Free Republic

An illegal immigrant who has been deported three times has been charged in a July 3 crash that killed a 6-year-old girl in North Carolina. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lodged a detainer asking North Carolina officials not to let Jaime Santiago Corona out of jail without notifying them, according to a Department of Homeland Security news release. Calli Toler, 6, was killed in the crash. Corona, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, faces multiple charges. DHS noted that Corona’s “criminal history includes convictions for driving under the influence of liquor and obstructing police.” According to arrest warrants, Jaime...

While disagreeing on most else, teacher unions and conservative education policy reformers share views on cellphone bans, AI guardrails in K-12 public schools. ================================================================== Teachers unions and education reformers are historically longtime rivals – frequently bumping heads over policies surrounding school choice, parents' rights, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices in K-12 schools. There's one issue, however, upon which these groups agree – that technology, creeping first via phones and now Artificial Intelligence, is interfering with student learning. "Social media and student personal device use have become a constant presence in our schools,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National...

Dramatic new bodycam footage captured the moment heroic NYPD cops plucked a distraught woman off steel cables high above the Brooklyn Bridge, saving her from sure death. “I just wanna talk,” one cop is heard telling the woman after she climbed high atop the East River span shortly before 7:40 p.m. on Wednesday. “What’s happening today? “I wanna help you, that’s why I’m up here right now,” the officer said. “I genuinely care, I do. It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem, it really is. I don’t know what you’re going through but I want to understand. We have...

Studying old paintings can give us a surprising glimpse of historic natural history. In 1611, the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Elder finished his epic allegorical painting Air. In it, he depicted the Muse of Astronomy, Urania, reclining on a cloud as a menagerie of feathered birds surrounds her. But while studying the animals in the picture, one researcher spotted something far more intriguing: in the top right corner, there appeared to be a bat carrying a bird in its mouth. For most people, this might not mean much. But for the ecologist Pedro Romero-Vidal it set his mind racing,...

A seasonal railway conductor for Tennessee's Incline Railway at Lookout Mountain has been fired after making now-viral comments, wishing riders a happy Independence Day, which triggered some passengers. The conductor, identified as Jack Peterson, is clearly fed up with mass migration policies that are ruining our country. He hilariously told passengers on the Fourth of July, "To the very, very few Americans in here, happy Independence Day." He continued, "To the rest of you, welcome to the greatest country on the face of the planet, and if you disagree, you can leave." It is unclear how many foreigners were on...

A stone disk recovered from a 5,000-year-old tomb has puzzled archaeologists for generations. Its shape looks surprisingly modern, and the debate over what it was actually made for is far from over. © Credit: Alain Guilleux ==================================================================== Found in an ancient Egyptian tomb almost a century ago, the Sabu Disk remains one of archaeology’s most unusual discoveries. Its distinctive shape has sparked countless theories over the years, even though researchers still favor a much simpler explanation. The stone object was discovered in 1936 in the tomb of Sabu, an official buried at the Saqqara necropolis during Egypt’s First Dynasty. Dating...

The near-Earth Object 2009 FD, as seen by the ESO's Very Large Telescope (Image Credit: ESO) Every year, more than 5,000 tons of material with cosmic origins lands on Earth’s surface, with as much as 15,000 tons of this “space dust” making its way into the atmosphere but vaporizing during reentry. The resulting rain of micrometeorites that reaches our planet consists mostly of tiny objects anywhere from 30 to 200 micrometers in size, based on past studies. But what are the origins of these large volumes of material that accumulate over time as they shower the Earth throughout the year?...

[Translated from Dutch] We fell off our seats when we received the following video. It turns out to be a video of Kunstencentrum KAAP from Bruges and Ostend. That arts center ‘deserves’ 68% of its turnover by simply reaching out its hand to the Flemish Government, which then invests 2 million euros every year. With that 2 million euros, KAAP organizes, really, you hold on, “decolonizing” dance projects. You will see an example of such a ‘decolonizing’ dance in annex. Have we become collectively mad or what? No, but really, seriously, the Flemish Government is losing! There is money short,...

The Case for America takes on one of the most contested legal battles in modern American history - the true story of January 6th. Host Treniss Evans is joined by attorney Roger Roots and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Raiklin to dismantle what they call a five-year government narrative built on the word "insurrection." Roots argues the DOJ systematically overcharged and over-sentenced J6 defendants with felony charges unprecedented in American history, while filing a sweeping 90-plus-page civil complaint on behalf of hundreds of Jers. Raiklin says the statute of limitations on that testimony expires in just three weeks, and he's...

