Free Republic

WORCESTER - If someone were to mention the animal that built America, you would probably think of some sort of domestic farm animal like the horse or perhaps a cow - one a beast of burden during construction, the other a key economic livestock animal. You wouldn’t think of beavers. But that’s what they are - the animals that both literally and economically built America. “They shaped our country’s landscape and jump-started capitalism on this continent,” said Leila Philip, a professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross, who also teaches in the Environmental Studies Program, and author...

November’s full moon sneaks in before the end of the month, putting a wrap on the long Thanksgiving weekend. The beaver moon rises early Monday, reaching its peak at 4:30 a.m. ET, NASA says. The November full moon was traditionally called the beaver moon by both colonial and Native Americans.

Summit Entertainment has moved back the release of director Jodie Foster's The Beaver from March 23 to May 6. The dramedy will receive a limited release on that date before expanding wide on May 20. The Beaver is an emotional story about a man on a journey to re-discover his family and re-start his life. Plagued by his own demons, Walter Black (Mel Gibson) was once a successful toy executive and family man who now suffers from depression. No matter what he tries, Walter can't seem to get himself back on track... until a beaver hand puppet enters his life....

MAHA–Oregon State won its second consecutive national title with a 9-3 win against North Carolina on Sunday night. The Beavers became just the fifth team to repeat as national champion, and the first since Louisiana State in 1996-97. Oregon State trailed for the first time in its last 50 CWS innings after UNC took a 1-0 lead in the first, but the Beavers took the lead for good on Darwin Barney’s two-run homer in the second inning. Junior righthander Mike Stutes picked up the win, limiting UNC to three runs on seven hits while striking out five over 5 1/3....

A busy beaver's dam work is felt downstream in a major way, a new study suggests. Beavers are well known for creating large pond-like areas upstream from their dams, but scientists have found that the construction projects also spread water downstream with the efficiency of a massive once-every-200-years flood. Researchers spent three years in the Rocky Mountain National Park examining downstream valley ecosystems in the Colorado River. They found that beaver dams force water out of the natural stream channel and spread it across and down the valley for hundreds of yards. Dams also change the direction of groundwater movement....

French authorities carried out a special security exercise at Nice Airport on Sunday after receiving a threat of an attack with the deadly gas used by the Nazis at the Auschwitz extermination camp during World War Two. Airport officials said no flights were cancelled or delayed despite the exercise under which security was tightened and checked, a month before NATO defence ministers are due to arrive for a summit in Nice on France's Mediterranean coast. Nice city authorities said they arranged the exercise involving 350 military and civilians after a group called the Anti-Globalization Liberation Front sent a letter written...

<p>LAMAR VALLEY, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- It's a morning of freezing rain in the valley and a pack of wolves is roaming around Black Tail Creek. A few pups gnaw on an old elk carcass while some adults scout the nearby valleys for prey. Not far away, a few elk have sensed the impending danger and are dashing about. To the tourists in the park, the prospect of a wolf attacking an elk is riveting. To the biologists staring into their binoculars, the real action is taking place in Black Tail Creek itself.</p>