Free Republic

A top Padres prospect has self-deported to Mexico after pleading guilty to transporting undocumented immigrants within the United States. Humberto Cruz, a pitcher ranked as the Padres’ fifth-best prospect by MLB Pipeline, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to receiving money for the transport, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, and acknowledged it was a “virtual certainty” he’d be deported. The Athletic confirmed that Cruz, 19, had decided to self-deport and was back in Mexico. The Padres’ understanding is that Cruz would lose his work visa for 10 years, but could reapply after five years of good behavior, the...

A Minnesota “violence interruption” charity has collapsed after its leaders allegedly used $6.5 million worth of charitable funds to bankroll lavish lifestyles and a private liquor store. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Friday a civil lawsuit against nonprofit We Push for Peace and its former directors, Trahern Pollard and Jaclyn McGuigan. The organization, which held lucrative contracts for community outreach and violence prevention, was driven into the ground by “rampant abuse” and blatant self-dealing, prosecutors allege. According to the complaint, Pollard personally pocketed more than $6 million of the diverted charitable funds. Instead of helping the community, the...

Miners in Myanmar have discovered a rare ruby of enormous size, considered to be the second-largest by weight ever found in the conflict-battered Southeast Asian nation, state media reported Friday. The ruby, measuring 11,000 carats (2.2 kilograms, or 4.8 pounds), was unearthed near the town of Mogok, in the upper Mandalay region, the heartland of the lucrative gem-mining industry that has recently experienced intense fighting in the country’s wide-ranging civil war. According to a report from the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the newly found rough ruby was discovered in mid-April, just after the traditional New Year festival. While...

The tree, known as Prometheus, was cut down to study, with permission from the US Forest Service. The stump of Prometheus in the Wheeler Bristlecone Pine Grove at Great Basin National Park, Nevada. Image credit: James R Bouldin via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) Science isn't always perfect; mistakes are made, occasionally to the detriment of one's subject. But what about inadvertently chopping down what would later turn out to be the world's oldest non-clonal tree? That’s exactly what happened to an unfortunate graduate student named Donald R. Currey back in the summer of 1964, who ended up responsible for the...

A fireworks explosion inside a $1.3 million home in south Los Angeles forced police to call in a bomb squad to clean up the area Saturday as fire officials battled an ensuing blaze with fireworks still exploding. Officials told The California Post that one person was found dead at the Jefferson Park home, and two others were injured. Video from the scene showed an energetic blaze with colorful fireworks dangerously going off. They appeared to be mortar-style fireworks. Firefighters extinguished the fire by 5:52 a.m. Cadaver dogs were called for a possible missing person at one point, LAFD said. Police...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) dismissed a question of whether or not she’ll run for president in 2028 on Friday night, stating that her “ambition is way bigger.” “My ambition is to change this country,” Ocasio-Cortez told Democratic strategist David Axelrod during a conversation hosted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. “Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials, come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever. A living wage is forever. Workers’ rights are forever. Women’s rights — all of that.” The representative is among a group of people whom voters see as potential Democratic candidates for...

Ukraine is testing an AI-assisted laser system designed to destroy Shahed drones and protect key infrastructure. Image of the Ukrainian Tryzub laser system. Military NYI Ukraine’s Celebra Tech is edging closer to deploying its Tryzub anti-drone laser weapon in Ukraine, the company reports. According to Celebra, the system is now entering its final testing phase before battlefield deployment. Colloquially called “Trident,” the system has been designed to give Ukrainian forces a cheap and rapid deployable counter to massed Russian first-person-view (FPV) drone and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations. This could be game-changing, as Russia has made use of large...

In France, the National Front was co-founded in the 1970s by the avowed anti-Semite Jean-Marie Le Pen, along with a former member of the Waffen SS, and a member of the Vichy parapolice. Jean-Marie’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, took over the party in 2011...During her 2017 presidential campaign, she said that France was not responsible for the July 1942 roundup in which French police arrested and deported approximately thirteen thousand Jews. “I think, generally speaking,” she said, “if there are people responsible, it’s those who were in power at the time-not France.” ... By the time snap parliamentary elections were...

Excavations from 2015 to 2021 on the ancient site of Motza, just west of Jerusalem, revealed a sprawling settlement with some surprisingly advanced technology. The site dates back to 7100–6700 BCE during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period...There is evidence of the use of calcitic lime plaster, or calcium carbonate-based plaster, in construction as far back as 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. It later became a dominant, durable building material used by civilizations like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The earliest evidence of its use appeared in the Fertile Crescent, or modern day Jordan and Turkey. The material is produced...

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service on Friday reported a net quarterly ​loss of $2 billion as it faces a growing financial crisis and has ‌warned it could run out of cash as soon as February. USPS said mail volumes fell another 6.3% in the three months ending March 31 as operating revenue rose 2.3% to $20.2 billion ​over the same quarter last year. USPS last month said it would temporarily ​suspend employer payments for a federal pension program to conserve cash ⁠and plans to raise the price of first-class mail stamps to 82 cents ​from 78...

