Free Republic

Two corrupt town workers in posh East Hampton accepted thousands of dollars in cash bribes from contractors in exchange for near-instant under-the-table building permits, according to prosecutors. Town Building Inspector Ryan Benitez, 37, and his senior office assistant, Evelyn Calderon, 46, pocketed more than $16,000 from four unnamed contractors so that the builders could sidestep the months-long approval process and have their permits and certificates of occupancy secretly fast-tracked, Suffolk County prosecutors claimed. The pair of government employees would sometimes jump into action within minutes of getting a request — and cut down the typical months-long process to mere hours...

According to a Gizmodo report, analysis of residue samples taken from an incense burner previously unearthed near Pompeii has identified an offering used in ancient Rome. "We've long known from ancient writers that the Romans burnt frankincense in their sacrifices," said Johannes Eber of the University of Zurich. "Preserved ashes and traces of fragrant resins from a domestic shrine near Pompeii provides tangible proof and a striking reminder of just how globalized the ancient world truly was," he added. The terracotta censer, decorated with an appliqué of a reclining woman, came from a domestic shrine at a rural villa north...

As Karoline Leavitt gears up to welcome her second child, there's chatter on who will fill her role during her maternity leave... Leavitt, 28, is due in May, and three women in her press office are seen as potential stand-ins during her absence: Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly, Assistant Press Secretary Taylor Rogers, and Regional Press Secretary Liz Huston. Kelly joined the White House in January and brings extensive political experience, having worked on several Republican campaigns. Prior to being on Leavitt's team, she worked for the Republican National Convention as a national press secretary and as communications director for...

The head of an influential Big Apple business advocacy group warned that companies are already taking steps to relocate or move jobs elsewhere because of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s tax-hike crusade. Steve Fulop, CEO of the Partnership for the City of New York, said many corporations are considering leaving or shifting their workforces to less costly states after it was revealed $900 billion asset manager Apollo Global Management is plotting a second US headquarters in the Sunbelt. “In the last week, there have been several [major companies] in the Partnership that have said they’re going down the same road [as Apollo],...

We will monitor social media and check your bank accounts. I have 40 analysts working 24/7, 7 days a week”. ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt says Americans who criticize Jews & Israel will be monitored by the FBI

Could Marco Rubio be the one to take down the woke and seemingly untouchable Rep. Ilhan Omar? He seems to think that $40 million fortune of hers came from something different than wine sales from her winery. [X post at link] Which is shockingly direct. Usually, they don't state things so directly. But if it's true that Omar ran a pay-to-play refugee operation, it would surely be illegal. And who would be in a position to know this better than Rubio who runs the Department of State and all its adjacents? With a confident tweet like that, it seems likely...

The Democratic Party is facing criticism after it posted an Easter-themed message about "Better times at the White House" featuring former President Barack Obama, while leaving out former President Joe Biden. The post, published Saturday by the official Democratic Party X account, shows Obama from behind standing beside a person in an Easter Bunny costume with the Washington Monument in the background. The caption reads, "Better times at the White House." Biden is not pictured or mentioned in the post, and much of the reaction centered on that omission. Social media users wondered why the account appeared to invoke nostalgia...

Mutually assured destruction as a deterrent against use of nuclear weapons has undoubtedly been a crucial reason why they haven't been used. Would a nuclear Iran, if it continued as the present theocracy, be dissuaded from using nuclear weapons because of the fear of reprisal? It's a critical question.

The Pentagon has added Operation Epic Fury to its casualty database, as of April 3 showing 365 U.S. troops wounded in action and 13 killed.The update follows weeks of rising casualty reports tied to the operation. On Friday and into Saturday, a search remained ongoing for one of two F-15E crew members taken down in Iran. U.S. officials said March 1 that three service members had been killed and five seriously wounded. By March 2, the number of those killed had risen to six.Military.com sought clarification on how the Pentagon defines those killed in action, died of wounds, or non-hostile...

HOUSTON, TX — With the toilet about Artemis II breaking for the second time, NASA began to wonder if stocking the shuttle with Chipotle may have been a mistake. With the crew being forced to resort to "collapsible contingency urinals", NASA Director Jared Isaacman could not help thinking that Chipotle was a poor choice. "We may have screwed the pooch on this one," sighed Isaacman. "The meal all being wrapped into one aluminum container, it just sucked us in. We probably should have known better. I mean, it is Chipotle. I may have been drunk when I made that call."...

