Free Republic

Editing the genes of a human embryo remains highly controversial, particularly after Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world eight years ago by doing just that using the popular gene-editing technique CRISPR — and then allowing the embryos to be carried to term and born. Proponents say the tech could allow us to treat diseases in powerful new ways, while critics liken it to eugenics, arguing it could set a dangerous precedent by allowing parents to select certain desirable traits. It should therefore come to no surprise that the most recent attempt to edit human zygotes, embryos at their earliest...

Explanation: In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting the outermost gas giant. On that same day people across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn. On the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against the dark background of space as captured by the sunward MESSENGER spacecraft, then in...

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) efforts to audit the recent balloting in Los Angeles and California prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to warn "all of the actions employed in counting the ballots of the recent elections for Mayor of Los Angeles and Governor of California are authorized by law. Things that the DOJ regards as 'suspicious' like the extraordinary differences between the ratios of ballots for various candidates counted early versus those counted later is perfectly normal for California." "Further, I just signed a law--Senate Bill 73--that makes questioning the declared outcome of an election a crime punishable by...

President Donald Trump’s name is off the Kennedy Center. Crews at the performing arts venue started removing it from the front of the building around 3 a.m., several hours after the center missed a federal judge’s two-week deadline to do so. The judge had ruled that the decision by the center’s board of trustees to rename it was illegal. With the removal of 18 letters — “The Donald J. Trump and” — the building’s exterior reads “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” once more. Trump’s name had been on the facade for 176 days, a dramatic...

A casual favor turned into a lifelong fascination for Glenrock’s Mike Cushman, owner of the much-in-demand Powder River Percherons, who have become a regular sight at many of the state’s largest and most popular parades. “I used to lease a ranch back in the late '80s, and the guy who owned it had a hitch of Belgians,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And one day he just asked me if, in my free time, I could help him with that.” Once he’d learned how to handle Belgians, he started his own team, but the popularity of the large draft horse...

A hiker trapped after falling from a steep cliffside in Northern California has been rescued following a daring operation in dense fog that lasted through the night in San Francisco. The seven-hour operation started late Friday and into the early hours on Saturday when an injured hiker contacted 911 after he had fallen near Dead Man’s point in Land’s End, Presidio. Emergency crews with the San Francisco Fire Department not only had to battle the dark, but high brush terrain and heavy dense fog as they worked along the dangerous steep cliffs to locate the hiker, who had fallen onto...

Zayu the Jaguar, center, was not involved in the raid. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) Police in Peru took a novel approach to clamping down on drug trafficking Wednesday as they conducted a raid in Lima disguised as the 2026 World Cup mascots. A video posted to the police's official TikTok account showed officers dressed as Clutch the Bald Eagle and Maple the Moose break through a gate with a battering ram before arresting a man in a white vest. The video also showed officers recovering packets of white powder and a firearm, and included the caption: "World Cup Mode:...

A drone video captured near Seascape Beach in Aptos appears to show a shark circling a surfer in the water on Wednesday morning. The video was filmed around 8:45 a.m. on June 10 by drone operator Nick Bertocchini, who posts on Instagram as @corfino_photography. After the encounter, Bertocchini said he spoke with the surfer, identified as Rex, who said he grew up surfing in the area and has been seeing more sharks near Seascape Beach over the years. According to Bertocchini, Rex chose to get out of the water after the encounter. Bertocchini said he frequently spots sharks while flying...

Strongman Vladimir Putin was forced to halt his annual Russia Day showcase in Moscow’s Red Square for the first time in 23 years Friday, after a Ukrainian attack battered key energy targets and sparked massive fires on Russian soil. Kyiv launched drone strikes overnight into Friday on critical Russian energy and transportation points, including the Armiansk Bridge, which connects occupied Crimea with the motherland. The bombing of the bridge “completely paralysed” a key logistical route and destroyed about 50 vehicles carrying fuel and ammunition, according to Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment Da Vinci. Moscow’s centerpiece Russia Day concert was hastily...

Trump, who is trying to make progress on finalizing an Iran war deal in the coming days, is expected to have a busy schedule of one-on-one meetings with foreign leaders on the sidelines of the summit in the French lakeside town of Evian-les-Bains, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House. The Republican president is expected to discuss with U.S. allies plans to remove mines from the Strait of Hormuz as confidence grows for a deal, one official said. Britain and France, both G7 members, have expressed...

