Free Republic

SELMA, Ala. — By early this year, around the time a prosecutor called President Joe Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Vice President Kamala Harris already knew something had to change. It was up to her, she had told allies, to finally distinguish herself in her job — something she had been struggling to do for more than two years — and reassure American voters that the Biden-Harris ticket was still a safe bet. She had been feeling sidelined in the early stages of the campaign, one adviser said, and she wanted a bigger role. She fled...

resident Biden is now threatened by the sentiment that brought him to the White House. Democrats came into 2020 traumatized by their party’s 2016 loss and by four years of Donald Trump’s hard-right presidency. The party internalized the idea that the key to beating Trump was doing better with blue-collar Midwestern Whites, and Biden was the natural guy to fill that gap. When you asked Democrats that year whom they planned to support, they would often indicate that they preferred a non-Biden candidate to be the nominee — but that Biden seemed like the best bet to win. And he...

Aardwolves — the "weird cousin" of the hyena world that has peg teeth and only eats insects — are an evolutionary mystery, stemming from a ghost lineage that scientists haven't been able to figure out. Aardwolves, which translates as "earth wolves" in Afrikaans, are the smallest of the four hyena species. (Image credit: pjmalsbury via Getty Images) Name: Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) Where it lives: Savannah and grasslands in eastern and southern Africa What it eats: Termites and ants Why it's awesome: Unlike their meat-eating relatives, these solitary, nocturnal little hyenas survive on a diet almost entirely made up of termites....

Enigmatic circular stone formations reminiscent of those in Europe are found on remote hilltops and valleys throughout Saudi Arabia. The rings are 5 to 100 meters in diameter and are surrounded by stone walls a foot or two tall. Some of the rings have "tails" that stretch out for hundreds of meters. From the air, the patterns have a striking resemblance to designs etched in Peru's Nazca plateau. Little is known about the circles and virtually nothing about their purpose.

They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public. They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines — ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru — and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands. Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes...

Giant stone structures in the Azraq Oasis in Jordan They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public. They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines -- ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru -- and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands. Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of...

The number of identified archaeological sites in the Middle East has been tripled by an outdated technology that could not be replicated today—Cold War satellite photographs. The Corona Atlas of the Middle East, unveiled last week in the United States, has added some 10,000 sites to the 4,500 previously known archaeological sites between Egypt and Iran. The photographs, taken mostly in the 1960s for a project managed by the CIA, captured the landscape of the region before it was substantially altered by the spread of modern cities, agricultural development, and the construction of dams and other infrastructure. “Some of these...

Their purpose is unknown, and archaeologists are unsure when these structures were built. Analysis of the photographs, as well as artifacts found on the ground, suggest the circles date back at least 2,000 years, but they may be much older. They could even have been constructed in prehistoric times, before writing was invented, scientists say. Though the Big Circles were first spotted by aircraft in the 1920s, little research has focused on these structures, and many scientists are not even aware of their existence, something these archaeologists hope the new aerial images will help to change. The "most important contribution...

Archaeologists at the University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology have used satellite imagery to identify and map over 350 monumental hunting structures known as ‘kites’ across northern Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq – most of which had never been previously documented...Termed kites by early aircraft pilots, these structures consist of low stone walls making up a head enclosure and a number of guiding walls, sometimes kilometres long. They are believed to have been used to guide game such as gazelles into an area where they could be captured or killed...Kites cannot be observed easily from the ground, however the advent...

Vice President Kamala Harris awkwardly laughed Thursday when asked about the Ukrainian refugee crisis during a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw. During her trip to Poland, a reporter asked Harris what the United States would be doing to set up a permanent infrastructure for accepting Ukrainian refugees fleeing Ukraine due to the Russian invasion. The reporter also asked Duda whether he's asked the U.S. to accept more refugees, after which Harris started laughing.

"Archaeologists deep in the Jordanian desert have discovered a 9,000-year-old ritualistic complex near what is thought to be the earliest known large human-built structure worldwide." "The Stone Age shrine site, excavated last year, was used by gazelle hunters and features carved stone figures, an altar and a miniature model of a large-scale hunting trap. The giant game traps the model represents -- so-called "desert kites" -- were made of long walls that converge to corral running gazelles into enclosures or holes for slaughter. Similar structures of two or more stone walls, some several kilometres (miles) long, have been found in...

