Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged about firing a new kind of ballistic missile at Ukraine early Thursday — while threatening to also use it against other powers arming Kyiv, including the US. In an unscheduled televised address to the nation, Putin said he sent a hypersonic missile called Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree — to strike a facility in Dnipro in response to Kyiv’s recent use of British and American missiles to attack Russian territory. -snip- he threatened to use it against anyone supplying missiles to Ukraine — and warned that US air defenses would be powerless to stop...

The remains of hazelnuts eaten by some of Skye's earliest inhabitants were found at a dig on the island, archaeologists have revealed. Hazelnuts were a favourite snack of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, according to archaeologists at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). The shells found at an excavation above Staffin Bay could be 8,000-years-old. UHI carried out the dig along with Staffin Community Trust, school children and volunteers. Dan Lee, lifelong learning and outreach archaeologist at UHI, said: "We have found lots of fragments of charred hazelnut shells in the lower soil samples. "They are the ideal thing to date...