Free Republic

David Walker from Norfolk, Va., was 19 years old when Japanese torpedoes sunk his battleship at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Walker was presumed dead following the attack on the Hawaii naval base, but his body was never recovered — that is, until recently. Officials announced on Thursday that Walker's remains were finally accounted for, thanks to scientists at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) whose mission is to recover and return missing service members from past conflicts. In a news release, the DPAA said that in 2018, military officials exhumed the unidentified remains of 25 people who were from Walker's...

The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator is set smash protons together on April 8 to search for invisible particles secretly powering our universe. Theories have suggested there are 17 different particle groups and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, confirmed the existence of one using its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012. Now, the team has restarted the LHC with hopes of unraveling more mysteries of the universe - specifically dark matter. Scientists began preliminary tests by sending billions of protons around the LHC's ring of superconducting magnets to boost their energy and ensure...

The Fullerton Police Department released new body camera footage Friday evening that shows the moments leading up to a deadly police encounter that happened earlier this month. In the early morning hours of March 6, police officers were dispatched to a McDonald’s located at 1341 S. Brookhurst Rd. for a report of two men standing at the entrance and acting erratically, possibly under the influence of drugs. Video showed the officers arrive on scene, where they found a shirtless man swinging a belt and speaking incoherently. Officers attempted to get the man to drop the belt, but he refused. Additional...

Rachel Berg, 18, was speeding in her brand-new Chevy Corvette on a Mesa highway about 10:30 p.m. March 12 when she rear-ended a Harley-Davidson being ridden by Michael Clark, 46, a Tempe park ranger... Berg pulled over and tried to perform CPR on the fallen biker but he died at the scene — then told police she couldn’t stop in time before ramming the Hog, AZ Family said. Data from her car’s airbag control module reportedly indicated that she had been traveling at 155 mph five seconds before impact and 87 mph when she struck the bike after slamming on...

A major geomagnetic storm is impacting Earth, the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) said Sunday afternoon. The U.S., however, may not see the aurora commonly associated with such celestial events. Saturday, the SWPC issued geomagnetic storm watches through Monday as a coronal mass ejection was on track to impact Earth. At the time, the agency said the geomagnetic storms could reach G2 “moderate” and G3 “strong” strength. However, on Sunday, the SWPC warned that the storm had reached “severe” G4 conditions. Those conditions could change into Monday, the agency said in a Sunday evening update. ... The SWPC noted...

A 21-year-old man is dead and his 18-year-old brother was injured after a mountain lion reportedly attacked them in northern California on Saturday afternoon. The attack happened shortly after 1 p.m. in Georgetown, about 50 miles northeast of Sacramento, according to the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office. The 18-year-old was able to call for help after being attacked while hunting for shed antlers with his brother. The sheriff’s office said crews found he had suffered traumatic injuries to his face. The 18-year-old had also become separated from his brother, whom emergency crews immediately began searching for when they arrived.

That number of ER visits is up 50% from 2016 through 2022, the Los Angeles Times reports. However, during that same period, the number of skiers and snowboarders hitting the slopes remained mostly the same in California. “It’s a wonderful sport, but if you ask me, I notice a bit of a difference in courtesy,” said Joann Shimizu Wood, a Southern California resident who has been skiing since 1976. “We used to say, as we were coming downhill to whoever was downhill from us, ‘On your right! On your left!’ as we’re passing them.” Wood said she now hardly ever...

After being denounced as a conspiracy for years, the Covid lab leak hypothesis is now considered the most likely origin of the virus... Researchers from Australia and Arizona used a risk analysis tool- which they described as the most comprehensive yet - to determine the chances the SARS-CoV-2 virus was of 'unnatural' or 'natural' origin. The team compared the characteristics of the virus and the pandemic to 11 criteria that analyzed things like the rarity of a virus, the timing of a pandemic, the population infected, the spread of a virus and the unexpected symptoms of a virus. Based on...

Crescenta Valley Town Councilmember Chris Kilpatrick has resigned his position in the wake of a video showing him urinating on the door of a downtown Los Angeles LGBTQ bar. Kilpatrick resigned Thursday, hours ahead of a special meeting planned to discuss his conduct, the city said in a post to Facebook. The bar, Precinct, shared video of the incident on social media earlier this week and alleged that Kilpatrick and another man, later identified as his boyfriend, left the bar with drinks in their hands.

Tapping into the magic of bioluminescence, Light Bio is preparing to ship its first orders for glowing plants this spring. The company provides flora that converts energy into light, making their offerings the first commercially available plants that glow in the dark. After scaling up production to meet excessive demands, Light Bio says it will finally begin shipping orders for their glowing “Firefly Petunia,” which was so named because its glowing leaves resemble fireflies, next month. Some plant and animal species in nature convert chemical energy into visible light, causing them to glow. While the majority of these seemingly magical...