Fig. 1. Map of the Harrat in Syria, Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Stephan F.J. Kempe1, Ahmad Al-Malbeh21: Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany; 2: Hashemite University Zarka, Jordan The eastern “panhandle” of the kingdom of Jordan is partly covered by a vast and rugged lava desert, the Harrat, covering about ca. 11.400 km2 (Fig. 1). Scoured by wind in winter and scorched dry by the sun in summer, the surface is covered by black basalt stones, making this area seem as uninviting, hostile and inaccessible as is imaginable.Nevertheless this modern day desolate desert proves to be as rich in archaeological heritage...

Kamala Harris has been mocked for appearing to put on a French accent to speak to scientists at a COVID lab in Paris during the vice president's visit to mend fences with France. Harris on Tuesday visited the Institut Pasteur science lab, where Americans are working alongside Europeans to tackle COVID-19 and where her Indian-born mother researched breast cancer. Harris began her program in Paris on Tuesday as the highest-ranking member of the Biden administration to visit France while a USA TODAY/Suffolk poll last week showed her approval rating at a dire 28 percent. 'In government, we campaign with 'The...

A new poll from USA Today and Suffolk University released on Sunday contains a grim snapshot of public sentiment toward the Biden administration. President Joe Biden has been on a months-long slide toward historically poor polling numbers, but yesterday's USA Today/Suffolk poll was even worse for Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden's approval rating hit yet another a new low, this time at 38%, but Harris' dropped to 28%. A 51% majority of respondents said they disapprove of the job Harris is doing as VP. At this early stage of a modern presidency, Harris' numbers in the USA Today/Suffolk poll are...

A mountain of human remains and animal carcases have been found in Saudi Arabia's Umm Jirsan, a vast underground tunnel that spreads for more than than 40 miles created by a river of lava ...Researchers found the gruesome mountain in Saudi Arabia's Umm Jirsan lava tube, which is thought to be the longest network of its kind in the country, measuring 4,900 feet long and around 26 to 29 feet. The "extremely dense accumulation of bones" was found on the lava tube's western passage...

"Given that the sand sealing the chamber was [40,000] years old, and that the chamber was therefore older, it must have been Neanderthals," who lived in Eurasia from about 200,000 to 40,000 years ago and were likely using the cave, Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar National Museum, told Live Science in an email.While Finlayson's team was studying the cave last month, they discovered the hollow area. After climbing through it, they found it is 43 feet (13 meters) in length, with stalactites hanging like eerie icicles from the chamber ceiling.Along the surface of the cave chamber, the researchers found...

WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris was delayed from traveling to Vietnam Tuesday after her office was made aware of a possible case of the so-called Havana Syndrome, a mysterious illness that has plagued U.S. diplomats across the world.

Kamala Harris discussed Christmas shopping and climate change but failed to mention the current crisis in Afghanistan during her major foreign policy speech on Monday. Addressing a round table of business leaders before her speech she warned climate change and the pandemic have contributed to supply chain issues suggesting parents consider getting Christmas presents now. 'The stories we are hearing about caution, that if you want to have Christmas toys for your children, now might be the time to start buying because the delay may be many, many months. Across the board people are experiencing issues, and of course the...

SINGAPORE - Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday called out Beijing's actions in the South China Sea, and sought to assure countries in Asia that they won't have to choose between the U.S. and China. "We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of South China Sea," Harris said in a speech in Singapore during her first official visit to Southeast Asia. "These unlawful claims have been rejected by the 2016 arbitral tribunal decision, and Beijing's actions continue to undermine the rules based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations," she...

Vice President Kamala Harris is under fire for laughing when asked about the deadly chaos in Afghanistan — before Singapore’s prime minister pointed out during a press conference with Harris that the Biden administration’s exit plan went “awry.” The VP — heavily criticized for her delay in addressing the disaster that started after the US pulled out despite the Taliban’s resurgence — was already grinning widely when she approached reporters Friday. A reporter attempted to ask about her “response on Americans” — but the VP cut her off before she could finish. “Hold on, hold on — slow down, everybody!”...