Free Republic

If they were visible to the naked eye, these structures would be huge in the sky. Image Credit: UCLan/Stellarium ========================================================================= The cosmological principle states that, on the largest scales, the universe is uniform and isotropic. In other words, it should look broadly the same no matter where you are or which direction you look. You would not expect to find a single enormous structure in one particular region of the sky. Finding two in relatively close proximity is even more surprising. Five years ago, researchers discovered the Giant Arc, a vast crescent of galaxies stretching 3.3 billion light years across...

Now they turn on Nazi-tattooed alleged rapist Graham Platner? After all these months of defending him and making excuses — knowing full well what a repugnant dirtbag he is? Let’s be honest: At this late date, the accusation that Platner raped an ex-girlfriend should shock absolutely no one. And that it took so long for Dems to cut him off speaks volumes. Indeed, the only reason they’re deserting him now is not that they’ve finally grown a moral spine; it’s that they fear his grotesque character won’t fly with normal voters. Not only would a continued Platner campaign for Maine’s...

California activists are calling for the state's preschools to legitimize the use of Black English in the classroom. Supporters say teaching the dialect, also known as African American English (AAE) or African American Vernacular English (AAVE), will help 'combat harmful language hierarchies.' The Black Californians United for Early Care & Education group is part of a movement advocating for Black English to be recognized as a legitimate, rule-based language in preschool classrooms on par with other languages. California activists are calling for the state's preschools to legitimize the use of Black English in the classroom. Supporters say teaching the dialect,...

Royal jelly is only part of what makes a queen honeybee. Scientists found that worker bees build specialized “royal cribs” and work together to create the ideal environment for raising the colony’s future queen. Credit: Shutterstock Honeybee queens are made not just by royal jelly, but by an entire colony engineering the perfect royal nursery. For years, scientists believed the recipe for creating a honeybee queen was surprisingly simple. Feed an ordinary larva enough royal jelly, and it develops into the colony’s ruler. A new study, however, reveals that becoming a queen depends on far more than diet. Researchers found...

Im just wondering because, from the outside itvappears that Kentuckians view things from a local perspective and not the national perspective.

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes the Cynic (also known as Diogenes of Sinope) could have been the first anarchist, or the first absurdist, or the first satirist, or the first naturalist — depending on the reader’s point of view. By today’s standards, Diogenes was a homeless man by choice whose life goal was the search for wisdom. His unique approach to life had absolutely nothing to do with society’s norms and rules — either now or back in ancient times. He found the shelter he needed inside an enormous ceramic pot, rejecting all comforts and luxuries — yet his observations...

The author's aim was to instruct students of American jurisprudence in the fundamentals of that system. Admirably adapted to the needs of such, his treatise addressed itself to those most ardent of students, practitioners themselves. Hence it soon attained, and since has held, the distinction of the best general treatise on American law. Herein are presented, as parts of an organic whole, the international relations of our government, its constitutional organization, and the legal results flowing from the exercise of its executive, legislative, and judicial functions. Without deviation from its systematic course, the discussion passes from the Union to the...

WASHINGTON — DC was a little too busy going full America for this New York Times reporter. A famed ex-NPR host-turned-podcaster for the Gray Lady ignited a social media firestorm for railing against the dozens of military flyovers that roared across DC’s skies to mark America’s 250th birthday. Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who hosts “The Interview” for The Times, decried the awe-inspiring display of America’s awesome military and engineering genius as “nerve-wracking,” triggering widespread social media mockery. “Why are we having so many jets scorching over DC? Nerve-wracking. I get 250 celebrations, but it feels like the apocalypse,” Garcia-Navarro groused on X...

Hakeem Jeffries is rolling out the welcome mat for the people who want his head mounted on their trophy wall. The House minority leader offered a hearty “welcome aboard” to state Assembly members Claire Valdez and Micah Lasher as well as congressional candidates Darializa Avila Chevalier and Brad Lander, both progressive Democrats associated with the Democratic Socialists of America. All but Lasher were backed by slick DSA kingmaker Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “Congratulations to our newest members of the NYC congressional delegation,” he wrote on X. “From public servants to union organizers to community activists, the path is different but the...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 10,000 people over a five-day period at the end of June, marking a major push by the agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration's mass deportations agenda. The arrest numbers, obtained from a person familiar with the information who spoke anonymously to discuss data that has not been publicly released, come after the agency shifted its approach from high-profile arrest sweeps in major American cities to quieter ways to reach President Donald Trump's deportation goals. The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue...

