Free Republic

A project heralded by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and accelerated by President Donald Trump stands to deal a huge blow to China’s dominance in the nanotechnology, energy and automotive sectors as the GraphiteOne site near Nome uncovered vast reserves — for which Beijing previously accounted for 90% of production. As of 2024, the U.S. was at least 93% import-dependent on both rare earth elements (REEs) and graphite itself, according to the International Energy Agency, and the Graphite Creek deposit has already been dubbed the largest such tranche in the U.S. But, this week’s announcement that REEs were discovered in addition...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ruled there would be no prison time for a former Alaska Airlines pilot who had taken psychedelic mushrooms days before he tried to cut the engines of a passenger flight in 2023 while riding off-duty in the cockpit.U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio in Portland, Oregon, sentenced Joseph Emerson to time served and three years’ supervised release, ending a case that drew attention to the need for cockpit safety and more mental health support for pilots. Federal prosecutors wanted a year in prison, while his attorneys sought probation.“Pilots are not perfect....

A growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill have raised concerns about President Trump’s expanding war against drug cartels carried out without consultation or authorization by Congress, and are pressing for more information and involvement in a campaign whose legal basis remains murky. Most in the group have not expressed explicit opposition to the strikes that have been carried out so far against boats in the Caribbean Sea and, this week, expanded to the Pacific. The vast majority of Republicans have enthusiastically rallied behind them, and this month, all but two of them voted to block a measure that would...

Alaska’s new social studies standards don’t mention the Nome Gold Rush. They don’t mention the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. They don’t mention William Egan, the state of Alaska’s first governor, and they don’t mention Sarah Palin, who ran for Vice President of the United States. There’s a lot more that’s missing in the Alaska social studies standards, but you can tell right away that something is wrong when Alaska’s social studies standards leave Alaska’s children ignorant of the headlines of Alaska’s history and the most famous Alaskans. Education departments in every state are on radical autopilot when they make social studies...

GOLOVIN, Alaska – A historic storm blasted western Alaska Friday and Saturday with hurricane-force winds, over 50-foot seas and coastal flooding not seen in decades, leaving homes flooded, roads washed away and power out to a wide area. What used to be Typhoon Merbok morphed into a powerful northern Pacific storm as it raced nearly due north and pushed through the Aleutian Islands Friday and into the Bering Sea Saturday, bringing a dangerous storm surge inundating coastal villages and towns under several feet of water for hours.

We just had municipal elections here in Fairbanks and the Fairbanks North Star Borough. With one exception we are now run by leftist lunatics. There was a rip roaring 18% turnout. So 82% of voters don't care what happens to them. Fairbanks has joined Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, and Frisco in gong down the toilet. I am here for the natural wonder of the place, but the government here is absolute sewage.

Alaska's City of Fairbanks Mayor David Pruhs, a Republican, conceded to Mindy O'Neall, a Democrat, in the mayoral election on Tuesday night. According to unofficial election night results made available by the city of Fairbanks, O’Neall received 1,808 votes (54 percent) and Pruhs received 1,528 votes (45.7 percent). Newsweek has contacted Pruhs and O'Neall for comment via emails sent outside regular business hours. Why It Matters The ballot in mayoral elections in Fairbanks does not list party affiliations next to candidates’ names, but Republicans have held the role in Fairbanks for nearly a decade. Pruhs, a conservative backed by local...

The Senate confirmed 107 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a single vote on Tuesday evening, significantly clearing the backlog of the president’s picks awaiting floor consideration. Senators voted along party lines to approve the large group of nominees, which included former football star and ex-Senate candidate Herschel Walker and former White House personnel director Sergio Gor. The mass confirmation of the president’s picks comes after Senate Republicans changed chamber precedent to expedite the confirmation process, citing months of unprecedented obstruction from Senate Democrats. Trump has nearly 300 civilian nominees confirmed following the massive group vote. The 107 individuals confirmed...

“The taste was delicious, and none of us suffered any ill effects from the meal.” =========================================================== Blue Babe bison lived twice. First, 50,000 years ago, the steppe bison (Bison priscus) wandered Ice Age Alaska until a lion brought it down. Its second life began millennia later, when scientists uncovered its perfectly preserved body from the Alaskan permafrost, where it had lain frozen since that ancient day. The remarkably well-preserved bison was first discovered by gold miners in 1979 and handed over to scientists as a rare find, being the only known example of a Pleistocene bison reclaimed from the permafrost....

