Free Republic

Dazzling new images taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope show an astronomical object known for its striking resemblance to a lion’s face. NGC 2392, more commonly called the Lion Nebula, received its nickname from its hazy dust “mane” and the dying star at its center, which resembles a “button nose,” according to NASA. The images were taken by Webb, using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) The agency previously captured images of the feline-themed planetary nebula in 2000 using the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb’s higher-resolution images show that...

A New Jersey thief who bilked investors out of more than $650 million has been named one of the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters — the first Garden State resident to make the dubious list. Fugitive Rey E. Grabato II is accused of participating in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded some 2,000 investors, hundreds of whom were located in New Jersey, out of more than $650 million between February 2018 and January 2022, according to the FBI. The agency is offering a reward of up to $150,000 for information that leads to Grabato’s arrest and conviction. Federal authorities issued an arrest...

Liberal Democrat Governor Maura Healey signs bill allowing babies to be aborted all the way up to birth. Fox News says, “Democratic Gov. Maura Healey was met with applause and smiles as she signed away Massachusetts’ gestational limits on abortion, making the deep-blue state the 10th to permit the procedure up to birth. Under the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, health care workers will have greater discretion in determining whether to perform an abortion later in pregnancy, without facing legal penalties under the state’s previous restrictions. Massachusetts is now the tenth state to allow this kind of de-humanizing law.”...

Today we laugh at Socialism/Communism (While we still can!)

Kansas students have been forced to put cell phones into lockers before they set foot in class as part of a blanket ban on the devices in schools across the state. Thousands of students in grades K-12 are banned from using their cell phones during the school day under HB 2299, which outgoing Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law in March and hailed as a tool to “reduce distractions in the classroom.” School districts are granted the flexibility to enforce the policy as they see fit. Schools in the Kansas City public school district have spent $150,000 on special...

WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center’s board moved Thursday to rename the area around the iconic performing arts center the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza” and to add Trump’s name back onto the building’s facade — after a federal judge ordered its removal. Trump’s allies on the board pushed through the changes during a meeting that lasted more than two hours, after Democrats including Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty objected to Trump’s plans to renovate and rebrand the aging facility. Trump, who chairs the board, participated virtually in part of the meeting and pushed back on...

I’ve been on a small carrier/LHA in a war zone during the first Iranian dust up. We did 105 days continuous at sea. Drank that beer on steel beach. It was hard work, but we could have done another hundred days. The only thing we ran short of was fresh vegetables and milk. I’m more concerned with this concerted effort by media...aided by a dozen pussies aboard...to undermine the esteem these sailors warrant. As always, getting the job done. Bravo Abe Lincoln, BRAVO!!

Archaeologists at Göbeklitepe in southeastern Turkey have uncovered rectangular buildings that may offer new evidence of everyday life and homes at the Neolithic settlement. The structures lie just below the modern surface in a newly opened excavation area. Researchers believe they belong to Göbeklitepe’s second phase of occupation. Unlike the site’s famous monumental enclosures, the buildings contain fewer large stone pillars and have interiors that may have supported domestic activities. Excavation director Prof. Dr. Necmi Karul said the team’s initial impression is that some may have been homes. Researchers, however, say more evidence is needed before they can determine how...

History continues to resurface as unprecedented heatwaves and droughts in Europe push the Danube River to its lowest levels on record. In addition to the dozens of World War II Nazi naval vessels near the Serbian town of Prahavo, archaeologists in Hungary have located an extremely rare Wehrmacht military motorcycle, along with the bodies of its two potential crewmembers. Due to the area’s unique conditions, both the vehicle and the soldiers’ remains are remarkably well-preserved even after over 80 years underwater. The vehicle and possible remains were found in an exposed section of the Danube riverbed near the Hungarian Parliament...

PCU John F. Kennedy departs Newport News for acceptance trials. (Image credit: HII) The John F. Kennedy, the second Gerald R. Ford class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, left Newport News on Aug. 12 to commence acceptance trials before its handover to the U.S. Navy. Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) John F. Kennedy, soon to be the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) will now have its systems and equipment evaluated in these final manufacturer trials to prove it is up to specification before delivery. Previously scheduled for delivery in 2025, the 100,000 ton aircraft carrier was delayed by issues with the new Advanced...

