Free Republic

My latest song. Time to get blue.

The map of our solar system has changed. For most of history, we viewed our neighborhood as a tidy, organized place. We thought it was a simple system with eight planets orbiting a star, surrounded by a clean void. We assumed there was a clear finish line where the solar system stopped and "deep space" began. The Kuiper Belt proves that this model is wrong. The solar system does not have a hard edge. It does not just end. Instead, it fades away into the galaxy. What we once thought was empty space is actually a massive, chaotic frontier. It...

Alabama U.S. senator and gubernatorial candidate Tommy Tuberville said in remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday that “serious gender confused mental illness” is on the rise in the U.S. and that is “very, very concerning.” In a wide-ranging Senate speech where he cited incidents of violence, denounced an agenda that preyed on confused people and suggested more mental hospitals are needed, Tuberville said he rejects the term transgender. Former Huntsville reality TV star ‘surrendered to authorities,’ publicist says “I’m not going to use the Leftists’ preferred terminology of ‘transgender’ because it implies that it is possible for a person to...

As discussions took place at the UN General Assembly in New York about the opportunities AI provides - and how best to manage it - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that the country's universal health insurance scheme had been hacked by an OpenAI agent. In fact, the hack happened in June, the company became aware of it in August, and then sent an email to a government agency's general inbox in September. "It took the company way too long to inform the government," Albanese said, adding that the method of notifying officials was also "unacceptable". Believed to be the...

I'm working family genealogy tonight and researching my First Cousin twice removed. She was born in February 1898 in Fleming, Saskatchewan, Canada. She died at age 102 in 2000 in Vancouver, British Cloumbia, Canada. I never met her. I found that she passed her high school entrance examination in July 1912 when she was 14 years old. That got me to thinking "How odd...no automatic advancement to high school in Manitoba in 1912? How did entrance exams work in Canada back then?"Sure enough, the entrance exams were tough! (see below) I had no idea how hard it was to get...

CarryingMarine@carryingmarineA Secret Service agent who protected Trump recently said something that SHOCKED everyone: “Trump has RUINED me — I could never protect another President the same way again.” And before you assume he meant that as criticism, WAIT until you understand what he really meant by “ruined,” because his explanation of Trump has left people across the Secret Service deeply emotional.Here’s what the agent meant by “Trump ruined me”:This Secret Service agent had protected several Presidents before Trump. He was professionally trained, followed every rule, and performed his duty with discipline, distance, and dedication. He protected each President the same...

W.H.Grampa@WHGrampa0·18hBOMBSHELL JUST DROPPED — THERE IS NO HIDING THIS ANYMORE Investigative journalist Catherine Herridge just exposed the documents.China was BLACKMAILING the Biden family… and it was sitting in President Biden’s own daily brief.She found the records. She held them up on camera. The evidence is right there.And what did the FBI, CIA, and the entire legacy media do?They buried it. They looked the other way. They protected the regime.This isn’t politics.This isn’t a “scandal.”This is TREASON at the highest level.They knew.They covered it up.And they did it to keep power.No more excuses. No more “conspiracy theories.” The documents are out....

The first confirmed arm bone of a Denisovan has been discovered in southwest China, adding another piece to the puzzle of an elusive human relative... Only a handful of physical Denisovan remains have ever been knowingly recovered, including finger bones, ribs, teeth, jawbones, some skulls, and a couple of leg bones. But now, researchers in China report they have discovered the first Denisovan radius, one of the two long bones in the forearm... a site called Bianfu Cave that contains more than 60,000 bone fragments found in several layers of sediment... The vast majority of these skeletal remains belonged to...

President Donald Trump isn't exactly known for his refined palette. But Thursday's state dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping will be an elegant affair. Conspicuously missing from the menu, however, is an American dining staple, red meat. "The first course offers a refined and silky-smooth velouté made of sweet yellow squash. This course is gently blended to highlight its delicate seasonal flavors of earthy wild mushrooms, sautéed with fresh herbs. Together, these ingredients create a rich fricassee, complemented by crispy pancetta for a savory and smoky contrast. A finishing drizzle of scallion oil adds vibrance and a subtle allium brightness...

John “TIG” Tiegen@TigTiegenYou lecturing about “free press” is a joke.The night Stevens and Sean Smith were killed you pointed at a YouTube video. That same night you emailed your daughter it was an al Qaeda-like group. The next day you told Egypt it was a planned attack, not the film.Then the public story stayed on the video. The press ran it. Nakoula got locked up on a probation hit after that narrative.Tyrone Woods’s father said you told him you would arrest the filmmaker for his son’s death.You used the press to sell a fake protest so an election calendar wouldn’t...

