Free Republic

The Brief Police arrested 34-year-old Gregory Lewis for capital murder after he reportedly confessed to killing his coworker and stealing his vehicle. Thomas King vanished after finishing his shift at a Fort Worth Taco Casa and was later discovered dead in a field. Family members allege King was bullied at work as investigators work to determine the exact motive behind the fatal confrontation. SNIP

COLORADO, USA — A "mega den" of rattlesnakes in Colorado is becoming active after the winter.Thanks to a livestream that launched Monday, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles.The public can also watch on the Project RattleCam website. The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.As the camera launched Monday, snake researchers said it is still a bit cold at the den, so you can expect...

President Donald Trump pushed back Monday on his own energy secretary's claim that a return to $3-a-gallon gas will not come through the end of the year. "No, I think he’s wrong on that, totally wrong," Trump told The Hill on Monday, when asked about Energy Secretary's Christopher Wright's interview with CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. Trump remains steadfast in his conviction that gas prices in America are going to drop precipitously "as soon as this ends," referring to the oil blockade in the Strait of Hormuz... "The blockade is very powerful, very strong," Trump added to The...

Amazon has agreed to invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic, on top of the $8 billion that it has poured into the artificial intelligence startup in recent years, as part of an expanded agreement to build out AI infrastructure. In the announcement on Monday, Anthropic said it’s committed to spending more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services technologies over the next 10 years, including current and future generations of Trainium, Amazon’s custom AI chips. Anthropic said it’s secured up to 5 gigawatts of capacity for training and deploying its Claude AI models. “Anthropic’s commitment to run its large...

An 18-year-old Atlanta Braves minor league catcher was arrested for leaving the scene of a hit-and-run crash that killed a semi-tractor-trailer driver on I-75 in Manatee County Monday morning, according to troopers. What we know: The Florida Highway Patrol says they found and impounded a 2022 Ford Mustang and arrested 18-year-old Jonathan Matos Morales of Cocoa for vehicular homicide and leaving a crash scene involving death. According to FHP, the Braves turned Matos Morales in after the team saw the mustang in their compound. Authorities say Matos Morales has been booked into the Manatee County Jail. First appearance Dig deeper:...

A Florida Democrat has resigned from Congress after allegedly stealing millions in COVID relief funds, some of which she is accused of spending on a glitzy ring. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, was awaiting punishment after being accused of using millions that her family's health care company received during the pandemic to fuel her political campaign. Last month, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee found that she had committed numerous violations of House rules and ethics standards, including the alleged theft of more than $5 million in taxpayer funds - part of which she is accused of spending on a flashy diamond ring....

The U.S. blockade of Iranian ports will continue, and the ceasefire with Iran will be extended, President Donald Trump said Tuesday, citing "serious fractures” within the Iranian regime. “Based on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so, and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump said in a post shared on Truth Social. “I have therefore directed...

A Florida mayor jailed nearly two years ago for a drunk-driving crash is reportedly back behind bars after allegedly flunking a drug test while on probation. Teresa Heitmann, the mayor of Naples, was arrested Monday night for violating her probation after testing positive for cannabinoids, the main compound found in marijuana, during a court-mandated drug test on March 26, according to police records obtained by Gulf Coast News and WINK. The 62-year-old – on probation for an August 2024 DUI bust – was hit with unlawful possession or use of cannabinoids. “We are aware of the situation involving Mayor Teresa...

51 years ago, India marked a historic milestone with the launch of Aryabhata, its first step into space. But long before the satellite lifted off aboard a Soviet rocket, its story had already begun in an unlikely place: a small church by the Arabian Sea. In the early 1960s, India’s fledgling space programme, what would later become the Indian Space Research Organisation, was operating with limited resources but boundless ambition. Under the leadership of Vikram Sarabhai, scientists were searching for a location close to the magnetic equator to study the upper atmosphere. They found it in Thumba, a quiet fishing...

It’s time again to dig up the story about Al Capone’s vault. Forty years ago this Tuesday (April 21), a live syndicated television special drew a record 30 million viewers with a tantalizing premise: Crews were going to blast their way into a mysterious sealed chamber in the basement of Al Capone’s onetime crime headquarters, the Lexington Hotel, in Chicago’s South Loop. Would they uncover riches? Bodies of Capone rivals? IRS agents and a medical examiner would be standing by. Prohibition-era gun discovered in walls of distillery linked to Al Capone Alas, the final moments of “The Mystery of Al...