The beams are an in-kind contribution from CERN. Matthew Kapust / SURF The US has begun lowering 10 million pounds of steel nearly a mile underground to build the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), widely regarded as one of the world’s most ambitious particle physics experiments. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the premier US national lab for high-energy particle physics announced the start of the underground detector assembly for the massive neutrino project in South Dakota on May 7. It is carried out along with the Sanford Underground Research Facility and CERN. Transported deep underground, the steel beams will...

A DECADES old cold case involving a teen girl who was found beaten and stabbed to death has come to an end thanks to a DNA link. Bobby Charles Taylor Sr., 60, was arrested in connection to the brutal rape and murder of Deanna Ogg who died in 1986 at the age of 16. Deanna Ogg was found dead in 1986, and now 40 years later authorities have arrested a man in connection with her murderCredit: Handout Mugshot of Bobby Charles Taylor Sr., who was arrested for the 1986 murder of Deanna Ogg. Bobby Charles Taylor Sr. was arrested and...

People freaking out about the Reform UK win compilation pic.twitter.com/QJIQM4wqLo— ɖʀʊӄքǟ ӄʊռʟɛʏ 🇧🇹🇹🇩 (@kunley_drukpa) May 8, 2026It's amazing. Nigel Farage and Reform UK has a platform that is more or less the same as establishment Republicans in the United States: Lots of bravado about "conservatism" but voting like Democrats going the speed limit. But because they are the only viable right-wing option for the moment, people voted for them in spades in Thursday's local elections. They are estimated to pick up well over 1,500 council seats across the country (they previously had TWO), while the left-wing Labour Party crashes out....

Union Pacific's famed Big Boy No. 4014, the world's largest operating steam locomotive, will journey to the East Coast this summer for the first time as part of a historic coast-to-coast tour to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. The tour includes a Fourth of July celebration in Philadelphia, major display events in eight cities and more than 50 whistle-stops in 10 states, including stops for the first time in Indiana, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania.

GREENBELT, Md. — A former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci proclaimed on Friday he’s “innocent” of criminal charges that he conspired to stop investigations into the origins of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. David Morens, 78, pleaded not guilty to five counts before Magistrate Judge Ajmel Ahsen Quereshi in Maryland federal court during an arraignment hearing Friday with his defense attorneys Timothy Belevetz and Morgan Taylor. Morens, who faces up to 51 years in federal prison if convicted, told The Post, “I’m innocent” ahead of the hearing while seated in the courthouse lobby — and carried on calmly solving...

Migrants quitting asylum claims and volunteering to leave the US have increased at least seven-fold under President Trump — with the administration touting the increase as a success for the rule of law, but critics arguing it’s a sign detention practices have gotten out of hand. More than 80,000 “voluntary departure” orders were issued by US immigration judges between Jan. 2025 and March 2026 — a more than 600% increase from the 11,400 issued during the last 15 months of former President Joe Biden’s term, according to numbers from the Vera Institute of Justice reviewed by the Washington Post. And...

For 4,200 years, the Y chromosome of a Yakutian warrior has quietly echoed in Siberia's Arctic peoples. His extraordinary Stone Age grave was discovered in Russia's far northeast near Yakutsk in 2004 by scientists. The middle-aged hunter's skeleton was found on its back with arms at its side. Dozens of elk-bone plates were laid as a shield over the chest. Analysis of the radiocarbon data hints that the person died nearly 4,000 years ago. The person is presumed to be from the Ymyyakhtakh cultural horizon. This cultural horizon contains the nomadic hunter-gatherers who used more sophisticated bone and antler weapons......

Convicted child killer Tanner Horner will take up residence in one of the most brutal death row prisons after being sentenced to die by a Texas jury this week. Horner will rot away at the Polunsky Unit, an infamously restrictive prison outside Houston where the state’s death row inmates are housed in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in their 60-square-foot cells. The former FedEx deliveryman, 34, was booked at the notorious prison Tuesday within hours of being sentenced for the gruesome murder of Athena Strand, 7, whom he admitted strangling while delivering a...

Delta Air Lines expects a $300 million boost from its Pennsylvania oil refinery this quarter as jet fuel prices surge globally, giving the carrier a significant advantage over competitors scrambling to manage soaring costs.

A man went out on a morning walk in southwest Norway and stumbled upon a surprise: an elite warrior's sword scabbard that was purposefully buried 1,500 years ago. The rare gold object, which was richly decorated with serpentine animals, was probably an offering to the gods at a time of famine and societal turmoil, researchers say...The sixth-century gold artifact, which is about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) long and weighs 1.2 ounces (33 grams), once adorned the scabbard of an elite warrior's sword. Only 17 others have been discovered to date in Northern Europe, and most were found in hoards with...