Free Republic

For centuries, skeptics have dismissed the account of Noah's Ark as allegory--an ancient story meant to convey moral truth rather than historical reality. But today, high in the rugged terrain of eastern Mount Ararat, a growing body of evidence is once again challenging that assumption. What was once the domain of speculation is now being probed by ground-penetrating radar, soil chemistry, and emerging technology. And the results, while still debated, are difficult to ignore. At the center of renewed interest is the so-called Durupinar formation, a boat-shaped geological structure first identified in 1959. For decades, it has fascinated researchers due...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is vowing to crack down on foreign tech companies’ exploitation of U.S. artificial intelligence models, singling out China at a time that country is narrowing the gap with the U.S. in the AI race.In a Thursday memo, Michael Kratsios, the president’s chief science and technology adviser, accused foreign entities “principally based in China” of engaging in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to “distill,” or extract capabilities from, leading AI systems made in the U.S. and “exploiting American expertise and innovation.”The administration, Kratsios wrote, will work with American AI companies to identify such activities, build defenses and...

On Monday, the Superior Court of Fulton County filed notice of a hearing for a challenge to the candidacy of Brad Raffensperger for Governor on the Republican primary ballot, due to the Republican party voting to reject his candidacy last year at the Georgia GOP Convention. If successful, this challenge could disqualify Raffensperger from the Republican primary ballot. [snip] “This is not a partisan issue; it is an issue of election integrity,” said Jake Medoff, attorney for Wysong and James. “The Georgia Republican Party has the right to decide who will represent it as a candidate, and that process should...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz shrugged off the fraud scandal in his state during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel’s show on Wednesday, and said it was an excuse by Republicans to demonize the immigrant community. “Mixed into all this is this — these multiple cases of benefits fraud that were happening,” Kimmel said. “Now, I want to ask you: Did it take an extraordinarily long time for you to know that that was happening? Is that just something that has been spread?” Walz said no and turned it back on President Donald Trump, saying, “It happens in other states. We were...

Another city is choosing to fly the old Minnesota state flag in what appears to be a growing trend. Elk River is the latest city to opt for the 1983 design in the flag debate. It follows the cities of Champlin, Zumbrota, Plainview and others in reverting to the old state symbol that was originally adopted in 1957. Elk River Mayor John Dietz said over 1,000 Elk River residents weighed in and about 75% of responses were in favor of the old flag. "I have been on the city council for 32 years, 16 as a council member and 16...

It was more than it was Kraken-ed up to be. An octopus the size of the Hollywood Sign might seem like a monster from Greek mythology. However, new fossil evidence reveals that massive “kraken”-like cephalopods ruled the seas during the Cretaceous period, possibly preying on massive sea reptiles and other so-called apex predators, per a study published Thursday in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This massive mollusk “had among the largest body sizes of all organisms in the Cretaceous oceans,” wrote the researchers, who hailed from Hokkaido University. Indeed, at 62-feet-long, this colossal octopus could grow up...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Law enforcement is investigating after the skeletal remains of three children were discovered in a wooded area of Hickory Hill. The FBI and TBI are assisting the Memphis Police Department with the investigation, which is underway in the area of Ridgeway Road and Winchester Road.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Cash-strapped Ukraine has secured a crucial European Union loan that will provide a vital lifeline to sustain its wartime efforts this year.The 90 billion-euro ($106 billion) package was formally approved on Thursday, days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline had been repaired and the flow of oil would resume to Slovakia and Hungary, conditions linked to the release of the funds.Approval had been held up for months amid political friction inside the 27-nation EU, including resistance from outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as the Kremlin’s...

https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2047397605974720615 Gunther Eagleman™@GuntherEagleman·2h🚨 President Trump just dropped this gem!Trump saved America $298 MILLION on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool:The historic pool, where MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, was a leaking, filthy disaster.Government bureaucrats wanted $300 MILLION and 3+ years to rip it up.Trump said hell no.Called in real pool experts, scrubbed the original granite, sealed it, and topped it with American Flag Blue industrial coating.✅ $1.5–2 MILLION✅ Done in 2 weeks✅ Will last 40–50 years and look better than 1922This is how you run government like a business.Promises kept! Taxpayer dollars saved!April 23, 2026

The Trump administration is in advanced discussions with budget carrier Spirit Airlines about a bailout, sources familiar with the negotiations told CBS News. The financing package could include a loan of up to $500 million, in exchange for warrants that would allow the federal government to take a potentially substantial ownership stake in the beleaguered airline, the sources said. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is one of the chief proponents pushing the Trump administration to take an ownership stake in the carrier, multiple sources told CBS News. The deal is not done and is subject to change, but could be finalized...

