Free Republic

There was nothing much happening in Jerome and Benno Leuer’s yard in Hamel, Minn. on August 11, 1948. It was noontime in the thick of summer and the boys, 10 and 8, were idly playing when, as they later described it, something overhead caught their eyes. They looked up and their jaws dropped. Roughly 12 ft. up in the air was a dull gray, circular object, about 1 ft. thick and 2 ft. in diameter, slowly descending between them. They stood transfixed as the object settled onto the ground, making a clattering sound like metal hitting metal. The object rested...

Since You Went Away is a 1944 drama in which producer David O. Selznick created a memorable view of life among the wives and children left behind on the home front during World War II. Directed by John Cromwell, it is set in a mid-sized American town, where people with loved ones in the armed forces try to cope with their changed circumstances and make their own contributions to the war effort. The town is near a military base, and some of the characters are troops serving Stateside. The film received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress...

Summary of the video: The speaker delivers a sharp critique of Jason Aday (referred to throughout as a fabricated figure), arguing that his claimed life story is almost entirely invented and that he is a product of a collapsed, morally bankrupt, and intellectually deranged academic culture. Key claims about Aday that the speaker presents as false or exaggerated: Mute until age 11, illiterate until 18 Professional footballer and snooker player Completed 26 consecutive marathons and ran 600 miles in six days Multiple degrees and university positions Survived a brain tumor and stroke while finishing a PhD Sleeps only two hours...

They probably mean well – and you know what the road to h*ll is paved with – but a new move by the University of Michigan is going to backfire spectacularly because coddling young adults is never the right thing to do. UMich recently announced that they're going all-out to "curb" mental health issues in the incoming freshmen class, and they will do that by abolishing the first-semester grades for those enrolled in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. And that's likely going to be a good number of kids in the class of 2030 because that encompasses...

Unelectable candidates hurt Republicans then. Now Democrats are building a similar slate. Before the 2022 midterms, most observers were expecting a red wave to sweep Democrats from power on Capitol Hill. President Joe Biden’s approval rating had plummeted thanks to his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the highest inflation in 40 years and the worst border crisis in U.S. history, among other disasters. The only question seemed to be: How big would the GOP victory be? It didn’t turn out that way. Biden had one of the best midterm performances of any president since John F. Kennedy. What happened? The GOP...

The Coca-Cola Company has a new promotion available online for its popular soft drink where customers can customize messages featured on a can or bottle. If you thought the marketing executives behind this idea would allow expressions of faith or politics to be featured, you would be wrong. But what they will allow are phrases so absolutely vile that whoever orders them should be on a watchlist. Upon visiting the website and selecting a Coke product to personalize, users will be met with a text box. If a banned word or phrase is used, the following message will appear: “The...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former U.S. Marine jailed in Russia since 2022 and allegedly tortured and injected with mind-altering drugs, slipped into a stupor in June and may be close to death, according to two hostage advocacy groups and his sister. The White House and the State Department have urged Moscow to release Robert Gilman, 32, so he can receive urgent medical treatment in the U.S., said Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer of Global Reach, an advocacy group representing his family. Gilman is being fed through a tube, he said. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters they had...

Artificial Intelligence has been used to design brand new viruses that are fully functional and can replicate in the laboratory, say US researchers. It is the first time whole genomes have been successfully designed by AI. The resulting 16 novel viruses were created to infect bacteria and pose no threat to people. The breakthrough has been labelled a "very significant turning point" in science that could unlock a new era for treating disease. But experts have also warned AI-designed viruses raise "urgent" safety and security concerns. AI tools are rapidly advancing and have already been used to design new antibiotics....

The world is focused on Iran. Dr. David Wurmser says the real threat is much bigger. In this urgent conversation, he explains how China, Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar, and a weakened Iran are aligning against Israel and the United States, why containment may fail, and what could finally bring the Iranian regime down from within.

Senator Mitch McConnell was discharged from the rehab center and said he will continue his recovery at home. McConnell was hospitalized on June 14 after he was found unconscious at his DC home. “Earlier today, I was discharged from the rehabilitation center to continue my recovery at home. Elaine and I are grateful for the many well wishes and support from friends, colleagues, and Kentuckians, and for the attentive care I’ve received from excellent doctors, nurses, therapists, and hospital staff," McConnell said in a statement. “On the advice of my doctors, I’ll maintain an intensive regimen of physical therapy from...