The seizure of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by the Imperial Iranian Navy took place on 30 November 1971, shortly after the withdrawal of British forces from the islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, all located in the Strait of Hormuz between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.[1] The Imperial State of Iran had claimed sovereignty over both sets of islands, while the Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah claimed the Greater and Lesser Tunbs and the Emirate of Sharjah claimed Abu Musa. File:Strait_of_Hormuz.jpg" class="infobox-cover top-cover-mobile">Date30 November 1971LocationPersian GulfResult Iranian victoryTerritorialchanges Iran captures...

~ FreeRepublic Memorial Wall 2.0 ~In honor of those FReepers who now rest from the labors of life.Their voices may have been silenced, but their words and deeds will never be forgotten. Jeff Head Jeff Head 1956 - 2021Member since 7/26/1998Tributes Homepage Proud American in Canada Julie Kosmond Murray 1962 - 2021Member since 7/12/2001Tributes Homepage hsmomx3Diane Berry 1959 - 2022Member since 3/1/2001Tributes Homepage] Daffynition Carolyn Moley Lyman 1943 - 2022Member since 3/1/2007Tributes Homepage dainbramagedRichard 19xx - 2022Member since 10/9/2007Tributes Homepage Cboldt Charles “Clyde” Seyboldt 1955 - 2022Member since 1/28/1999Tributes Homepage gubamyster James Ryan Williams II 1963 - 2022Member since 2/19/2002Tributes...

Brussels avoids speaking about it openly but the ghost of the 2020 COVID-19 crisis is beginning to reappear in the corridors of the EU. What if the next major restriction does not come from a virus but from a lack of energy? In Brussels, nobody wants to utter the term yet. The European Commission avoids any official comparison with the pandemic and rejects talk of “energy lockdowns.” But the idea is beginning to circulate with growing normality. The war with Iran and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz have triggered a crisis that no longer resembles the...

Saturday Night Live is under fire after a cast member cracked 'what's the worst that can happen?' about Trump attending a play - an unmistakable nod to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.During Friday’s 'Weekend Update,' comedian Michael Che took aim at the president’s visit earlier this week to the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, where he attended the opening-night showing of Chicago. 'President Trump attended the opening night of Chicago at the Kennedy Center and I think that's cool,' Che said during the skit. 'The president is going to the theater...I mean, what's the worst that can happen?'

@mtracey Benny Johnson says Bondi's fatal flaw was not being in tune enough with the online GOP "base," which is "obsessed with the Epstein Files," and demanding to know that "we're not paying taxes to pedophiles." Something tells me the next AG won't be able to satisfy this angst, either

Explanation: The party is still going on in spiral galaxy NGC 3310. Roughly 100 million years ago, NGC 3310 likely collided with a smaller galaxy causing the large spiral galaxy to light up with a tremendous burst of star formation. The changing gravity during the collision created density waves that compressed existing clouds of gas and triggered the star-forming party. The featured image from the Gemini North Telescope shows the galaxy in great detail, color-coded so that pink highlights gas while white and blue highlight stars. Some of the star clusters in the galaxy are quite young, indicating that starburst...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump has for a long time criticized the concept of birthright citizenship — the idea that U.S. citizenship extends to anyone who was born within the U.S.'s borders. Rather than wait for a Supreme Court decision about it, Trump announced his own legislation titled "Birth-Wrong Citizenship." "We're going to deport all the losers and the haters," Trump told the press. "Some of them may have been born here — and maybe even their parents are citizens — but that's obviously a mistake because we are not a country for losers and haters." The bill would...

The leader of a trade group that represents most major automakers called on the federal government to eliminate its gasoline tax and replace it with a vehicle fee to finance road infrastructure needs. Alliance for Automotive Innovation CEO John Bozzella, whose group represents automakers such as General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai and other leading car manufacturers, put forward a proposal that urged the federal government to address the growing shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund with a vehicle fee. The proposal would function like a vehicle registration fee that’s assessed on all vehicles based on their weight, and was first...

Kim Freudenberg, a longtime teacher in San Francisco, knew that raising two boys meant a lot of hard conversations. She warned them about all the usual dangers: drugs, alcohol, sex, social media, riding a bike without a helmet. "Never once did I even think that I needed to say 'gambling,'" she recalls. One day, when her oldest son was 11, he was watching someone play video games on a livestream and clicked on a link in the comments. It took him to an offshore online casino. There, he got sucked in — to blackjack, poker, roulette. He could use items...

Although RCW 86 has been imaged many times before — notably by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Dark Energy Camera — new data from NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) has delivered a fresh perspective. Launched in 2021, IXPE captures X-ray data and high-energy, short-wavelength light with an all-new level of sensitivity to examine the most extreme objects in the universe, including supernova remnants. IXPE was put to work on RCW 86 because of the remnant's irregular shape and the strange way it's expanding. Earlier observations from Chandra suggested that the supernova spread into a low-density "cavity," allowing it...