Free Republic

AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, January 10, 1944In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas.Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him."After my own father, he...

The bodies of five skiers have been found by rescuers near Switzerland's luxury Zermatt resort. They were recovered a day after emergency services were alerted by a group of climbers ascending the Rimpfischhorn - a 4,199-metre peak in the Valais Alps - to several pairs of skis left unattended near the summit. Aerial and ground searches led to the discovery of the bodies below the summit on the Adler Glacier, Valais local police said in a statement on Sunday. The victims were found at varying altitudes on avalanche debris in high altitude areas near the Swiss-Italian border. Three bodies were...

Nine EU states are targeting the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights in a wider bid to deport unwanted migrants. A letter spearheaded by Denmark, which is set to take over the rotating EU presidency from July, is demanding more leeway on deporting people who have committed crimes. Published on Thursday (22 May), the letter was signed by leaders of Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, and Poland. It faults the court for placing rights restrictions on deportations of "criminal foreign nationals". They are also unhappy on how the court interprets the European Convention on Human Rights,...

A gang of wealthy 'crypto bros' have been arrested for luring their former business partner to a stunning New York City mansion before torturing him for weeks. The group are accused of kidnapping the 28-year-old Italian man before committing sickening acts on him in the $75,000-per-month rented brownstone in Soho. They alleged to have Tazed him, pistol-whipped him and threatened to carve him up with a chainsaw if he did not give up the millions of dollars in his crypto account. But their plot was foiled when the victim - who has not been named - escaped and flagged down...

Rome police detained a German tourist as he cruised down a street on a rented electric scooter with the marble base of a Roman column between his feet.Carabinieri officers spotted the 24-year-old tourist transporting the "souvenir" along Via Vittorio Veneto, an upmarket street near the Villa Borghese park, on Wednesday afternoon.The man was cited for possessing a "cultural asset of historical and artistic interest", according to a statement from the Carabinieri.Officers seized the marble base which will be subject to further checks to trace its site of origin.It was not clear how the tourist came into possession of the ancient...

The US military believes that this collaboration will inform future strategy decisions and operational planning. ============================================================== Artistic representation of fighter jets entering Radia Windrunner plane for transport. Radia =============================================================== Windrunner, the world’s largest plane that is currently being built in Colorado, is being eyed by the United States military for playing a very different role than what it is primarily meant for. Radia, a Colorado-based startup, is working on the Windrunner, which will be the world’s largest plane with 12 times the cargo volume of the huge Boeing 747. The company believes that it will cater to the wind energy...

An Egyptian fisherman who helped organise the movement of more than 3,000 migrants as part of a £12 million illegal boat crossing operation has been jailed for 25 years. UK-based Ahmed Ebid, 42, was involved in smuggling nearly 3,800 people from North Africa to Italy between October 2022 and June 2023, with some making their way to Britain, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. Ebid is the first person in the UK to be convicted of being involved in people smuggling across the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Italy. He arrived in the UK on a small boat in 2022...

Since the Enlightenment, the Anglosphere has had a laudable commitment to due process, which means opposing the brutality of group punishment. But what happens when that commitment leads to societal suicide? Our Founders cannot have intended this, especially regarding those people who ignored due process to enter America illegally. In 73 BC seventy slaves escaped from a gladiator school in the town of Caupa, in central Italy. They spent the next two years attacking various towns and encouraging slaves to revolt and join them. This was the beginning of the Third Servile War. By 71 BC the force numbered 120,000,...

Italy’s Chamber of Deputies witnessed an unusual and symbolic protest when a lawmaker entered the chamber draped in a white sheet like a ghost, with the word “Referendum” written across the front. The stunt was led by Riccardo Magi, secretary of the liberal party +Europa, who used the theatrical gesture to denounce what he sees as an attempt by Giorgia Meloni’s government to suppress public debate and encourage voter abstention ahead of the national referendums scheduled for 8 and 9 June. A ghost haunts Italy’s parliament: theatrical protest against government. Credit: Italian Congress TV Italy’s Chamber of Deputies witnessed an...

France’s civil aviation authority asked airlines to reduce flights by 40% at Paris-Orly airport on Sunday evening after air traffic control systems suffered a breakdown.. The authority, known as DGAC, said in a statement that some “regulation” was needed involving a significant reduction in the number of flights. The statement didn´t provide details on the cause of the breakdown. Paris-Orly airport serves domestic and international flights, including to most European countries and the U.S. Flights to Spain, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland and several French cities were canceled on Sunday while many others were delayed. More...

