Free Republic

Sheinbaum, 61, is poised to make history as Mexico’s first female president and first Jewish head of state. Polls a week before Mexico’s election show her enjoying a wide lead over the next candidate, the conservative entrepreneur Xóchitl Gálvez. Still, after nearly a quarter-century in the public eye, she remains an enigma, known mainly as the low-key protégé of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the charismatic leader known as AMLO. AMLO doesn’t speak English and dislikes traveling abroad. Sheinbaum did postdoctoral research at the University of California at Berkeley; her sister and daughter live in the United States. The president,...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda secured a second five-year term as Lithuanian president in a landslide victory over Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte. Preliminary figures by the Lithuania´s Central Electoral Commission showed that Nauseda won 74.5% of the votes and Simonyte 24.1%. The 60-year-old Nauseda is a moderate conservative and has been a strong backer of Ukraine, a position shared across most of the political spectrum. During his time in office, Lithuania has also given refuge to many who have fled an authoritarian crackdown in neighboring Belarus and increased repression in Russia.

While Lithuanian has changed, it changed more slowly than other Indo-European languages and so the contemporary language has features similar to those of such ancient ones as Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. Traditional Lithuanian houses are often adorned with a horse motif. The twin horse heads are known as ‘Ašvieniai’. In Lithuanian mythology, the Ašvieniai are divine twins portrayed as pulling the carriage of the sun god (Saule) through the sky. That their name sounds uncannily familiar to Indians is on account of the fact that the term and other details pertaining to their portrayal are akin to the Ashwin twins...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A street artist in Lithuania has adorned a barbecue restaurant with a poster showing Donald Trump locking lips with Vladimir Putin. Restaurant owner Dominykas Ceckauskas said Saturday the presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee and the Russian president both have huge egos "and they seem to get along pretty well."

Russia’s entire Baltic Fleet, as well as air and land forces, will conduct drills this weekend in and around Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced Wednesday. The Baltic Fleet includes more than 50 destroyers, corvettes, missile ships, landing ships, minesweepers and other vessels. “The exercise will prepare the fleet for battle readiness, conducting damage control and anti-sabotage maneuvers,” the Defense Ministry said. A separate Ministry of Defense statement said air- and land-based troops would conduct simultaneous exercises in the Kaliningrad region. “At the final stage of training at the sites in the Kaliningrad region, units of the Baltic...

Lithuanian and Latvian languages are not Slavic and not Balto-Slavic. I made a deep esearch and I can say that both Baltic languages are definitely not Slavic, not even close, and neither Balto-Slavic. They should be separated into a very early separation branch similar to Armenian. There are very few Slavic-sounding words in both Baltic languages and those words were borrowed in near modern times. All other words (99,999999%) in both Baltic languages don't even remind of any Slavic language. There are words that sound Arabic, Franco, Latin, Greek, even English and Italiamn and even Pacific, but very few Slavic...

The demands of the kidnappers were simple: Pay the ransom and the hostages would be freed. But prosecutors said the crew of Russian immigrants killed their hostages anyway - even after collecting $1 million from some of the victims' relatives. More than four years after the five bodies were found in a reservoir north of Yosemite National Park, opening statements are expected this week in the federal trial of two men accused of orchestrating the crimes. It's a rare instance in which federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. "Regardless of whether the ransom money defendants demanded was paid or...

IS LITHUANIAN NATION ON VERGE OF DISAPPEARANCE? VILNIUS, April 12 (RIA Novosti, Vladimir Vodo) - The Lithuanian nation is on the verge of disappearance, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said addressing parliament with the annual report on the situation in the republic. Adamkus called to the formation of social society in Lithuania, consolidation of social justice and prevention of the nation from disappearance. The president pointed to the political alienation of Lithuanians and the lack of civil and political maturity, social justice and solidarity in the face of rapid economic development and uncontrollable demographic and migration processes which can lead to...

Lithuanian deputies moved to open impeachment proceedings against President Rolandas Paksas, after the assembly approved a damning report finding he had links with organised crime. Eligijus Masiulis, the head of the Liberal centrist group in the parliament, told AFP a group had been established to collect the necessary signatures for impeachment to be launched, after parliament adopted the report by a vote of 70 to 16. Ten members of the 141-seat assembly abstained, while others were apparently absent. "They are going to create a text for impeachment first and only then will they start to collect signatures," Masiulis told AFP,...