Free Republic

Saks Global Enterprises, the parent company of luxury department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue, is considering a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing as a last-resort option to address mounting liquidity constraints and near-term debt obligations, according to a Bloomberg report. The publication reported that Saks is evaluating bankruptcy as part of a broader effort to manage its balance sheet rather than as an imminent filing. The company faces a debt payment of more than $100 million due by the end of December, limiting its financial flexibility. According to the report, which cited people with knowledge of the matter, Saks has...

Authorities are searching for two men who went missing after leaving on a fishing trip from Fort Myers on Friday morning. The missing men were identified as 57-year-old Randall Spivey and 33-year-old Brandon Billmaier. The two left early Friday morning on a 42-foot Freeman boat from a residence in the 15000 block of Intracoastal Court in Fort Myers, the Lee County Sheriff's Office said. The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed it is working on the case and gathering additional details. Search and rescue crews are working from the surface to the skies and are advising all aircraft to maintain situational awareness...

Fighter jets intercepted a civilian aircraft that violated restricted airspace over President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Dec. 21, military officials said. The aircraft entered restricted airspace at about 9:20 a.m., prompting an F-16 fighter jet to conduct what is called a “headbutt maneuver,” in which the jet flies directly in front of a civilian plane to get the pilot’s attention, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a news release. NORAD, which oversees the airspace of the United States and Canada, did not specify the type of aircraft involved or its point of origin...

Amazon has apologized after a third-party delivery driver was caught on home security video allegedly stealing a family’s cat in a Los Angeles suburb earlier this month. The incident happened Dec. 11 in Lakewood, according to a report from KTLA-TV. Diane Huff-Medina shared video footage showing an Amazon Flex worker delivering a package to her home. The man was seen placing the package at the front door and taking a photo to confirm delivery. Moments later, the family’s cat, Piper, approached the delivery driver. Piper, a Siamese mix, appeared friendly as the man crouched down to pet her. According to...

In this witty, new breed of mystery, George (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night, assuming they can’t possibly understand. But when a mysterious incident disrupts life on the farm, the sheep realize they must become the detectives. As they follow the clues and investigate human suspects, they prove that even sheep can be brilliant crime-solvers.

Now here's a story out of Florida that bears watching. Florida's black bear hunt is underway, and troubles' a-bruin. The problem is, as it so often is in wildlife policy: A question of policy based on emotion vs. policy based on science. Ten years ago, a Florida bear hunt shocked the public when photos spread online of bloody carcasses of mother bears loaded in pick-up trucks and splayed out on concrete slabs at hunter check-in stations. The hunt, the first in 20 years, was halted in less than 48 hours after an estimated 304 bears were killed the first weekend....

A man in Austria was charged in the death of his girlfriend after leaving her behind, in a case testing ideas of freedom and responsibility in the mountains.The Grossglockner, Austria’s highest mountain, seen from the nearby Sonnblick Observatory.Credit...Kerstin Joensson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A distant webcam captured the moments the couple’s hiking trip started to unravel. The pair, a boyfriend and girlfriend, were nearing the summit of Grossglockner, the tallest mountain in the Austrian Alps, when their lights appeared on its dark peak. Around midnight, the man said, his girlfriend was struck by sudden exhaustion and could not continue. He...

Assam train elephant accident | elephants killed by train | Assam wildlife tragedy | human wildlife conflict India | railway track elephant deaths | Assam forest news | elephant corridor India | conservation crisis Assam | train hits elephants | India wildlife news In a freak accident, 7 elephants were killed after a Rajdhani Train collided with a herd of elephants. The incident occured at 2:15 am in Assam. 1:43 VIDEO AT LINK............ VERY SAD....................

Fossil fragments of a face as well as teeth were reassembled to produce the most complete cranium of a human ancestor from this time in the Horn of Africa. (Credit: Karen L. Baab. Scans provided by National Museum of Ethiopia. Photographs courtesy of M. Rogers and G. Suwa.) ================================================================= 1.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil Combines Homo habilis Face With Homo erectus Brow In A Nutshell * What did researchers find? A 1.6-to-1.5-million-year-old skull from Ethiopia combines features from two different stages of human evolution. The braincase and brow ridge match Homo erectus, but the face, teeth, and brain size look more like the...

Will 2026 be a year of great shaking for the United States? Coming into 2025, I thought that seismic activity would be a major global theme, and that has certainly turned out to be the case. This has been an extremely unusual year for earthquakes along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and volcanoes that have been dormant for ages are suddenly roaring to life all over the world. Here in the United States, we have been experiencing lots and lots of little earthquakes, but thankfully we have not been hit by a really bad one yet. Will our luck run...

