Free Republic

The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic may have left a significant mark on our brains, even if we didn't get sick. Fatal cases of COVID-19 look scarily like old age in the brain, and now, new research suggests that the mental, social, and financial stresses of the pandemic may have aged our brains as well. A team led by researchers at the University of Nottingham trained an AI model to recognize healthy aging in the brain, using the data of more than 15,000 adults in the UK Biobank. The algorithm was then used to analyze the brain ages of two...

The leading liberal Orthodox rabbinical school quietly ordained an out gay rabbi this summer, marking a first for an Orthodox Jewish institution in the U.S. Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, an all-male seminary in Riverdale, New York, ordained Rabbi Tadhg Cleary in a June 12 ceremony alongside three other graduates. Cleary’s ordination, or semicha, came six years after YCT’s controversial refusal to ordain a different gay student whose public wedding engagement went viral. The same rosh yeshiva (head of school) who made that decision, Rabbi Dov Linzer, gave final approval to Cleary’s admission into the program and conferred his ordination, the significance...

I once considered pitching publishers a book called 101 Things That Are Now Suddenly Gay, cataloguing the increasing number of completely non-gay things that fanatical homos now claim are gay after all, from ball bearings to hovercraft, upon no rational basis whatsoever. Yet I have already been beaten to it by a temporary daily series from the pages of lefty U.K. newspaper The Guardian to celebrate this summer’s annual Gay Pride Month(s). This was called “My Unexpected Pride Icon” and was basically my old proposed book in short serial form—but taken seriously, not as a rainbow-mocking joke. ...

nearly all of Rite Aid's Connecticut stores will be closed by Labor Day ... The only store that doesn't have a definitive closing is the Stratford store, which is located at 3680 Main St. A female employee there on Friday said workers haven't been told yet when that location will shutdown. When questioned about the closing date, she agreed to answer the question if she could remain anonymous, because of concerns of potential retribution by Rite Aid officials. Company officials did not respond to a request for comment about the remainder of its Connecticut closings on Friday. Rite Aid announced...

Donald Trump has been applying his negotiating skills to get sugar back in U.S.-produced Coke, the president wrote on his Truth Social site Wednesday. If his intervention pans out, soon Americans could be swigging something that tastes much more like Mexican Coke. Trump famously installed a red button on his desk that allows him to quickly summon a Diet Coke, his favorite drink. Trump championed the recipe change as a 'good move' by the Coca-Cola Company, which was founded in 1892. 'I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they...

As a warming planet delivers more extreme weather, experts warn that the Trump administration is dismantling the government’s disaster capabilities.In an effort to shrink the federal government, President Trump and congressional Republicans have taken steps that are diluting the country’s ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to catastrophic flooding and other extreme weather events, disaster experts say. Staff reductions, budget cuts and other changes made by the administration since January have already created holes at the National Weather Service, which forecasts and warns of dangerous weather. Mr. Trump’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year would close 10 laboratories...

Director James Gunn revealed that the upcoming "Superman" movie will be "about politics," saying that the iconic superhero is "an immigrant that came from other places." ....... And obviously, there will be jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness. But screw them."

The country that invented “flight shaming”, a concept championed by climate activist Greta Thunberg, has scrapped its air tax in a bid to boost its ailing economy. As of July 1, Sweden has dropped the levy of 76–517 kroner (£5.50–£37.40) per passenger per flight, an eco measure introduced by the centre-left government in 2018. The U-turn will be seen as a disaster by environmentalists, and it exposes a tension at the core of the aviation versus climate debate. When jumbo jets disappear emissions drop, but other things begin to dwindle too: regional growth, connectivity and – it appears in Sweden...

After 17 years in the US Army, Maj Kara Corcoran, 39, was preparing to graduate from an elite military leadership programme. But there was a complication. Two days before the ceremony, Kara was told that she would need to conform to male regulations, which meant wearing male uniform and cutting the long blonde hair she had grown since she told the Army she identified as a woman in 2018. The directive had come from the Pentagon, and filtered down through her chain of command at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. "Nothing about me is a man, but we're going to force me...

“Greater sickness in EVs can be attributed to a lack of previous experience, as both a driver and as a passenger, where the brain lacks accuracy in estimating the motion forces because it relies on previous experience in other types of cars,” William Emond, a PhD student researching car sickness told The Guardian. “When discovering a new motion environment, the brain needs to habituate because there is no knowledge of previous experience in such a context. This is, for example, why almost everyone becomes sick in zero-gravity environments,” he explained.