In just a few hours, Luis Wenus, an engineer and entrepreneur, converted a $115 (£89.99) drone into the basis of a deadly weapon. Using AI facial recognition the drone was programmed to recognise individuals and race towards them at full speed. ... In a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, Mr Wenus and his engineer colleague, demonstrated how a commercial drone can be programmed to chase down targets. In the post, Mr Wenus writes: 'I thought it would be fun to build a drone that chases you around as a game.' The drone uses an AI 'object detection model' to...

A Texas father was sentenced this week to 10 years in prison for fatally shooting his wife in the head on camera after learning about her alleged affair. Carey Birmingham, 60, told his wife Patricia she was going to “meet Jesus” right before he shot her three times outside the Spring, Texas home in December 2021. The pair argued for roughly 30 minutes before he shot her after finding out she was allegedly having an affair, according to ABC 13. “I hope it was worth it,” he said in the video, obtained by ABC 13. “I’m done, I’m f–king done.”

Computer simulations reveal that the close flyby of Apophis, the "God of Chaos" asteroid, in 2029 still poses no risk to Earth, even when a worrying, previously unrecognized factor is taken into account. There is almost zero chance that the infamous city-killer asteroid "Apophis" will hit Earth when it zips closely past our planet in 2029 — even when a previously unconsidered factor is taken into account, a new study shows. Apophis is a peanut-shaped space rock spanning around 1,100 feet (340 meters) across that was left behind by the formation of the solar system around 4.6 billion years ago....

The Transportation Security Administration began developing the new system five years ago to make screening more efficient and give passengers more autonomy and control over the pace of their screening. The TSA checkpoint being tested in Las Vegas — initially only for TSA PreCheck customers and only in the English language — incorporates a screen with do-it-yourself instructions for travelers on how to smoothly pass themselves and their carry-on luggage through pre-flight screening with little or no help from uniformed TSA officers. Testing is being done at a unique “innovation checkpoint” the TSA unveiled in 2019 in Harry Reid Airport’s...

ensions at The New York Times over an investigative report on Hamas' use of sexual violence in the October 7th attacks have erupted into the open over the past week with fresh conflict surfacing nearly every day. The Times crisis reflects a series of cultural divides – between the conventional newsroom and the paper's ascendant audio division; between management and many of the rank-and-file; between factions with differing reactions to the war in Israel and Gaza; and between the two sides of yawning industry chasm over whether to handle dissent internally or air it in public. The Times Guild, the...

33-year-old Vincent Maurice Jones entered a Waymo Jaguar sedan that had just dropped off another passenger on Main Street, just north of 1st Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Officers say Jones got into the driver’s seat and tried to manipulate the system to put the vehicle into drive. A Waymo employee spoke with Jones through the car’s communication system and instructed him to leave the vehicle. When Jones didn’t follow the employee’s request, the representative contacted LAPD. Officers arrived on the scene a short time and placed Jones under arrest for attempted grand theft auto.

Loneliness, depression, and mental health issues also spiked during a time when most people were asked to self-isolate. Alcohol consumption and deaths also went up during that time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A new report by the CDC found that there were roughly 488 deaths per day during the pandemic due to excessive alcohol drinking in 2020-2021. “Stress, loneliness, and social isolation; and mental health conditions might also have contributed to the increase in deaths from excessive alcohol use during the Covid-19 pandemic,” During 2016 and 2017, there were 137,927 alcohol-related deaths nationally. For 2020...

A former NBA player and actor was sentenced to 90 years to life in prison on Friday for a series of violent sexual assaults, some of which occurred in Los Angeles County, authorities said. “During their investigation, detectives learned [that] in 2010, Byrd was convicted of sexual assault involving a different victim,” the LAPD release stated. “Detectives also discovered that Byrd had been arrested for sexually assaulting a young woman in Washington State in 2005.” Byrd’s victims told investigators that he was “initially charming” before he subsequently forced them into a variety of sex acts. “He started as a charmer,...

A Ukrainian man selling a poison thought to be linked to at least 130 UK deaths has been identified by the BBC. Leonid Zakutenko advertised his services on a website promoting suicide and he told an undercover reporter he sent five parcels a week to the UK. He has been supplying the same substance as Canadian Kenneth Law, who was arrested last year and is now facing 14 murder charges. Mr Zakutenko denied the claims when challenged by the BBC. He was tracked down to his home in Kyiv and denied that he sold the deadly chemical, which the BBC...

Waimea is primarily an agricultural town with just three stoplights and around 10,000 residents. It has lush forests filled with guava trees and torch ginger, and it's known for being the birthplace of the Hawaiian cowboy, or paniolo. It sits thousands of feet above sea level, where misty winds often blow sideways and, on clear days, give way to expansive views of the island's three towering volcanoes. Over the last couple of years, a mystery has been brewing in this small mountain town. Someone has been quietly buying hundreds of acres of land... He's the CEO and co-founder of San...