PSA: Trump's Big Beautiful Bill eliminated federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for approximately 88% of seniorsGINGERSKOL💜💛@GlowSurfing·Sep 23ANOTHER HISTORY LESSON ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD:Just in case some of you young ones (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe it. Be sure and show it to your family and friends. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are FACTS.Up until the 1980's, Social Security cards expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for...

How do math skills compare around the world?This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, ranks participating countries and economies by the average mathematics scores of 15-year-old students in the most recent PISA 2025 study, published in September 2026.PISA assesses students in mathematics, reading, and science. Its mathematics assessment goes beyond memorizing formulas or procedures, measuring whether students can apply mathematical knowledge and reasoning to real-world problems.More than 760,000 students took part in PISA 2025 across 91 countries and economies, representing roughly 33 million 15-year-olds worldwide.China in this ranking represents the participating jurisdictions of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Uzbekistan is...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health advisers on Wednesday endorsed a blood test designed to spot signs of various cancers in apparently healthy people while warning that it’s far from clear how well the technology works. Grail Inc.’s Galleri test doesn’t diagnose cancer but instead, with a single blood draw, looks for a signal that someone may have one of a long list of tumors. Those who receive a positive result need additional care to tell if they’re really sick. The Food and Drug Administration’s advisory panel voted 7-2, with one abstention, that the DNA-based test offers more potential benefits than...

A pro-transgender counterprotester told supporters of Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham that they "should have been aborted" outside the Fever’s game against the Minnesota Lynx on Thursday night. The man delivered the remark through a bullhorn while wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word "abortion," as Cunningham supporters gathered outside Target Center for a rally in support of protecting women’s sports. Another counterprotester used a bullhorn to repeatedly call XX-XY Athletics — a women’s sports apparel company that opposes biological males competing in women’s sports — a "hate group." NCAA softball player Kendall Kotzmacher, who attended Thursday’s rally, told OutKick...

When a $20,000 Trumpet Failed live at the Diamondbacks game

The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that it had eliminated Mahmoud Abd al-Fattah Awad, a Hamas commander who, according to the military, held seven hostages in a Gaza tunnel during the war. Awad, who was killed in an airstrike in the Gaza City area over the weekend, took part in holding hostages Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev, Doron Steinbrecher, Naama Levy, Ziv Berman, Omri Miran and Eitan Mor, according to the military. Awad had recently planned terror attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, and also worked to rebuild Hamas’s capabilities “in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the IDF said. “Prior...

In an unprecedented legal action, an aborted baby won a wrongful death lawsuit settlement against the abortionist who killed him or her. The estate of a 26-week-old aborted child has collected $200,000 in a New Mexico wrongful-death settlement, in what attorneys on the case call the first payout of its kind to an aborted baby treated as a person under state law. The case, Wabbington v. Boyd, was settled and dismissed with prejudice on Sept. 14. The defendants were late-term abortionist Curtis Wayne Boyd, who then operated as Southwestern Women’s Options; Emily Cohen; and the late Carmen Landau. The complaint...

Muse, Meta’s A.I. agent, helped handle my dental insurance, booked dinner reservations and created a podcast for me. It also required my most personal data, and trust.Last week, I answered a call from an unknown number. “I reached Anthem Dental and am about to connect you,” a voice piped up.The call was from an artificial intelligence “agent” created by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Ten minutes earlier, the A.I. agent had called my dental insurer, given it my member ID, answered a security question and waited on hold before transferring me to the representative — just as I had...

Our low-budget Pittsburgh Pirates have locked themselves in to their first 50% win season since 2018 . . . with three games to go. Even though they are out of the playoffs, they could actually finish the season better than two American League teams still contenting for a playoff spot. Isn't this progress?

Hundreds of La Verne residents under evacuation orders Thursday may be out of their homes for several more days as crews work to stabilize two lithium-ion battery storage systems damaged in a fire earlier this week that remain dangerously hot. Barricades to allow emergency vehicle access have been placed around parts of the evacuation zone, which spans Moreno Avenue to the west, Foothill Boulevard to the north, B Street to the east, and Paseo Drive and Kendrick Drive to the south. Firefighters said Thursday that they are making significant progress on the incident, but there is still the potential for...