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De Beers: Venetia diamond mine ======================================================================================= DE Beers is preparing to shutter South Africa’s largest diamond mine for two years, threatening thousands of jobs and removing roughly two-fifths of the country’s diamond production as the industry’s most famous company battles one of the worst downturns in its history. The move is intended to cut costs, while production will be increased elsewhere, enough to leave its overall output guidance unchanged. It’s an especially striking decision because Venetia, in Limpopo, is not an ageing operation being allowed to gracefully expire. And De Beers has already spent about $2.2bn converting the former open-pit...

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul is once again stamping her feet, accusing federal immigration authorities of overreach for allegedly planning to expand detention facilities in upstate New York. In a letter to US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Hochul is demanding answers from ICE about a rumored lease on a warehouse in the Hudson Valley near Newburgh, as well as plans to expand detention capacity at federal facilities in Rochester and Batavia. “New Yorkers, like all Americans, deserve honest answers about what their federal government is doing in their communities. And I demand your department provide that transparency,”...

Americans are some of the most mobile people on Earth: They move homes about three times more often than ­Europeans. As a recent report shows, that mobility is a problem for New York’s rising socialist movement. A new Citizens Budget Committee report found that New York’s share of millionaires, those earning more than a million dollars a year, declined more than any other state since 2010. The state went from having 12.7% of all millionaires in the nation to 8.7%. Worse yet, in the more recent years, the state’s highest earners have been leaving much faster than its lowest earners....

At least 100 members of the last sitting Congress, are direct descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people, representing at least 8% of Democrats in Congress and 28% of Republicans. The group includes Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and James Lankford, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president except Donald Trump are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.Governors of 11 of the 50 U.S. states in 2022 were descendants of slaveholders, as were two U.S. Supreme...

The Democratic Party is at war with itself — and in Maine, the fight has spilled into the open. Graham Platner, an alleged rapist with a Nazi tattoo on his chest, won the Democratic nomination for United States Senate last month, beating the candidate the party establishment had recruited by a commanding 53-point margin. For months, Republicans and others had warned that Platner was unfit for the job. The Democrats did not care. As soon as party leaders saw polling that suggested he could beat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November they embraced him, hosting him in Washington, DC, and...

I clicked on my bookmark for Free Republic. The splash page came up. And then in dawned on me: Free Republic is 30 years old this year!

A detailed view of Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry. Image credit: Unknown author via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) ============================================================================ The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most famous textile works in the world, and for the first time in more than 900 years it has returned to England to be exhibited at the British Museum. The work of art depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings of 1066 and the Norman conquest of England. It also depicts an important astronomical event, the return of Halley’s comet. Although not in the right place. First of all, despite...

Rush Limbaugh: What the 14th Amendment ACTUALLY Says About Birthright Citizenship

In less than two years, the era of free, open over-the-air TV will come to an end and be replaced by a PPV-like experience. ================================================================================== [SNIP] It feels like a golden era of free consumer media choice. But this brilliant, high-definition view comes with a ticking clock. In the corridors of the FCC, local broadcasters are vigorously pushing a plan to permanently shut down our current broadcasting standard called Advanced Television Systems Committee 1.0 (ATSC 1.0). If media conglomerates get their way, February 2028 will mark the sudden end of free, open television as we know it, instantly transforming millions...

The boy was around 14 when he joined the Continental Army. He signed his enlistment papers with an “X,” suggesting that he’d never learned to write his name. During his three-and-a-half-year military career, he marched more than 1,000 miles. When he died at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780, he was buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten for nearly 250 years. Researchers excavated the boy’s remains in 2022. Now, they’ve discovered this young soldier’s identity: His name was Private John Pumphrey, and he was one of America’s oldest John Doe cases. “As far as we knew,...

An upstate House candidate pontificated about the Epstein files and a would-be politician’s assault scandal – despite hitting the campaign trail alongside his registered sex offender brother-in-law, The Post has learned. Democrat Aaron Gies, who’s looking to unseat two-term Republican Rep. Nick Langworthy, was assisted by his brother-in-law Christopher Nathan White, a former North Carolina teacher convicted on rape and sex offense charges involving two teen students – who allegedly shot video at a winter “Polar Plunge” event. “He was there,” Gies told The Post Sunday of the campaign plunge event that unfolded Dec. 26, 2025. “Chris is not part...

