Free Republic

Marketed as a Neolithic and Roman find, the site was in fact assembled with concrete and grouted stone blocks. A man in northern Italy has been sent to prison after Italy's highest court gave final confirmation to his conviction for illegally constructing a fake ancient theater and presenting it to the public as a genuine archaeological site, charging visitors an entrance fee of up to 40 euros. The structure still stands in Arcugnano, in the province of Vicenza. It consists of tiered stone seating built from stacked stones that were worked to look ancient. The columns are fake too, made...

ransomnote: Trump posted the same promotional video featuring Jim Rickards (June 2026) on Truth Social again today.Rickards has a strong track record of accurate predictions, including correctly calling Trump’s 2016 victory when many dismissed the idea.In the video, Rickards forecasts historic levels of societal and financial turmoil in the run-up to the November 3, 2026 midterm elections. He anticipates a cascade of destabilizing events—prosecutions, perp walks, protests, and broader unrest—and outlines the potential conflicts and strategic paths facing the Trump administration.Trump appears to keep elevating portions of this video because of Rickards’ detailed insights and guidance on navigating the tumultuous...

RICHMOND, Va. — Barack Obama Elementary School will not open this week due to mold, and students will temporarily relocate to Clark Springs Elementary School while remediation continues. Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras said in a message to families Monday that teachers and staff setting up classrooms discovered "additional areas of mold growth (for example, behind bulletin board paper)," prompting the district to send everyone home for additional cleaning and testing. "All of this is realistically going to take several days. So we will not be returning to the Obama building this week. Our goal is to do so...

Target has removed a children's Halloween costume after it was widely criticized online over the weekend for evoking racist minstrel imagery. Target has since pulled the costume and told KARE 11, "As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer available for sale." The costume was labeled as "Kids' Glows under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume Bodysuit - Hyde and EEK! Boutique."

How Xavier Becerra’s wingman, Rob Bonta, seems determined to ensure that nothing gets in the way of Becerra’s gubernatorial victory in November. The carnival midway has always run on the same principle: the games look fair, but the house always wins. In Riverside County, California, that same principle appears to have been applied to an election. After a citizen audit uncovered a discrepancy of roughly 45,896 ballots in the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50 (affecting redistricting), Sheriff Chad Bianco’s investigators obtained search warrants, seized more than 650,000 ballots, and began a criminal investigation. Within weeks, California Attorney General...

I'm getting a lot of scathing pushback calling JD Vance a leftist so I'm laying out why it's true in a straight-forward, semi-nuanced way. It is not me making the claim, the following is what Vance has personally stated he believes in. 1. Vance calls himself a post-liberal. Post-liberalism rejects free-market capitalism and individualism in favor of the government securing economic and social well-being (social welfare). The counter-argument is to recognize the responsibility of individuals for their own welfare (food, shelter, well-being). 2. Vance says he believes in Hamiltonian economics. Hamiltonian economics has shared commonality with modern left-of-center ideology primarily...

In the Ukraine War, a Russian soldier fires his RPG into the ground in front of himself during training. Funny video.

CLERMONT, Fla. - A fight between a mother and daughter boiled over on Tuesday evening, leading to a stabbing. Lake County sheriff’s deputies responded to a Clermont home shortly before 6 p.m. Aug. 18 after receiving a 911 call reporting that two people had been injured in a fight involving broken glass, according to an arrest affidavit. Shavannah Nechole Stafford, 27, told deputies that her mother had attacked her with a fan and a lamp before breaking a glass jar over her head. Stafford said her mother suffered injuries while rolling on the broken glass. Her mother gave deputies a...

Explanation: Comet 220P is unexpectedly bright. Normally, periodic Comet 220P/McNaught is so dim that to see it requires a telescope. Two surprising outbursts this year, however, have made it about 20,000 times brighter than usual, so that it is now visible with binoculars and long-duration camera exposures. As expected, Comet 220P continues to orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter with a period of over 5 years. The featured long duration exposure, taken 10 days ago from South Africa, shows the comet's bright green head and short dust tail. Reasons for Comet 220P's impressive outbursts are unknown but could be...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a set of trojanized npm packages that masquerade as working calendar and streak utilities but are engineered to stealthily deliver an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Linux implant dubbed RedC2 4.0. "When the module loads, it locates the bundled binary, marks it executable, and launches it as a detached background process," TrendAI, Trend Micro's enterprise cybersecurity business, said in a report published Thursday. "No install hook function call is needed; a single import anywhere in the dependency graph, even a transitive one, is enough to execute the payload." ... What's notable about these packages is that they are...