The chestnut trees of Europe tell a hidden story charting the fortunes of ancient Rome and the legacy it left in the continent's forests. The ancient Romans left an indelible imprint on the world they enveloped into their empire. The straight, long-distance roads they built can still be followed beneath the asphalt of some modern highways. They spread aqueducts, sewers, public baths and the Latin language across much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. But what's perhaps less well known is the surprising way they transformed Europe's forests. ... Romans had something of a penchant for sweet chestnut...

A James Bond-esque mission to recover highly sensitive secret files held in safes aboard the sunken super-yacht Bayesian was reportedly carried out by UK intelligence service MI6 before Italian divers could get to them. The top secret documents related to yacht owner Mike Lynch’s Darktrace cybersecurity company, which has contracts with UK, US and Israeli intelligence agencies, ... ... Sources close to the Italian investigation claimed British MI6 agents removed sensitive computer equipment and data belonging to Lynch — one of seven people killed in the sea tragedy last August — from the shipwreck, before the Italian authorities started to...

...scientists have uncovered a hidden feature underneath a medieval castle in Milan, Italy, that researchers once could only speculate about based on a sketch of Leonardo's from around 1495 and references in other historical sources — underground passageways that were likely intended for soldiers to use in the event that the castle's defenses had been breached.The discovery, which the Politecnico di Milano announced in January, came about through a series of surveys that aimed to digitize the 15th century Sforza Castle's underground structures through nondestructive methods such as ground-penetrating radar and laser scanning...Biolo and her team originally intended to digitize...

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) could pursue the widow of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch for up to £3billion after his death in the Bayesian superyacht disaster. The US firm won a multi-billion-pound UK High Court claim against Dr Lynch in 2022, accusing him of fraud over its £8billion purchase of his company Autonomy in 2011. His death on August 19, when his £30million vessel sank during a freak storm off the coast of Sicily, means his family could be liable for any payout decided by the judge. And HPE is now expected to continue its case against his widow Angela Bacares...

Missing UK tech billionaire Mike Lynch’s associate Stephen Chamberlain, who stood trial for fraud alongside him after the sale of software company Autonomy, died just days before the entrepreneur vanished in a shipwreck off the coast of Sicily. Chamberlain was out for a run in Cambridgeshire, England, on Saturday when he was struck by a vehicle and died after being rushed to a nearby hospital. Chamberlain and Lynch, who remains missing after a yacht he was on with his wife and 18-year-old daughter sank Monday, were co-defendants in the decade-long fraud case that arose after the $11 billion sale to...

Three crew members of the Bayesian superyacht are officially under investigation for crimes including negligence, recklessness and failing to save the ship from an oncoming storm, according to Italian prosecutors. Captain James Cutfield, chief engineer Timothy Parker Eaton and deckhand Matthew Griffiths are in line to face criminal charges, according to the public prosecutor of Termini Imerese in Sicily, close to where the yacht sank amid a severe storm. The potential charges were set out as rescue workers strive to raise the vessel, currently 50 meters (164 feet) below the surface, off the coast of Porticello. Allegedly, “through negligence consisting...

Migrant tries to snatch a purse from an Italian woman. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong one!

A casual hike on the slopes of Zvičina Hill in the Czech Republic led to a remarkable discovery when two hikers stumbled upon a lost gold treasure worth more than $340,000. The find, made in early February but only recently announced, includes 598 gold coins, jewelry, and other artifacts. The entire collection weighs about seven kilograms, with gold coins accounting for nearly 3.7 kilograms. While exploring the landscape near the Polish border, the hikers uncovered a tin container packed with nearly 600 gold coins. The coins were carefully stacked in eleven piles and wrapped in black cloth. Not far from...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke via phone on Tuesday with US President Donald Trump, the American leader said, declaring that the pair “are on the same side of every issue.” The call covered “numerous subjects including Trade, Iran, etc.,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, adding that the conversation went “very well.” Notably, Trump did not include Gaza or the 59 hostages being held there in his list of topics discussed amid the ongoing impasse in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. However, according to a report in Axios, the pair did talk about efforts to reach...

Giorgia Meloni’s interpreter has apologized for faltering during a high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, prompting the Italian prime minister to jump in and translate her own comments about NATO and defense spending. Valentina Maiolini-Rothbacher, who was interrupted by Meloni when providing a translation at the White House meeting on Thursday, said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the mishap was the “worst thing that can happen to an interpreter, a terrible setback.” Footage of the meeting shows President Trump asking Maiolini-Rothbacher for a translation of Meloni’s response to a question from an Italian...