Misery on the menu? California shoppers could soon be paying even more at the checkout line as a sweeping new state recycling measure threatens to send grocery prices soaring, with dairy manufacturers warning some businesses may be forced to shut down or flee the Golden State. Senate Bill 54 is now entering its first phase of implementation, with companies expected to receive their first bills as early as next month, reported SFGATE. The measure aims to reduce landfill waste by making manufacturers financially responsible for the packaging they sell after it is thrown away. It charges companies impact fees on...

The Guggenheim Museum is among the 31 Upper East Side buildings where the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease was detected, officials revealed. The museum, at 1071 Fifth Ave., and the owners of 18 other properties have already cleaned and disinfected their tainted water-cooling towers, according to the city Department of Health, which on Friday identified all of the infected properties by address. The other 12 buildings were ordered to complete the deep cleaning to eradicate the Legionella bacteria by Saturday. It is not yet clear if they all complied with the timeframe. The Guggenheim — which has an average of...

During filming of We're Not Dressing, a 1934 musical comedy that came out a month before Carole Lombard ascended into the top rank of screwball comedy heroines with Twentieth Century, her co-star Bing Crosby discovered that the actress had a rather extreme reaction to her one notable phobia. As recalled by Gary Giddins in Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years 1903-1940, Crosby had to slap Lombard in one scene. "At her request, he refrained during rehearsal, but when the scene was filmed, she responded violently. Howard Hawks liked to take credit for creating Lombard as a comic...

William Lawrence, a progressive running in the Democratic primary for the U.S. House in Michigan, is responding to backlash over his previous criticism of Black political leaders. The Huffington Post on Saturday published Lawrence’s comments from a 2024 episode of his podcast, in which the Democrat accused some Black lawmakers of being “a pillar, frankly, for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power.” “It’s a big problem for left politics in this country, and it gets us every single time,” Lawrence said in the episode. “It really defangs the white left and puts us in impossible positions, really.” The Democratic candidate addressed...

An in-depth look at the construction of Rome's Pantheon and its famous concrete dome. Why hasn't the Pantheon's dome collapsed? | 13:33 toldinstone | 628K subscribers | 662,909 views | June 23, 2023Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 0:28 The purpose of the Pantheon 1:16 The design 1:58 Roman concrete 2:32 Quarries, contractors, and workforce 4:02 Foundations 4:44 Building the walls 5:41 Relieving arches and buttresses 6:35 Masterworks 8:08 Building the dome 9:51 The portico 10:54 Decoration 12:32 Insane Emperors, Sunken Cities, and Earthquake Machines

Political strategist James Carville offered a series of harsh criticisms against the far-left Democrats taking aim at their own party in the ongoing primaries, while calling the candidates’ ongoing cannibalization of longtime incumbents “part of the problem.” In a blistering video, Friday, for his “Politics War Room” podcast, Carville blasted the nationwide sweep of far-left and Democratic Socialist primary election victories, while calling certain candidates “part of the problem” within the party. “These people are so f------ stupid I don’t know what to say about it,” Carville said. “So now we have this idea that these insurgent Democrats — and...

Hunter Biden, the son of former President Biden, was awarded $1.7 million in damages on Friday as part of a defamation lawsuit against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne. Byrne, a known denier of Biden’s victory over President Trump in the 2020 presidential election, accused the younger Biden of taking part in an $800 million bribery scheme involving Iran and failed to defend his claims in court. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson of the Central District of California ruled the ex-executive acted with “intentional misrepresentation” and “conscious disregard” for Hunter’s rights, and said Byrne continued to amplify the false allegations even...

The blaze, which broke out around 6 p.m. on July 7, quickly engulfed the historic structure, causing the roof to collapse. ALERT: Pittsburgh Fire is battling a 3-alarm fire in a vacant church on Grandview Ave. & Kearsarge on Mount Washington. There are no reports of injuries at this time. Please watch this space for updates. A PIO is on scene. pic.twitter.com/actU6tJjMC — Pittsburgh Public Safety (@PghPublicSafety) July 7, 2026 Allegheny County dispatchers received a call about the fire at approximately 6:05 p.m. Firefighters arrived within four minutes and upgraded the response to a three-alarm fire, according to a WPXI...

Iranian and Middle East diplomats held crisis talks in Oman Saturday to respond to the US demand that Tehran issue a public pledge to keep the Strait of Hormuz open – while reportedly weighing whether to propose a new travel route along the critical waterway. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was meeting with Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi in Muscat to discuss “safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz,” according to state media in Tehran. There were no indications top US officials were involved in the negotiations. Qatari officials, who have sometimes served in a mediating role between the warring...