President Trump on Thursday suggested the federal government could “take back” Washington if the democratic socialist candidate wins the race to replace outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser. “I wouldn’t like it — and maybe we take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” Trump said when asked what he would do if a “crazy socialist” were elected to the role. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not going to lose our businesses,” he told reporters during an Oval Office event. The president did not directly name the candidate, but he is likely talking about D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis...

These subterranean structures, called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks, work in partnership with most of the world's land plants, feeding plants nitrogen and phosphorus in return for their carbon. Now, the first global map of this fungal network has revealed where their intricate branching structures are most densely packed. In grasslands that are high-altitude or flooded grasslands, such as the Everglades in Florida, the top 6 inches (15 centimeters) of soil are especially dense, containing around 40% of the global fungal biomass. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are made up of tiny branching threads called hyphae. These hyphal networks form two-way pipes to...

A Russian MP has demanded that Vladimir Putin deliver a plan to end the war in Ukraine as he berated the Kremlin's "ineffective leadership". In a lengthy tirade, Vyacheslav Markhayev listed corruption scandals, oligarchy, losses of the "most active and reproductively capable segment of the population" and Ukrainian drone strikes among the ills plaguing wartime Russia. "The time of illusions is over. The country is on the brink of a social explosion, and the blame for this will fall squarely on the entrenched ruling power," said Mr Markhayev, a deputy of the State Duma from the Communist Party. "If the...

On April 2, 2025, Karmelo Anthony went to Memorial High School looking for a fight. Though he was participating in a track meet, he felt the need to bring a knife in his backpack. Once at the school, he sat in the tent of the opposing team. When confronted by Austin Metcalf, who told him to leave, Anthony reached into his backpack and said, “Touch me and see what happens.” Metcalf then grabbed Anthony in an attempt to forcibly move him out of the tent. Anthony then used his knife to stab Metcalf in the heart, killing him almost instantly....

Tennessee families are being squeezed from every direction. Grocery bills are up. Fuel costs more. And when something breaks, whether it’s a car, an appliance, or a piece of farm equipment, getting it fixed has become its own financial ordeal. Some of that is inflation. But some of it is federal policy, and that part is fixable. Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was originally written to protect intellectual property. Few could have anticipated that manufacturers of refrigerators, smartphones, and farm equipment would later use it for an entirely different purpose: embedding proprietary encryption and software locks...

A Howard University professor tore into the victim-impact statement delivered by the father of slain Texas teen Austin Metcalf, arguing that the teen's death "did not begin with the knife" wielded by Karmelo Anthony but instead that his father's parenting style was to be blamed as well. Dr. Stacey Patton, a professor at Howard University's School of Communications, penned an opinion piece titled "Dear Jeff Metcalf: Your Son Is Dead Because You Failed to Teach Him That Black Boys Have Boundaries" to Substack on Wednesday on Substack, where she insinuated Anthony was acting out of self-defense. "YOU failed to teach...

Iran has now scheduled the long-postponed public funeral of the old goblin, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Islam generally requires burial within 24 hours, but American and Israeli explosives have delayed the late ayatollah's funeral rites.

Ever since the news of Texas Democrat Bobby Pulido’s decision to assist his child molesting band member out of jail went viral on Monday, his frequent campaign partner James Talarico has been eerily silent. At a campaign rally in December 2025, Pulido and Talarico appeared side-by-side and offered glowing endorsements of one another. Pulido has admitted to being a longtime fan of Talarico, saying that “he resonated with me a long time ago.” The endorsement from Talarico has meant so much to Pulido that leftist political accounts expressly refer to him as the “Talarico-endorsed candidate.” Talarico likewise fawned over receiving...

@infolibnews Mark Levin: I am the voice of America—not Piers Morgan, Nick Fuentes, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.

Ever since his firing from 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley has been on a personal press tour, bellyaching about CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss wrecking - in his belief - one of the last bastions of truth in the news media. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the infamous Rathergate - where former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes used forged documents in a hit piece about President George W. Bush’s National Guard Service to correspondent Lesley Stahl dismissing President Donald Trump on Hunter Biden’s laptop – even editing out his responses – the long-running show...