Free Republic

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) celebrated Wednesday as his state became the world’s fourth-largest economy — albeit one that cannot fix homelessness or protect its citizens from devastating wildfires. Newsom’s office cited data indicating that California had surpassed Japan and that only the U.S., China, and Germany had larger economies, in terms of total output. He boasted in a press statement: California isn’t just keeping pace with the world—we’re setting the pace. Our economy is thriving because we invest in people, prioritize sustainability, and believe in the power of innovation. And, while we celebrate this success, we recognize that our...

A mystery donor has given the biggest donation so far to Luigi Mangione’s defense fund, inspired by the “quite exceptional” support for the man suspected of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The “anonymous giver” gave a staggering $36,500 earlier this week — topping the previous record of $30,000 as the total exploded to over $722,000. The nameless benefactor said he or she was inspired by the huge swelling of support from a wide cross-section of people for the 26-year-old UPenn graduate charged with the shocking murder outside a Manhattan hotel in December.

Ukraine reportedly launched at least 337 drones into Russia on Tuesday in the largest-yet drone attack of the Moscow-Kyiv conflict, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. It came just before US and Ukrainian delegations were scheduled to meet for negotiation discussions in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Russia set the previous drone-attack record a little over two weeks ago, when it launched 267 drones at Ukraine in a single night on Feb. 23. Ukrainian officials have yet to comment on the Russian report.

It’s an out-of-the-box undertaking. Ground has officially been broken in Saudi Arabia for what is expected to be the “world’s largest building.” The ambitious, $50 billion project — called the Mukaab — in the capital city, Riyadh, is part of a wave of futuristic construction across the Arab nation, the Sun reported. The skyline-redefining Mukaab will clock in at 1,300 feet high and 1,200 feet wide when completed — giving it enough volume to contain 20 Empire State Buildings, the outlet reported. Offering fine dining, retail space, offices and restaurants, the massive cube will be its own downtown-in-a-box with 2...

Over 50,000 linemen — the “largest staging of utility workers and linemen in advance of the storm any time in American history” — will respond to Hurricane Milton, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Wednesday as the massive Category 4 storm barrels down on the Sunshine State. In a Wednesday morning update, DeSantis walked through some of the preparations the state has taken ahead of the storm, which is expected to make landfall late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning on the west coast of Florida, potentially south of Tampa, although wiggles and wobbles are certain. “Hurricane Milton is heading our...

World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Cindy McCain warned Sunday of the worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan. In an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” McCain stressed the importance of “safe and unfettered access” for the organization to deliver food to the war-torn country. country. “Sudan has the real possibility of becoming the world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” McCain said. “We cannot get food in — we can barely get food in — we certainly aren’t getting it in at scale, and you see the results of what can happen if people aren’t fed.” McCain noted that the situation is...

Call it the Skytanic. Engineers have unveiled plans for the world’s largest airplane, dubbed the WindRunner, which could revolutionize renewable energy by transporting gigantic wind turbine blades from point A to B. Designed by the Colorado-based energy company Radia, the behemoth cargo carrier measures a whopping 356 feet long and 79 feet tall with a wingspan of 261 feet. For reference, this castle in the sky is nearly as long as a regulation NFL football field and 127 feet longer than the Boeing 747 — the world’s largest passenger plane. With a potential carrying capacity of 80 tons, it will...

The 365m-long (1,197 ft) Icon of the Seas has 20 decks, and can house a maximum of 7,600 passengers on board. It is owned by Royal Caribbean Group. The vessel is going on a seven-day island-hopping voyage in the tropics. But environmentalists warn that the liquefied natural gas-powered ship will leak harmful methane into the air.

The largest free standing aquarium in the world, containing close to 1,500 exotic fish, exploded early Friday morning in Berlin, injuries at least two people. The explosion of the AquaDom aquarium caused a torrent of water, fish and debris to flood the street outside the building, Berlin emergency officials said, according to CNN. The AquaDom was housed in the main floor of the Radisson Collection hotel in Berlin’s DomAquarée business complex. "In addition to the unbelievable maritime damage... two people were injured by glass splinters," the city’s police tweeted. Over 100 firefighters were sent to the scene of the accident....