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department has pinpointed nearly $5 billion in bank or other transactions linked to suspected human smuggling between 2023 and 2025 — a staggering figure that the Trump administration is vowing to reduce, The Post can reveal. The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) found $4.9 billion in suspicious exchanges by combing through Bank Secrecy Act data between Jan. 1, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2025, according to a forthcoming Financial Trend Analysis report. Much of that amount included “excessive cash activity conducted along the southwest border of the United States,” as well as transfers along other “common...

Luigi Mangione is expected to plead guilty Friday in his federal case tied to his alleged execution of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — in an apparent bid to dodge a life sentence, sources confirmed to the Post. The 28-year-old accused killer — who is set to appear at a morning hearing in Manhattan federal court — is charged in the federal case with two counts of stalking resulting in death stemming from his alleged December 2024 cold-blooded murder of the powerful executive on a Manhattan sidewalk. Mangione would still likely face a potential life sentence if he were to plead...

Armed with new technology and a major mining partner, Visionary Metals is ready to probe just how big — and how valuable — a nickel discovery at Jeffrey City is. If realized, it will be a first of its kind in the Western U.S. since the 1940s. Visionary Metals made Wyoming’s first nickel sulfide discovery in the Granite Mountains north of Jeffrey City in 2024. This year, it’s moving into a decisive drilling phase as it tries to turn that find in the under-explored greenstone belt into Wyoming’s first and only nickel mine, producing a metal the federal government has...

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Though the terms are often used interchangeably, coffins and caskets are actually completely different things. The same goes for ghosts and ghouls, though I have to admit that the difference between the latter pair is significantly gorier. And since we’re on the subject of spooky, not-quite synonyms, I wondered – wait, are cemeteries the same thing as graveyards? Apparently, not, it seems. Though both refer to burial sites for the dead, they are actually distinct (I had no idea). What’s the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s site, it has to do with size,...

WASHINGTON — Mao-adoring Twitch streamer Hasan Piker erupted in fury after Wisconsin state rep. Francesca Hong’s shocking defeat in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, venting that boomers should be outlawed. Piker, who had stumped with Hong during the final weeks of her primary, blamed older Americans for her loss amid her double-digit lead in most polling and struggled to talk about the blow to the far-left. “I don’t want to read this because I will f—ing kill myself with a gun in a video game,” Piker griped after reading an article about a late-deciding voter who backed Milwaukee County Executive David...

Bill Gates’ “nepo baby” daughter Phoebe Gates, 23, has been accused of “cookie stuffing” at her multibillion-dollar startup, Phia – an illicit practice that comes with a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison, according to reports. Phia – a digital personal shopping assistant co-founded by Gates with fellow Stanford alum Sophia Kianni – reacted with shock in July following reports that it was dropping more web “cookies” than it should, taking undue credit for online sales at retail partners. The company released a statement that it had only learned of the issue “within the last 24 hours,” pledging...

When HMS Barham was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-331 in November 1941, a chain of events began that led to a medium being charged and imprisoned under the archaic Witchcraft Act of 1735. The Queen Elizabeth-class battleship had sunk quickly, resulting in the deaths of more than 860 officers and crew members – two-thirds of the ship's company. Following the sinking, during a séance in Portsmouth, Helen Duncan, known as Hellish Nell since childhood and the medium at the centre of this story, claimed to have spoken to the ghost of one of the sailors who perished that...

This video starts with a brief history of Taiwan, and the geological makeup of the island, and then dives into why this tiny little island became an extremely important nation, against all odds with their chip & semiconductors manufacturing.

Both systems promise that a slaughter is necessary but also promise its end. Both systems invariably keep the first promise and violate the second. In revealing the commonalities of the Reds and the Greens in the Red-Green Axis, we have elucidated their shared goals of violence, wealth redistribution, inequality before the law, a binary world, monopoly rule by the elites, and controlling the totality of society. Here we explore the promise of transitional phase slaughter. Both Islamic political systems and Marxist-Leninist communism make two promises about the violent neutralization of internal rivals. The first is that it will happen: a...