Arctic carving shows complexity of ancient hunting groups. Northern hunters may have been killing whales 3,000 years ago and commemorating their bravery with pictures carved in ivory. Archaeologists working in the Russian Arctic have unearthed a remarkably detailed carving of groups of hunters engaged in whaling — sticking harpoons into the great mammals. The same site also yielded heavy stone blades that had been broken as if by some mighty impact, and remains from a number of dead whales. All of this adds up to the probability that the site, called Un’en’en, holds the earliest straightforward evidence of the practice...

3,000-year-old ivory carving depicts whaling scene From ANI London, April 1: Archaeologists working in the Russian Arctic have unearthed a remarkably detailed 3,000-year-old ivory carving that depicts groups of hunters engaged in whaling, which pushes back direct evidence for whaling by about 1,000 years. According to a report in Nature News, the ancient picture implies that northern hunters may have been killing whales 3,000 years ago and commemorating their bravery with pictures carved in ivory. Among the picture which depicts hunters sticking harpoons into whales, the site also yielded heavy stone blades that had been broken as if by some...

Oct 3 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Joe Biden exceeded his authority by withdrawing large areas along U.S. coastlines from future offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled on Thursday.U.S. District Judge James Cain in Lake Charles, Louisiana, sided with Republican states and oil and gas industry groups that sued to block Biden's move to protect all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska.Biden, on one of his final days in office, used his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — After gorging all summer on sockeye salmon, the portliest brown bears on the Alaska Peninsula will battle it out to see who will be named the fattest of them all in the wildly popular online voting contest called Fat Bear Week....

A hero Alaskan man prevented a Labor Day tragedy when he wrestled a loaded gun from an attacker who threatened to use it at a crowded fairground. Jaden Perry, 24, was visiting the Alaska State Fair in Anchorage to help a friend take down a booth when a fight broke out between around eight young men. The fight escalated when one of the men pulled out an extended magazine Glock in the middle of the fair, Perry told the Daily Mail. He didn't hesitate, going for the gun and tackling one of the men while making sure the weapon remained...

Dunleavy, like Murkowski, has managed to navigate Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, a framework critics argue tilts in favor of Democrats. The system helped pave the way for Democrat Mary Peltola’s upset victory in the at-large House race, a seat Republicans had held for decades under the late Don Young. Murkowski, however, “has never faced a challenger like him,” one source emphasized, pointing to Dunleavy’s unusually broad base of support that extends beyond traditional conservative circles.

NEW ORLEANS — As oil gushed from BP’s ruptured well five years ago and public outrage built by the day, the Obama administration issued a six-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. When the well was finally capped after nearly three months, political and industry pressure mounted on the White House to lift the ban, which it did about a month earlier than planned. Since then, oil and gas drilling Gulf has bounced back strongly and the number of deep-water drilling rigs has actually increased from 35 to about 48. Drillers are pushing into even deeper water and...

he United States twice scrambled fighter jets after it detected a Russian intelligence and surveillance plane near Alaska on both Wednesday and Thursday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said. On Wednesday, two F-16s and one KC-135 tanker were launched to identify and monitor a Russian IL-20 COOT plane flying in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). The next day, an E-3, two F-16s and one KC-135 tanker were sent to intercept the same type of aircraft.

VLADIMIR Putin's uncontrollable shaky legs as he bid farewell to Donald Trump at the Alaskan summit have sparked wild speculation he was wearing Lifts. Many claim the Russian leader opted for the height-boosting shoes to minimise his height difference with the 6ft3 inch-tall US president. It comes as the Russian leader has been dogged by persistent health rumour for years - including suggestions he has Parkinson’s or cancer - which have all been denied by the Kremlin. Ukrainian news outlets were quick to call out the despot's jelly legs and speculate whether his furious twitches were caused by his height-boosting...

No matter what President Trump does, they will twist it into failure. The recent Alaska Summit is no exception. They say Trump “left no deal struck,” “made no progress,” or worse, that he “failed.” But here’s the reality they don’t want you to see: Donald Trump showed what real leadership looks like—he took the first steps toward peace in a world desperate for it, put the ball firmly in Russia’s court, and sent a message that America under Trump means business. ... The Alaska Summit wasn’t a press conference or a reality TV stunt; it was real diplomacy. Trump went...

Plans for an ambitious 12,400-mile superhighway linking the Atlantic and the Pacific are reportedly being considered by Russian authorities. The Trans-Eurasian Belt Development would see the construction of a vast motorway across Russia. It would connect with existing networks in Europe, making road trips to eastern Russia a far easier proposition. While roads do currently run across most of Russia, the quality tends to deteriorate the farther you travel from Moscow. The proposal, outlined in the Siberian Times, would see the road follow a similar route to the Trans-Siberian railway, through cities including Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, and Vladivostok. A new high-speed...