Incredible video footage shows beachgoers gazing on after the sea was transformed into a deep shade of blood red following a torrential downpour on Iran’s Hormuz IslandStunning footage shows the moment a sea is turned 'blood red' by a sudden downpour - sparking comparisons to a Biblical prophecy. Rainfall on Iran’s Hormuz Island briefly transformed the coastline of its famous Red Beach into a striking scene this week, as soil flowed into the sea and turned the water into a deep crimson shade. Some internet commenters likened the spectacle to the 'End Time' prophecy in the Book of Revelation, the...

European researchers have achieved a milestone in paleogenomics by sequencing RNA from a woolly mammoth specimen dating back approximately 39,000 to 40,000 years, roughly three times older than the previous record for ancient RNA. The RNA was recovered from a well-preserved juvenile mammoth known as Yuka, discovered in northern Siberian permafrost in 2010, according to Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University and lead author of a study published in the journal Cell. Dalén told the Wall Street Journal that the findings could aid in identifying the genetic traits responsible for the mammoth’s distinctive woolly coat. The...

Close-up shot of a leafhopper. (© ddt - stock.adobe.com) =================================================================== Leafhopper-Inspired Nanoparticles Achieve 96% Glare Reduction in Lab Tests In A Nutshell * Nature’s inspiration: Leafhoppers coat themselves with microscopic soccer ball-shaped particles that cut reflective glare by 80-96%, making them harder for predators to spot * Manufacturing breakthrough: Penn State researchers created synthetic versions using microfluidics, producing 100,000+ particles per second, faster than traditional nanofabrication * Precise control: By tweaking polymer chemistry, scientists can dial in exact particle shapes and hole patterns to match five different natural designs * Future applications: Could lead to better anti-glare coatings, energy device...

The Vegas teens who callously mowed down a biking retired police chief in 2023 were sentenced up to life in prison. Both teens will be eligible for parole in the mid 2040s, according to 8NewsNow. As previously reported, Jesus Ayala, who just turned 18, is facing murder charges after he fatally struck 64-year-old retired police chief Andreas Probst. On August 14th, 2023 two teens allegedly stole a Hyundai, took the vehicle on a hit-and-run crime spree, and recorded it with a phone. On August 29th, Las Vegas Police Detectives found the phone recording on social media and determined it was...

The Dec. 19 flyby of Comet 3I/ATLAS gives astronomers a rare chance to study only the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. VIDEO AT LINK............... Astronomers and skywatchers are hoping to spot interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS on Dec. 19 when it makes its closest — but safely distant — flyby of Earth. The comet has drawn global attention as only the third confirmed interstellar object observed passing through our solar system. According to NASA, Comet 3I/ATLAS will not pose any threat to Earth during its pass. The object is expected to remain about 170 million miles from...

A jug holding a vast number of Roman coins was found during an excavation at a French village. (Image credit: © Simon Ritz, Inrap) Archaeologists in France have discovered three ancient storage jars brimming with tens of thousands of Roman coins. The vessels were buried in pits 1,700 years ago in the house floor of an ancient settlement, possibly as a type of safe or piggy bank. These three jugs, known as amphorae, were uncovered during excavations run by the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) in the village of Senon in northeastern France, and may contain a total...

Adam tried to engage the teenager in conversation before continuing to target her aggressively as she desperately tried to flag down passing cars for help. Terrifying footage shows Adam attempting to grab the 'petrified' young woman and drag her across the road as she tried to break free. But the scuffle and her screams are noticed by hero bus passengers who jump off and come to her rescue - chasing her would-be kidnapper away.

On December 12, coinciding with International Mountain Day, 69 municipalities in the Valencian Community joined a nationwide initiative to create mobile-free spaces aimed at offering young people and teenagers stays in natural environments without mobile phones. The project, Refugios Bien de Altura: spaces without coverage, is promoted by the Spanish Association of Mountain Municipalities (EsMontañas) and funded by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco). It transforms municipal hostels and rural accommodation in 284 mountain villages across Spain into areas of voluntary digital disconnection. Among the 69 participating Valencian towns, only six are in the province...

If you’ve been dreaming of a white Christmas, be warned that it might not become a reality. Many people have memories of watching the snow fall on Christmas Day—but data shows that, across the country, a white Christmas occurs less frequently than you might think. In general, if an area has widespread snow and persistently colder patterns leading up to Christmas, it could be a predictor of snow on Christmas. But while many people across the country might lament the white Christmases of their youth, the truth is that many places typically don’t see snow in late December—people just think...

The California Fish and Game Commission voted Thursday to extend the ban on abalone harvesting in Northern California until 2036, citing the decline in red abalone populations and ongoing environmental challenges. This is the longest extension for this ban since the initial 2018 closure. "Monterey Abalone Company is one of only two abalone farms left on the California coast. The farm caters to a small number of walk-up clientele and white tablecloth restaurants, where a plate of two or three red abalone might go anywhere from $56 to $80 dollars. Today, farms offer the only legal way to eat Californian...