Wind and solar companies were already bracing for Congress to end federal subsidies. But the Senate bill goes even further and penalizes those industries.Senate Republicans have quietly inserted provisions in President Trump’s domestic policy bill that would not only end federal support for wind and solar energy but would impose an entirely new tax on future projects, a move that industry groups say could devastate the renewable power industry.The tax provision, tucked inside the 940-page bill that the Senate made public just after midnight on Friday, stunned observers.“This is how you kill an industry,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of...

Data analytics giants Palantir Technologies Inc. announced a partnership with The Nuclear Company on Thursday to develop NOS, an AI-driven software system designed specifically for nuclear construction projects. The investment comes at a time where the nuclear sector has seen rapid growth in interest from investors and corporations. The software platform’s main aim is to simplify he construction process by enabling faster and cost-efficient deployment of nuclear plants. Palantir will receive approximately $100 million over a five-year period to build the software platform, according to the sources. Alignment with government policiesThe agreement is well aligned with the four executive orders...

On the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationally, supporters say they are secure but also wary and watchful.Could same-sex marriage be next?Gay Americans and their allies have much to celebrate on Thursday, the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Same-sex marriage has, by almost every indication, become ingrained in everyday American life. Since the decision, there have been 591,000 same-sex marriages, and today, nearly two-thirds of Americans approve of the policy. Same-sex couples are staples in contemporary movies and television shows, and reside, often with their...

.. every objective metric, support for trans rights is worse now than it was six or seven years ago. And that’s not isolated to just trans issues. I think if you look across issues of gender right now, you have seen a regression. Marriage equality support is actually lower now than it was a couple of years ago in a recent poll. support that we saw for trans rights in 2016, 2017 — it was a mirage of support in some ways. Because I think, in the postmarriage world, there was a transfer of support from the L.G.B. to the...

Singer and social media personality Nezza broke a rule in Dodger Stadium on Saturday. Ahead of the Dodgers’ eventual 11-5 win over the Giants, she sang the national anthem in Spanish, but according to a video later posted by the performer, she sang it in her first language against the wishes of the organization. Nezza, whose full name is Vanessa Hernández, posted a video on TikTok where viewers can hear an unidentified Dodgers employee telling her before the performance that “we are going to do the song in English today, so I’m not sure if that wasn’t relayed.” The video...

Randi Weingarten, left-wing activist and president of the second-largest teachers’ union in the United States, is leaving the Democratic National Committee (DNC), citing disagreements with leadership and dismay at the direction of the committee. Weingarten, who heads the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and has been an influential member of the DNC for 23 years, wrote a letter to DNC Chair Ken Martin indicating that she is at odds with committee leadership, Politico first reported. “While I am proud to be a Democrat, I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not...

BRUSSELS, June 11 (Reuters) - The world experienced its second-warmest May since records began this year, a month in which climate change fuelled a record-breaking heatwave in Greenland, scientists said on Wednesday. Last month was Earth's second-warmest May on record - exceeded only by May 2024 - rounding out the northern hemisphere's second-hottest March-May spring on record, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin

MAGA firebrand Steve Bannon called on President Donald Trump to condemn Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russian airbases and “pull all support” after reports that the White House was not informed in advance of the offensive. More than 40 warplanes, including Russia’s Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, were reportedly damaged or destroyed across four airbases in Murmansk and Irkutsk, thousands of miles from Ukraine’s border. The operation, which Ukraine revealed it had been in planning for 18-months, came just one day before Monday’s peace talks were set to begin in Istanbul. Axios reported on Sunday that sources within the administration...

The industry’s blame game will not end the US national health care nightmare. The shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was met by many people online with a morbid sense of inevitability. The often callous nature of the US health care system has long been a point of wide discussion, with evidence piling up that the way the country provides medical services is costly in both money and human life. The health industry’s executives — insurers, pharma, even hospitals — have become popular villains. The killing of a human being is morally repugnant — full stop. But many people still...

…Students outsourcing their assignments to AI and cheating their way through college has become so rampant, so quickly, that it has created a market for a product that helps professors ChatGPT-proof school. As it turns out, that product already exists. In fact, you’ve probably used it. You might even dread it. It’s called a blue book. … All of which explains how a paper company in Pennsylvania has unexpectedly found itself on the front lines of the classroom AI wars. Most blue books for sale in campus bookstores and on Amazon for 23 cents apiece are made by Roaring Spring...