Whether a model is open or closed, the more important distinction is whether it was built through innovation or through theft. Last month, a Chinese artificial intelligence lab, Moonshot AI, released a model that stunned the industry. It tested at near-frontier performance while costing much less than leading American systems to use. And the lab promised to release an open-weight version — meaning anyone could download and run the model — in the coming weeks. Days after the launch, a coalition of AI and technology companies published a letter defending open-weight models as essential to American innovation.Both developments reignited a...

President Donald Trump said talks with Tehran seemed "to be working out quite well," reiterating his positive portrayal of the negotiations on the Iran war without elaborating on the specifics of the discussions. DETAILS: • "I hear they are doing very well," Trump said in an interview on the "FOX5 1-ON-1" show with FOX5 Las Vegas journalist Tom Durian. The interview was published on Wednesday evening. • Even as the Iran war has entered its sixth month and the two sides have so far failed to reach a permanent end to the conflict, Trump has repeatedly attempted to portray the...

President Trump issued an order Thursday to crack down on “birth tourism” after he was defeated at the Supreme Court earlier this summer on the birthright citizenship issue. Trump said the executive order would stop wealthy people from “buying their way” into citizenship with pregnant women traveling to the US birth an American baby. “They’ve taken birthright citizenship and they’ve made a joke out of it,” he said during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. The order bars citizenship for children born to mothers who enter the United States for the sole purpose of having a child on American...

Chinese tech giant TenCent has released its new payment method called “Palm Payment”, letting customers pay by having the palm of their hand scanned. 🤯 This all connected to the WeChat app.

One of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top aides — who helps select judicial nominees — bragged about his connections to Big Apple politicians in an ad for a Manhattan law firm, raising eyebrows among ethics experts, The Post can reveal. Ali Najmi, a longtime ally of Hizzoner who chairs the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, released the video, which features a picture with Mamdani, on social media to promote personal injury law firm Liakas Law, PC. “We know how to get good results. We have a deep network that extends throughout the city of New York,” Najmi says — as...

I have a solution to President Trump’s Iran war problem. It’s pretty simple. Hear me out. Win the war. Let me use a sportsball analogy. As Las Vegas Raiders owner Al Davis famously commanded, “Just win, baby.” We’re doing the on-again/off-again thing again, and it’s getting old. Of course, we have largely achieved our core military objectives. Iran’s ability to generate combat power has been substantially degraded. Their air defenses have been shredded. Their nuclear program has been set back a decade or more. They cannot shut the Strait of Hormuz — they can only make threats and launch the...

The percentage of high-ranking officer nominations going to women is currently at its lowest level in over two decades.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s blocking of promotions for high-ranking women in the military has contributed to the lowest percentage of such nominations for women in at least 25 years, according to a New York Times analysis.Eight of 201 candidates for high-ranking posts this year have been women, or 4 percent — less than half the average percentage of the past 10 years.More women could still be promoted this year. And the number of women nominated for promotion in any year is relatively...

Mike Rowe isn’t a progressive, though I wouldn’t call him a hard-core MAGA supporter either. He’s a media figure who’s attentive to the working class, hosting numerous series about labor in America, including the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs. He’s also a narrator for numerous programs on that network, like Deadliest Catch. Rowe isn’t a fan of socialism either. That doesn’t make him conservative, as you know, but the people upset about his lengthy post criticizing the democratic socialist agenda seem oblivious to that. Democratic socialism causes the same kind of misery for its people, except they vote for it. See,...

Preliminary proposal reported by Iran’s Tasnim agency would also block Israel-linked cargo, demand compensation from ‘hostile states’ and fine violators up to 20% of cargo value; separate Iranian report says Tehran and Oman are discussing service fees and a jointly managed shipping corridor Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee is reviewing a preliminary “strategic plan for managing the Strait of Hormuz” that would bar Israeli and American vessels from the critical waterway, according to a report Thursday by Iran’s Tasnim news agency. The reported proposal would also prohibit the passage of Israeli-linked military and civilian cargo, demand compensation from countries deemed...

The ex-con husband of a disgraced Westchester County police bigwig turned himself in to cops Thursday to face charges that the pair drove their gangbanger son to a botched hit in the Bronx. James Lackard, 47, the husband of recently fired Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard, walked into the 44th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx around 8:30 a.m. to surrender after two days on the run, the sources said. He was arraigned hours later on the same attempted murder indictment lodged against his cop wife and 20-year-old son, reputed “Slutty Gang” thug Chase Lackard, earlier this week. The...