Labour is on track for its worst local election performance, data analysed by the Guardian shows, in a blow that will pile further pressure on Keir Starmer’s leadership. Barring a drastic change in fortunes, Labour’s vote-share could fall to historic lows across elections for councils in England and devolved parliaments in Wales and Scotland on 7 May, with big gains for Reform, the Greens and nationalist parties, according to recent polling. The collapse in support is particularly existential in the race for the Welsh parliament, the Senedd, which Labour has dominated since its creation in 1999. Polling shows Labour’s vote...

A U.S. Army soldier was arrested on an indictment accusing him of using classified information to make bets that won him $400,000 on the Polymarket prediction market related to the American military mission that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the Department of Justice said on Thursday. The soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, “participated in the planning and execution of the” operation to capture Maduro, the DOJ said.

President Donald Trump was pressed in the Oval Office on Thursday about gas prices after he said he once worried they could go as high as $200 a barrel due to the war in Iran. A reporter asked if Trump would be willing to accept $200 oil in order to continue the war. “I think that there’s nothing worse than a nuclear weapon that takes out one of your cities, or two of your cities, or three. I think there’s something worse than the nuclear weapon is going to destroy the Middle East, including Israel,” Trump replied, adding: I think...

According to a Greek Reporter article, a collection of Bronze Age jewelry was discovered in northern Germany during the construction of a wind farm. The cache was lifted with surrounding soil from the site for excavation under laboratory conditions by researchers from the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation. The 3,000-year-old neck collars, arm spirals, sheet metal ornaments, and disc pins are thought to have belonged to at least three women. One necklace was made with more than 150 amber beads. The valuable deposit, which is known as the Ahlum Hoard, is thought to have been buried by local...

On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, exploded—a combination of poor reactor design and serious mismanagement had caused the worst nuclear disaster in human history. Fast forward 40 years, and things have changed. While the horrific death, illness, and environmental degradation caused by the meltdown will never be completely forgotten, the area surrounding Chernobyl has come to provide a rare scientific opportunity. Today, it is a living laboratory for scientists exploring questions (many of them genetic) regarding long-term exposure to high levels of radiation. Frogs, for example, have adapted darker skin colors to protect against radiation....

[Catholic Caucus] Pagliarani Criticizes Cardinals Müller, Sarah over FSSPX Consecrations - Thanks Bishops Schneider, StricklandThe Superior of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX), Father Davide Pagliarani, commented on the July 1 episcopal consecrations in an in-house interview with LaPorteLatine.org. Key lines.- The episcopal consecrations… are not a rebellion, but the response to a cruel necessity.- Cardinals Gerhard Müller, Robert Sarah, and other bishops suffer from a typically modern malaise: an inability to reconcile the demands of faith with those of canon law, leading to a kind of paralyzing dichotomy.- The FSSPX holds that these principles must not simply...

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a press release announcing an investigation into gender self-identification policies in women’s prisons. The decision comes against the backdrop of mounting allegations of “rape, voyeurism, and a pervasive climate of sexual intimidation” in states where male inmates are housed according to their self-declared “gender identity.” Under the authority of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), the Justice Department will determine whether facilities in California and Maine have exposed incarcerated women to “unconstitutional risks of harm from male inmates.”Massachusetts should be the next jurisdiction on the list. Just west of Boston,...

Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., all voted against a modified version of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act early Thursday morning. Their defection came during the Senate’s marathon "vote-a-rama," where lawmakers could force votes on any number of amendments, regardless of whether they mesh with the underlying budget blueprint.

The warnings about AI’s impact on jobs echo from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Washington, D.C. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang thinks you should worry less about the robots and more about your coworker, the one quietly “tokenmaxxing,” or using AI to do in minutes what takes you hours. In a recent interview with former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster at the Stanford Graduate School of Business alongside Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Huang said AI won’t exactly replace you. Instead, it’s possible you’ll be replaced by the worker who’s boosted their productivity by using AI. “It is unlikely most...

A number of congressional Democratic lawmakers have heaped praise on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) despite a long history of concerns over the so-called civil rights organization’s finances. Democrats on Capitol Hill have been quick to run to the defense of the SPLC over the last decade, even while concerns regarding the leftist group’s finances mounted, ultimately culminating in an 11-count federal indictment for wire fraud, conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, and making false statements to a financial institution. “Now, in other times, Democrats and Republicans alike would rely on the Southern Poverty Law Center to help us...