Free Republic

A casual hike on the slopes of Zvičina Hill in the Czech Republic led to a remarkable discovery when two hikers stumbled upon a lost gold treasure worth more than $340,000. The find, made in early February but only recently announced, includes 598 gold coins, jewelry, and other artifacts. The entire collection weighs about seven kilograms, with gold coins accounting for nearly 3.7 kilograms. While exploring the landscape near the Polish border, the hikers uncovered a tin container packed with nearly 600 gold coins. The coins were carefully stacked in eleven piles and wrapped in black cloth. Not far from...

A painting by American artist Mark Rothko, valued at up to €50 million, has been damaged by a child at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. A painting by Mark Rothko has been damaged by a child during an “unguarded moment,” according to a Dutch museum. The abstract painting from 1960, “Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8”, was “scratched” by a child visiting the Rotterdam gallery Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen where it was on display. The museum shared a statement: “The painting Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 by Mark Rothko has sustained superficial damage after a child touched...

An earthenware dish designed and signed by Pablo Picasso in 1953, depicting a bullfight, was discovered by an employee of a second-hand shop in Antwerp, according to a local news outlet. “It’s a beautiful work. It required knowledge and training to spot it, though,” Davy van Basteleare, the Kringwinkel Antwerpen’s auction manager, told VRT News. The dish is in excellent condition, according to Lander Janssens, Head of Sales and Marketing at Kringwinkel. It is made of white earthenware with brown-green decoration in engobe (clay or clay powder), enamel, and oxidised paraffin. On the back of the dish are two stamps:...

A kid in The Netherlands could be in time out for a while. The unnamed child is responsible for damaging a 1960 Mark Rothko painting reportedly worth €50 (about $56 million) inside the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam. “The painting Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 by Mark Rothko has sustained superficial damage after a child touched the painting when it was on display," the museum shared in a statement to PEOPLE. "As a result, small scratches are visible in the unvarnished paint layer in the lower part of the painting." The museum added, Conservation expertise has been sought...

A narrow-band image of the Sun at a wavelength of λ=588.9nm, that of a well known solar sodium line also known as the “NaD line.” The image was acquired during recent first light efforts with the VTF at the Inouye, and shows how precisely the structures within a sunspot are resolved. Each pixel in the original version of the image corresponds to 10 km (or 6.2 miles) on the Sun. (Credit: VTF/KIS/NSF/NSO/AURA) *********************************************************************** In a nutshell * The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope’s new Visible Tunable Filter (VTF) instrument has achieved “first light,” capturing detailed images of sunspots at an...

A Dutch municipality has admitted it likely threw away dozens of artworks by mistake, including a rare Andy Warhol print of Queen Beatrix, during town hall renovations last year. The incident occurred in Uden, which merged with Landerd in 2022 to form the new Maashorst municipality. Local officials said 46 artworks were placed in storage during the building work, but were probably discarded with construction waste. In a statement released Thursday, the municipality said, “It’s most likely that the artworks were accidentally taken away with the trash.” One of the missing items, a Warhol silkscreen from the 1980s, was estimated...

Cherie Currie was the lead singer of the 1970s hard rock band The Runaways. It’s the same group that launched the career of Joan Jett. These days, Cherie Currie still performs to adoring audiences, but she is also more focused on politics, and she has embraced MAGA and the conservative movement. A quick glimpse at Currie’s Twitter/X account lets you know exactly where she stands. Currie’s political transformation has been in the works for a while. Western Journal reported on this almost a year ago: Former Punk Rock Lead Singer Cherie Currie Renounces the Democratic Party After Realizing She ‘Fell...

<p>Kelly Tran’s The Wedding Banquet, which was advertised as a big, widely-released, queer, super-woke, gay remake died like few movies ever have at the box office this weekend.</p><p>This isn’t get woke, go broke.</p><p>This is get woke, shove a stick in your spokes, hit the ground, start to choke, have a stroke, and then croak broke.</p>

Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of an ancient Egyptian town dating back 3,400 years near the city of Alexandria, according to a recent study published in Antiquity. The researchers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research have theorized that the mud-brick settlement was likely founded during Egypt‘s 18th Dynasty (ca. 1550 BCE–1292 BCE), due to the presence of items bearing an amphora stamp with the name Merytaton. Merytaton was the daughter of the pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti and the sibling of Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. Related Articles The tomb of an ancient Egyptian military commander....