As the country marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a new 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐞 survey lands like a gut punch: nearly half of all Americans — 𝟒𝟔% — don’t know what America 250 is actually celebrating. Among Gen Z, it’s worse: 𝟔𝟏% couldn’t say. Laura Ingraham didn’t hold back on air: “𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘴? 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵? 𝘖𝘳 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺?” The answer, judging by the numbers, is...

A 4th of July weekend celebration turned into a fiery nightmare when fireworks went screaming into the stands at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles — sending panicked fans scrambling for cover. Just minutes after Angel City FC defeated the Orlando Pride 2-0, the club’s Independence Day weekend pyrotechnics display went haywire. Instead of launching into the sky, multiple mortars allegedly fired sideways across the field and toward packed seating sections. “The end is actually the worst. I saw several flames go into the crowd. It was terrifying!” one shaken Reddit user wrote. Another fan said the experience was still haunting...

The real story of the Declaration of Independence - the secret conversation between Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOQfGWt8Hc

These elite schools once trained the statesmen of the American republic. Now they produce its most ardent critics.When William Pallan arrived at the University of Pennsylvania his freshman year, he was set on studying the humanities. He wanted to engage with the great thinkers of the Western canon, from Plato and Aristotle to Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill. But as he searched through Penn’s online course catalog and sat in on classes, he felt that the options on offer focused less on the great texts themselves and more on postmodernist interpretations of them. He recalls leaving the first...

WASHINGTON — Republican-appointed Justice Clarence Thomas tore into transgenderism as a “lie to the public” in his concurrence on the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold state-level policies restricting girls’ sports to biological females. The senior justice went further than all of his conservative peers in making the sweeping pronouncement on transgenderism and declared biological sex “immutable.” “Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are. Sex is an immutable ‘biological’ characteristic,” Thomas wrote in his brief, two-page solo concurrence. “[I]t is binary; and ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ ‘boy’ and ‘girl,’ are the...

Even though it’s been nearly 250 years since the Continental Congress declared independence from Britain, the study of the American Revolution is far from over. For decades, archaeologists have dug at Revolutionary War battlefields across the country, yielding fascinating artifacts. From southern sites to northern battlefields, these places are still sharing secrets — and shedding new light on our country’s founding. As America celebrates its 250th, below are a few Revolutionary War battlefields that are still revealing new discoveries. 1. Bunker Hill One of the earliest military engagements of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought in...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who has served nearly 40 years in Congress to become one of its most influential power brokers, on Monday announced who she will take on when she leaves office in January: UC Berkeley students. The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy, to be launched with tens of millions of dollars in gifts from Pelosi and other donors, will seek to bring leading scholars to campus, cultivate students’ ambitions for public service, and position itself as a Bay Area counterweight to major university political institutes that frequently attract former members of Congress and White House staff. Pelosi (D-San...

In the information age, we all know what screen-induced eye strain feels like. One Edinburgh man decided he'd had enough and took a novel approach to relieving his eyestrain. A massage gun! I don't know if you've ever used one of these things. But they feel a lot like getting jack-hammered by a miniature-Bruce-Lee. So, imagine that in your eyeball. ArsTechnica reports that the man was seen by ophthalmologists after complaining of an increasing number of floaters and flashing lights in his vision. When they took a look, his eyes were a mess: In his right eye, he had multiple...

A radical, Israel-hating California teacher claimed she married a Gaza resident online to help him gain American citizenship — and push her pro-Palestinian agenda. Laura Pinho, a dance teacher at Canoga Park Senior High School in California, announced her nuptials in a wild June 16 CODEPINK Zoom webinar called “Challenging Zionism In Our Schools.” When CODEPINK activist Marcy Winograd congratulated her on her marriage and asked her to share details about her life, Pinho, 51, launched into a pedantic monologue about how she only married Salem S.E. Abu Amra to advance “Palestinian rights and freedoms.” “I have power as an...

Audiobook industry sales revenue grew 9% in 2025, hitting $2.43 billion, according to the Audio Publishers Association's annual sales survey, conducted by Toluna. Publishers reported more than 750,000 active titles last year, a 43% increase from 2024. General fiction accounted for the largest share of audiobook revenue at 27%, with science fiction/fantasy, romance, and mysteries/thrillers/suspense rounding out the top genres. The fastest-growing genres in 2025 were humor, general fiction, and children's, including YA. ... AI-narrated audiobooks remain a marginal interest, representing just 0.03% of sales in 2025. Curiosity about AI-narrated books also appears to be in decline, as those expressing...