Explanation: Why are there three arches across the sky instead of two? Last month, after being dropped off by a helicopter at a high mountain peak in the Alps near the Swiss Italian border, an adventurous astrophotographer expected two arches of our Milky Way galaxy to be visible during the night. These were the inner arch looking in toward the center of our galaxy on the left, visible just before sunrise, and the outer arch on the right visible just after sunset. But there were three arches. The surprised astrophotographer soon realized that the sky was so dark that an...

Kevin Warsh, the 56-year-old former Federal Reserve governor, was in the hot seat for his Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing and said his Fed would be independent from the White House. Warsh fielded questions on issues ranging from his views on monetary policy to his sprawling and complex personal finances to his ties to the Trump White House. He would become the wealthiest Fed chair if confirmed. Questions about the Fed’s long-cherished independence have dominated the discourse surrounding the central bank during President Donald Trump’s second term. Warsh gave a qualified endorsement of Fed independence — but noted he doesn’t...

Houston Police Officers’ Union: “In no way does the HPOU or its leadership condone or tolerate racist behavior from any of our officers.”A Houston police officer has been relieved of duty after a video circulating on social media allegedly shows her making offensive, racist remarks, according to the Houston Police Department. Officer Ashley Gonzalez was sworn in in January 2024 and assigned to the South Gessner Patrol Division. She has been relieved of duty pending an investigation, an HPD source confirmed Tuesday morning. Gonzalez was identified as the speaker in a video of a racist rant that has gone viral...

On Tuesday’s CNN This Morning, Audie Cornish didn’t merely report the departure of three women in Trump’s cabinet—she raised the specter of sexism right out of the gate. Teasing the segment, Cornish asked: “Is there a different standard for women in the White House?” [See also, screencap.] From there, Cornish kept steering the discussion back to gender, suggesting that the departure of three women is "a trend." [snip] Let’s not forget Trump’s first term, when high-profile firings and forced exits fell overwhelmingly on male officials—including prominent figures like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. So was...

Carson Bender was set up at the base of a tree while hunting on private land near Nekoosa — about 100 miles north of Madison — when he turned around to find the fierce predator stalking him. The 19-year-old hunter quickly whipped out his phone to record the encounter as the bobcat slowly inched closer to him, video posted on his Instagram page shows. “I pan over with the phone, and the bobcat is just staring at me,” he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “I was like, uh-oh.” The cat locked in on Bender for a few tense moments — then,...

NEW YORK, NY — Former President Barack Obama and current New York City Mayor Zorhan Mamdani delighted preschool students this week by taking turns reading passages from the Communist Manifesto. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," Obama recited to the kids. "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Right, kids?" The preschoolers looked on in admiration and slight confusion as the two politicians continued their reading, pausing only to make sure the kids were...

U.S. Fiscal Situation Continues to Deteriorate In just the past week, the debt and deficits of the United States took further blows as spending increases, falling revenues, and geopolitical hostilities tightened the funding vice. Distractions vs. Long-Term Trends Even if you're primarily a precious metal investor, you've likely been distracted by war headlines for the past few weeks. Over that same time, however, other long-term headlines have surfaced that will greatly impact gold and silver over time. You may have missed them, so, for this week's post, let's recap. Monthly Treasury Report – March Deficit Let's start with the latest...

imo, There's no doubt in MY mind that Mamdani was selected to be the Mayor.After seeing two rabid Muslims singing a relatively Protestant church bus song together with some very enthusiastic (whom obviously KNEW the song, thus . . church/children Sunday School ..attendees) children, it appears that the radicals have invaded us and are stepping up their indoctrination the way they ALWAYS do . . . . they use our own ways and laws against us.The plan is to take over the Island of Manhattan and eventually make it a Caliphate / Islamic State. . . . . We are...

Media liberals have been performing an increasingly common shtick. They piously proclaim that they are not comparing President Donald Trump and MAGA to Hitler and the Nazis ...and then they proceed to do exactly that. The latest example of this absurdly disingenuous technique comes via David A. Graham in Saturday's Atlantic magazine with "The Film That Explains Contemporary America."The title itself actually says that the film directed by Marcel Ophuls which is the excellent documentary The Sorrow and The Pity about life in occupied France during World War II "EXPLAINS Contemporary America." And yet Graham after the obvious comparison presents...

Jean Raspail’s ‘The Camp of the Saints’ isn’t a racist screed, it’s a story about how civilizations die. In an act of censorship that liberals would normally decry as fascist and authoritarian, Amazon banned a new edition of The Camp of the Saints by the late French novelist Jean Raspail — and then quietly re-listed the book after online backlash to the company’s attempted censorship. The book, published by a small outfit called Vauban Books, was removed from Amazon’s U.S. site on Monday with almost no explanation. As of this writing, Amazon has not explained why it de-listed the...