The destructive space rock was somewhere between 12.4 and 15.5 miles wide. The largest asteroid ever to hit Earth, which slammed into the planet around 2 billion years ago, may have been even more massive than scientists previously thought. Based on the size of the Vredefort crater, the enormous impact scar left by the gargantuan space rock in what is now South Africa, researchers recently estimated that the epic impactor could have been around twice as wide as the asteroid that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs. The Vredefort crater, which is located around 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Johannesburg,...

The Republican Party saw its most significant edge ever over Democrats in a September NBC News poll on the economy, crime, and immigration. The poll, conducted between September 9 to 13, found that Republicans held massive leads — the largest in the poll’s history — on key issues when the respondents were asked who would do a better job handling them, with less than two months left before the election. On the economy, 47 percent said they would trust a Republican to handle the economy compared to 28 percent who said a Democrat. This gives Republicans a plus 19, when...

The volume of goods transported around the globe by container ships has increased continuously in recent years. As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, according to data from the Hong Kong Marine Department shows that ports in Asia, especially in China, are increasingly dominating the industry.Infographic: The World’s Biggest Shipping Hubs | StatistaIn 2005, there were still two European and one North American port in the ranking of the biggest shipping hubs in the world. In 2021, only Rotterdam remained in the top 10 – in the bottom rank.Asian ports have grown at a fast rate in recent years. In addition...

The bulky object—possibly the core of a failed gas giant—challenges what astronomers think about how planets form. About 730 light-years away, not far on the scale of our galaxy, an utterly bizarre planet orbits a sun-like star. Big, dense, and tightly tethered to its home star, the planet is unlike anything astronomers have yet seen—either in our own solar system or afar. The roasted world known as TOI-849b is the most massive rocky planet ever observed, with as much as 40 Earths’ worth of material crammed inside. Perplexingly, TOI-849b’s tremendous bulk suggests that it should be a giant, gassy world...

For all its vast emptiness, the universe is humming with activity in the form of gravitational waves. Produced by extreme astrophysical phenomena, these reverberations ripple forth and shake the fabric of space-time, like the clang of a cosmic bell. Now researchers have detected a signal from what may be the most massive black hole merger yet observed in gravitational waves. The product of the merger is the first clear detection of an “intermediate-mass” black hole, with a mass between 100 and 1,000 times that of the sun. They detected the signal, which they have labeled GW190521, on May 21, 2019,...

The Egyptian President, accompanied by religious, military and international dignitaries, witnesses ceremony to inaugurate the Nativity of Christ Cathedral and Al-Fattah El-Alim17:43 US President Donald Trump tweeted, "Excited to see our friends in Egypt opening the biggest Cathedral in the Middle East. President El-Sisi is moving his country to a more inclusive future!" 17:40 In a short video message aired before the attendees, Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, congratulated the Egyptian people, government and president on the inauguration of the new cathedral.17:30 Following the moment of silence, the celebration on stage started with a live performance of Islamic chants and Christian hymns...

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Ill. -- A hunter in Williamson County could be in the running for one of the largest bucks ever shot in America. (snip) ...conservation officers told him they think the buck is 7 to 9 years old, weighs around 265 pounds alive, and could have as many as 51 scoreable points.

The colossal Stratolaunch carrier plane rolled out of its hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, today (May 31) to undergo fueling tests. It's the first public look at the full craft —which is designed to launch rockets into orbit from the sky — since construction began. "We're excited to announce that Stratolaunch aircraft has reached a major milestone in its journey toward providing convenient, reliable, and routine access to low-Earth orbit," Stratolaunch Systems Corp. CEO Jean Floyd said in a statement. "This marks the completion of the initial aircraft-construction phase and the beginning of the...

Key Highlights from the Vault 7 release so far:   "Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.   Wikileaks claims that the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more...

We all know that a billion is a lot and a trillion is a lot more, but what do you call numbers that are even bigger? A Googol is bigger: it's 10 to the hundredth power—but it's not the biggest. In this well-researched 19 minute film, master explainer Sharkee takes us through ever larger numbers. He applies three rules. The largest number cannot be a number plus 1. The number must be useful in some way. And infinity doesn’t count, because it isn't actually a number. VIDEO explaining how they arrive at these really big numbers (Googolplex is nothing) --...