Enes Kanter sat with the fans on Sunday at a WNBA game and, as it turns out, that’s as close as either he or other WNBA hopeful Royce White is going to get. According to Front Office Sports’ Colin Salao, the WNBA has ruled both White and Kanter ineligible to play. “Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White are not eligible to play in the WNBA, league sources tell Front Office Sports,” Salao reported. In addition, the league characterized Kanter’s antics as “publicity stunts”. It said that it is “not going to give oxygen to efforts designed to mock the league...

Visit a mosque to learn about IslamSeek out new knowledge and insights with a discovery hunt, as you explore your local mosque. Planning your visit Get in touch with your local mosque to find out if you can arrange a visit on a suitable day or time. You could search online for mosque or ‘masjid’, which is the Arabic word for mosque. Many mosques hold open days or run tours for groups. You could get in touch with the Muslim Scout Fellowship (MSF) and see if there are any nearby Muslim Scout groups you could link up with. You can...

The 6.2-liter V8 found in certain Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, and Cadillac Escalade models has been recalled for more than a year now, but the remedy may not be to the government's satisfaction. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced it would investigate the recall after receiving complaints from owners who had experienced engine failures even after their trucks and SUVs had been repaired according to GM's standards. Problematic Machining And Lubrication The original recall of the 6.2-liter V8, codenamed L87 and also found under the hoods of some Silverado 1500 and Sierra 1500 pickups, pertained to machining flaws...

An antitrust lawsuit has been filed in California alleging that three chipmakers have engaged in collusion and price-fixing, amid a global shortage of memory chips that is driving up prices for manufacturers and consumers. The class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (1) against chip giants Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. The 17 named plaintiffs (1) are a mix of individuals and small businesses.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is taking a much closer look at GM’s electronic braking system, and the scope of the investigation has grown dramatically. What began with complaints involving the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq now covers nearly 1.2 million GM vehicles equipped with the same eBoost electronic brake system. NHTSA originally opened its preliminary investigation in April 2024 after receiving reports of a hard brake pedal accompanied by a “Brake System Failure” warning. The agency’s latest action expands the investigation to all GM vehicles using the system as it tries to determine how widespread the problem could be and...

Taiwanese prosecutors charged nine people Monday, including one from Nvidia and two from Super Micro, for illegally exporting "high-end AI servers" to mainland China, adding another wave of turbulence in the AI rivalry between China and the United States. AI infrastructure, including advanced semiconductors mostly made in Taiwan, has become a key point of competition between the U.S. and China. Washington began imposing restrictions on Nvidia's exports of advanced chips to China in 2022 and tightened them in subsequent years. In April 2025, the U.S. required licenses for exports of Nvidia's H20 chips to China, before allowing some sales to...

The idea of a plane that can land on and take off again from water isn't a new thing. Landing on water is easy, but it's taking off again that's the trick, which is why flying boats, as they came to be called, were a common thing back before the country was so liberally dotted with airfields. The United States and other countries made heavy use of them, right up through the Cold War. But the idea goes back to the very beginnings of powered flight. There are two basic designs: a small airplane fitted with floats instead of wheeled...

Suge Knight claims that the rapper’s mother also joined the peculiar ceremonyTupac Shakur’s ashes were rolled into blunts and smoked by his friends and family, according to new claims by his former associate Suge Knight. The unusual revelation was made to TMZ by Knight, who was with Tupac at the time he was shot in 1996, amidst the ongoing murder trial taking place in Las Vegas. Knight claims that after he was cremated, Tupac’s mother invited friends to a Vegas hotel room where they rolled his ashes into “several” blunts and smoked them. It followed a reported effort to have...

Nestled in the heart of the South, there's a reason America's 22nd state is called "Sweet Home Alabama." Here are the top 10 reasons to pack up and move to the heart of Dixie: Nice people always telling you to bless your heart: Southern hospitality at its finest. No one gets too worked up about football: Finally, people who act sensible about teenage kids playing a silly game. Home of the famous Aflac commercial actor Nick Saban: He's so great talking to that duck. Never have to walk more than 17 steps to get to a Waffle House: A...

If you are over the age of fifty, you might hear the words "Gary, Indiana" and instantly think of The Music Man. Gary, Indiana, shall we say, has changed. The Chicagoland suburb has been struck by an electricity blackout that lasted over 12 days. Things have gotten so bad that the dire situation even made the CBS Evening News. The usual suspects took to social media to blame a familiar scapegoat for the blackout: racism. In a now-deleted post, an X user going by the handle @BlvckJxsus wrote (uncensored here): "gary indiana has been w/o power for 11 days. gary...