Premiums Could Jump More Than One-Third Over Two Years—Middle-Income Enrollees Face the Full Costs Without Enhanced Credits, Even as Existing Federal Subsidies Shield Most from Further Increases =================================================================== ACA Marketplace insurers are proposing a median premium increase of 14% for 2027— indicating a likely second consecutive year of double-digit increases, according to a new analysis of preliminary rate filings in 16 states and DC. If these increases hold, typical premiums for insurers participating in the ACA Marketplaces would jump by more than one-third between 2025 and 2027. Across the 77 ACA Marketplace insurers in the 16 states and DC that...

A sprawling global web of gangsters targeted in a massive federal takedown used California as its cash register to rake in millions of dollars through extortion schemes, contract killings, and drug and gun trafficking, authorities revealed. Local and federal officials on Tuesday arrested 11 accused members of transnational, India-based gangs and their affiliates in the Golden State as part of a case dubbed “Operation Hard Ball.” Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, described the gangs as the most powerful you’ve never heard of, allegedly reaping millions of dollars in illegal profits from drug deals, extortion, weapons sales and theft....

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...

The Chinese Tianwen-2 mission has captured the first imagery of a space object that some astronomers are calling Earth’s “quasi-moon.” The object was captured in images released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), after its Tianwen-2 spacecraft reached the tiny asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa. Initially discovered in 2016, the asteroid became the target of a sample return mission launched by China on 28 May 2025. Officially the CNSA’s second mission under its Planetary Exploration of China Program, Tianwen-2 aims to return close to 100 grams of samples from the surface of the small object. Earth’s Mysterious Quasi-Moons Quasi-moons are the...

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...

Buried side by side since 1836, one Mexican and one Texan cannonball lay untouched beneath the Alamo’s soil for nearly two centuries.Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: -Archaeologists excavating near the church at the Alamo have discovered two cannonballs fired during the famous 1836 battle there. -The cannonballs sat close to each other for roughly 190 years before being discovered. -One cannonball was from Mexico and the other was made with iron from Texas. Two fully intact Battle of the Alamo-era cannonballs have sat undisturbed in the dirt outside the northeast corner of the Alamo Church,...

Findings from a mysterious remote chain of islands off the coast of California are rattling bones in the science community as bone-pickers find traces of a “vanished world.” The Golden State’s Channel Islands, located several miles off the SoCal coast, are home to the remnants of revelational lost civilizations intriguing enough to make Indiana Jones blush. A banner finding in the area has been the 13,000-year-old remains of the “Arlington Springs Man,” the earliest dated adult found on the continent. A new documentary highlighted the extraordinary discovery, which has changed science’s thinking around where and when humans first migrated to...

Looks like another “conspiracy theory” just came true again! To quote Yogi Berra it’s like “deja vu all over again” these days with conspiracy after conspiracy being proven 100% true. The latest is the Myth of Recycling, or as John Stossel put it: “the Green Religion” otherwise known as Gaia Worship. I’ve been telling people for years that Recycling is a scam. Recycling is “garbage”, no pun intended…. I have no doubt some people mean well by it, but it simply doesn’t work! Most of it does not end up actually getting recycled and the time, energy and “carbon dioxide”...

A recent quirky project is challenging the taste buds of modern beer drinkers. Can a beer be made from yeast that’s nearly 3,000 years old, in combination with a 3,500-year-old Egyptian papyrus? The man behind this historic brew is Dylan McDonnell, a homebrewer and nonprofit operations manager. He holds a Master’s in Middle Eastern studies. During the pandemic, McDonnell heard about a man who was using a 4,500-year-old yeast strain to bake sourdough bread.

Located in Thailand's Loei Province, Phu Khat stands as the highest peak in the Phu Khat Wildlife Sanctuary, rising to a height of 1,307 metres above sea level.In a routine patrol by Rangers from the sanctuary, two previously unknown archaeological sites were discovered near the mountain summit, both only 300 metres apart.Collectively named Pha Pang Puey, the sites feature carved or eroded linear markings across the rock face, forming geometric or abstract patterns rather than natural fractures – indicating ancient rock art. The rock surface is primarily reddish-brown, interspersed with lighter grey patches caused by lichen and erosion.According to experts,...

The largest Roman bathhouse complex ever discovered in the Netherlands has surfaced, shedding new light on the wealth and importance of the ancient Roman city of Ulpia Noviomagus.Researchers from the archaeological firms RAAP and BAAC were conducting routine investigations in Nijmegen's Waalfront district, a site slated for new residential development. The excavation, which began in September of last year and will conclude in July, uncovered a public bathhouse, residential blocks, luxury townhouses, streets, and a tower dating back nearly 2,000 years...The bathhouse complex, or thermae, covered at least 4,900 square meters, making it the second-largest excavated Roman public bath complex...