Claudio Neves Valente pacing school hallways and peering into classrooms nearly a dozen times in the weeks before his mass shooting — and alerted campus security twice about the suspicious figure, a new report said. Derek Lisi, who has worked at the elite school for 15 years, told the Boston Globe he “knew something was off with” the mass shooter before the sicko opened fire in a lecture hall, killing two students, Dec. 13. While Lisi said he twice told the same security guard about a suspicious person lurking around the same building...

Democrats hit record‑low approval ratings as Hakeem Jeffries gets confronted on ABC over brutal polling numbers. This video breaks down Jeffries dismissing the polls, James Comer firing back over the Minnesota fraud scandal, and why Democrats’ strategy on immigration, spending, and ideology may be collapsing in real time

Ryan Kennedy, the Detroit Lions fan involved in the altercation with Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver DK Metcalf on Sunday, "categorically denies using the 'N-word,' the 'C-word' or any racial, misogynistic, or hate-based language during the incident," according to a statement released by a Michigan law firm Monday afternoon. "These allegations are completely false," the statement released by Shawn Head and Sean Murphy of Head Murphy Law Firm reads. The statement also said that Kennedy has experienced "harassment, threats and messages advocating violence" since reports began circulating on social media that Kennedy used a racial slur toward Metcalf and called Metcalf's...

In this episode, Barbara Boyd provides an in-depth analysis of Vice President JD Vance's speech at the Amfest Conference of Turning Point USA. She highlights the intense psychological warfare operations aimed at dismantling the coalition that elected Donald Trump, the exploitation of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and the implications of Hollywood's involvement in intelligence operations against Trump. Boyd also delves into the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk and the strategic responses to ongoing psy-war tactics leading up to the midterms. Run time 14m 16s 00:00 The Monday Brief - The Secret Plot to Destroy Charlie Kirk's Legacy: FAILED - December...

President Donald Trump is scheduled to make an announcement from his home in Florida on Monday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan. The event is planned for 4:30 p.m. ET, but further details have not been released about what the president will say. The move comes after the Coast Guard seized a second sanctioned oil tanker in international waters off the Venezuelan coast on Saturday and announced it was pursuing a third on Sunday. “The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco-terrorism in...

The number of flu cases across the country is on the rise, following a global trend that is now reaching the U.S., say health care professionals. Britain, Australia and Japan have already reported spikes, in what has turned out to be an early flu season, according to The New York Times. Some of the areas seeing the biggest spikes so far include New York City, Denver and New Orleans, according to The Times and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker. The dominant strain of the flu virus circulating this season is H3N2 subclade K – a variant of...

Explanation: Yesterday the Sun reached its southernmost point in planet Earth's sky. Called a solstice, many cultures mark yesterday's date as a change of seasons -- from autumn to winter in Earth's Northern Hemisphere and from spring to summer in Earth's Southern Hemisphere. The featured image was taken just before the longest night of the 2025 northern year at Stonehenge in United Kingdom. There, through stones precisely placed 4,500 years ago, a 4.5 billion year old large glowing orb is seen setting. Even given the precession of the Earth's rotational axis over the millennia, the Sun continues to set over...

Dear Editor—I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?Virginia O’Hanlon 115 West Ninety Fifth Street

[snip] We generated a genomic time transect spanning the past 11,000 years and found that cats previously identified as carrying a F. l. lybica mtDNA clade from Neolithic and Chalcolithic southeast Europe and Anatolia, dated between 9500 and 6300 years ago, were F. silvestris wildcats whose ancestors hybridized with F. l. lybica. Ancient genomes revealed an increasing trend of African wildcat ancestry ranging from 9 to 34% eastward, from Bulgaria to central Anatolia.The earliest cat belonging to the genetic cluster of as F. l. lybica and F. catus in Europe originates from the site of Genoni, in Sardinia (Italy), and...

The Department of Homeland Security is now offering $3,000 to illegal migrants who voluntarily self-deport from the U.S. before the new year, it is being reported. According to CBS News, DHS has tripled its "exit bonus" from $1,000 to $3,000 for illegal migrants who sign up with the federal government and depart by Dec. 31, 2025, using the rebranded "CBP Home" app. DHS says eligible participants will also receive free airfare to their home countries and may have certain civil fines or penalties waived if they leave voluntarily. The stipend would be paid after the U.S. government confirms the individual...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reportedly is considering a 2028 presidential run, which could put him on a collision course with Vice President JD Vance.Cruz privately has been signaling to allies that he's hearing growing encouragement to jump into the next open Republican primary, as the party begins to look past President Donald Trump's second term, The Washington Post reported Monday.Cruz's deliberations, the newspaper said, have intensified as he positions himself as a leading voice for a more traditional, hawkish GOP foreign policy — and as he wages an increasingly public feud with influential MAGA media figure Tucker Carlson.

MOSCOW (AP) — A car bomb killed a Russian general on Monday, the third such killing of a senior military officer in a year. Investigators said Ukraine may be behind the attack. Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died from his injuries, said Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, the nation’s top criminal investigation agency. “Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrenko said. Since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine nearly...

(The inspiration for posting this information today came by way of Daniel Greenfield: Canada's Euthanasia Kills 96% White People)The money quote, the grand "G" word:Once you start giving people free health care, it's hard to stop them from making use of it unless you also use the same system to kill them.It's a good day to out the name of the guilty party because it's all in there --the bad news buffet and the "unlimited" free socialist manna that kills people en masse. Overwhelmed and demoralized, the abused and abandoned lose hope. And right on cue, along comes the system...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made a joint statement this evening following a trilateral meeting in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Netanyahu began: "This is not our first meeting. It's our tenth meeting. But I said in our discussions that I think it's the most consequential. The last time the three of us met was a short time before the October 7th massacre, before terror once again reminded us that stability in this region is never guaranteed, and that strength, clarity and cooperation are not options. They are a must." "The Middle...

Forget, ‘no good deed goes unpunished’. More accurately, no corporate wokeness goes unpunished by those taking advantage of it. Affirmative action is one of the worst examples as companies set themselves up for lawsuits like this through their illegal and immoral pursuit of diversity. A group of 18 former student pilots sued Fort Worth-based American Airlines this week, alleging the company misled them and racially discriminated against them while they were enrolled in a flight training program. The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a federal court in San Diego by a group of plaintiffs who identify as Black, Asian or...

CBS program “60 Minutes” was accused of censoring an anti-Trump segment targeting the deportation of illegals to El Salvador’s notorious supermax prison. Teasers for the segment, titled, “Inside CECOT,” featured illegal aliens recounting horror tales of being deported to the CECOT prison.Reports claim the segment was pulled at the last minute just two and a half hours before it was set to air at the behest of new CBS News boss Bari Weiss, who claimed the story failed to meet standard editorial practices.“My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be,” Weiss...