George Clayton Johnson wrote screenplays for “Star Trek,” “The Twilight Zone” and the original “Ocean's 11” before he turned 40. Born in a barn in Cheyenne, he went on to write some of the most celebrated classic TV episodes and screenplays. Mr. George Clayton Johnson. Storyteller. A middle school dropout who escaped lonely life in a cold, barren little town only to become one of the most imaginative minds of Tinseltown. He was inspired by visionaries and inspired others to become visionaries. He traveled the world and led countless millions to new worlds. But the irony is that Mr. Johnston...

First confirmed live observation of the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, in its natural habitat First confirmed live observation of the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, in its natural habitat Image credit: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute Behold: a live colossal squid in all its glory. After a century of searching, the extremely elusive cephalopod has been caught on camera alive in its natural habitat for the first time (and, for once, not inside the belly of a whale or washed up dead on a beach). The juvenile squid was filmed on March 9 at a depth of 600 meters (1,968...

As museums around the world celebrate the 250th birthday of JMW Turner, it's time to reappraise his beloved and celebrated painting, The Fighting Temeraire. JMW Turner's The Fighting Temeraire became a national celebrity when it was first unveiled in 1839, and its fame has endured to the present day. It was once voted Britain's favourite painting and currently features on £20 banknotes. But the widely accepted interpretation of this iconic painting's message might, in fact, contradict Turner's true intentions. The "Temeraire" of the title refers to a 98-gun warship of the British Navy, which is depicted in the painting's background....

How in the world? She’s Four. 😵‍💫 Wins 1st place at World Championships playing Beethoven’s Fur Elise. VIDEO AT LINK.......................

Sir Keir Starmer was last night accused of being in thrall to 'the wokerati' after the full list of the paintings removed from No10 since he moved in was revealed. Portraits of historic figures such as Elizabeth 1, Mary, Queen of Scots, Sir Walter Raleigh and William Shakespeare were among the 69 works of art 'deinstalled' from the Government Art Collection since the election. The revelation comes after a long Freedom of Information battle with the Tories. Among their replacements are Altar, a scene from the 2023 Falmouth Reggae Festival in Cornwall by Denzil Forrester. Other paintings include All Things...

WASHINGTON—Just days after Kristi Noem took office as President Trump’s head of Homeland Security, she accompanied U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on a predawn raid of several neighborhoods in New York City. “Live this AM from NYC. I’m on it,” she posted on Jan. 28 at 4:43 a.m. on X, with a photo of herself sporting an ICE baseball cap and getting into a car. The problem: The raid was still ongoing when Noem posted about it, undercutting the element of surprise, according to people familiar with the operation. Noem’s handling of that early raid was emblematic of the...

A dramatic twist in cosmic storytelling: A Jupiter-sized planet didn’t get swallowed by an expanding red giant, as astronomers once believed. Instead, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope uncovered that the planet spiraled inward over time, ultimately plunging into its star in a fiery cosmic demise. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) ********************************************************************** Lingering Brightness Provides Evidence for How the Planet Met Its Demise Each year, scientists from around the world compete for a chance to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Proposals go through a rigorous review process, and approved projects are added to Webb’s observation schedule, which is...

A team of Brazilian researchers is investigating a cave site featuring ancient paintings in Itatiaia National Park, near the border between Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. The discovery, which could reshape the understanding of early human presence in the region, has drawn the attention of leading archaeologists and cultural preservation agencies. Though the paintings were discovered in 2023 by Andres Conquista, an operational supervisor at the park, the news was kept under wraps to protect the site, which sits along a well-traveled hiking trail. While hiking during a climbing trip, Conquista was drawn to a cluster of blooming red...

Donald Trump the property developer is busting out of the political straitjacket to bling the Oval Office and reimagine the White House. From planning a “beautiful, magnificent” new ballroom to paving over the Rose Garden to create a convivial, Mar-a-Lago-style terrace, the 45th and 47th president is determined to make his mark on the White House this time. “It keeps my real estate juices flowing,” he told a reporter recently. ... On the curved walls, Trump has quadrupled the number of gilt-framed presidential portraits to 20, from Biden’s five, with Lincoln taking pride of place above the fireplace and Ronald...

SAN FRANCISCO - A 45-foot-tall sculpture of a nude woman that was scrapped from a plan to place it in Union Square earlier this year is back, but at a different location in San Francisco. The Unveiling What we know: The unveiling of the sculpture, R-EVOLUTION, is set for Thursday, April 10 at Embarcadero Plaza. The multidimensional sculpture, done by Marco Cochrane, appeared at Burning Man in 2015 and was also seen on the Las Vegas Strip as well as Petaluma. Officials said it couldn't be at Union Square because the 16,000-pound statue is too heavy for the square's tiles.