Free Republic

– Chicago continues its first-place run in the rat race, topping Orkin’s Top 50 Rattiest Cities List for the ninth year in a row. Los Angeles moved up to the #2 ranking while New York rounds out the top three spots. Jumping up 10 spots this year is Houston to #20, and Greensboro, N.C., moves up 17 spots to take #50. New this year, Orkin is celebrating Chicago’s top spot placement by releasing a limited-edition t-shirt made available for free while supplies last. The shirt will feature a Top Rattiest City design made specifically for Chicago, commemorating the dedication of...

Prominent Democratic Party strategist James Carville is claiming that "leading Democrats" have been telling him to hush up about President Biden’s difficult prospects for winning re-election in 2024. In an article about Rep. Dean Phillips’, D-Minn., newly announced bid to primary Biden, The Atlantic spoke to Carville about his belief that the current president’s chances has a high mountain to climb as he seeks re-election. The strategist disclosed that Biden’s numbers are "not good" and added Democrats are trying to get him to stop talking about it, not because he’s wrong, but because the idea is upsetting, he suggested. Carville...

Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite usually found in cats that can also infect humans, has been getting more than its fair share of the limelight lately. Fresh on the heels of speculation about T. gondii manipulating human behavior on a massive scale to advance its own survival, comes news that the parasite also appears to be exerting a very strong gender selection function in human pregnancies. Infection by T. gondii is usually facilitated through the consumption of raw or undercooked meat, or, food or water contaminated with soil containing cat feces. Infection results in toxoplasmosis, which can lie dormant and go...

On certain nights, behind some of your favorite restaurants, roving groups of dog owners set their posse of pooches loose on urban rodents. The sound of a rat screaming in the jaws of a terrier is the same sound that a stuffed squeaky toy makes. It seems so obvious. Of course the toys sound that way, because that sound awakens something deep in a docile dog’s neurons that says: Shake it. Shake it till it’s dead. It’s Saturday night. Flavia and Jigs, a duo of mother-daughter border terriers, are shaking a rat. It is already dead. On one side of...

HARRISBURG, Pa. - When those rare 3-day weekends pop up on the work schedule, it's an office-wide celebration! Well, what if that was every week? A new bill to create a four-day work week is about to be introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature. It would require businesses with more than 500 employees to reduce their work week from 40 to 32 hours a week. However, less work hours will not mean less pay!

Democrats' "Stolen" Election Claims | FLASHBACK (video) Funny how this is completely brushed under the rug and ignored today as if it never happened. The media today SUCKS! There is NOBODY who denies elections more than Democrats! Where are the indictments Jack Smith?

Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking fundraising steps often used by potential presidential candidates, setting up multiple committees that in their first three months have raised and spent millions of dollars.

Ukrainian forces have faced dense minefields while carrying out counteroffensive operations. It has forced Ukrainian units to move slowly on foot rather than using tanks or other vehicles. Ukrainian officials are now calling for F-16 jets and more mine-clearance equipment.Ukraine has been forced to change its counteroffensive strategy after repeatedly coming up against dense Russian minefields, a report says.Ukrainian units are leaving behind the battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles donated by Western allies and advancing slowly on foot, The Washington Post reported."You can no longer do anything with just a tank with some armor because the minefield is too...

y Henri Astier BBC News, New Zealand On a bright Sunday morning the wildlife-lovers gather in Miramar, a scenic peninsula. They are on an exterminating mission. Predator-Free Miramar aims to protect birds in this area of Wellington, New Zealand's capital, by ridding it of rats - every last one of them. After donning hi-vis jackets, the volunteers are handed peanut butter - ideal bait for rodents - and poison. Each is assigned a patch where they will check coil traps and toxin-laced bait boxes. "Good luck fellows," says Dan Coup, who leads the group.

Burmese pythons are killing off mammals that would normally keep Florida's rat population in check. A new study found that parts of the Florida Everglades were becoming overrun with rats as a result. It may be good news for the cotton rats, but it could spell serious danger for humans. Florida's Burmese pythons have been known to prey on birds, reptiles, deer, and even alligators. But one thing they don't seem to have a taste for is cotton rats. And the rats are thriving because of it. ... cotton rats "dominate the community" in parts of the Florida Everglades where...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) ended up giving Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) a history of her own party after the progressive responded to his criticism of the NAACP's recent travel advisory in Florida. “This is bizarre. And utterly dishonest,” Cruz commented on the NAACP’s claim that Florida is “hostile to Black Americans.” “In the 1950s & 1960s, the NAACP did extraordinary good helping lead the civil rights movement. Today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they’ve lost their way," Cruz added. AOC followed up, encouraging Cruz to "tell people what happened to the parties after that," referring to the...

Now that New York City has named its very first rat czar, residents of the big apple with stories to tell about close encounters with the beasts are coming forward. Kathleen Corradi, New York City’s new director of rodent mitigation, has her work cut out for her. It appears that New York City rats are a special breed, performing super-rodent feats of strength and agility. One public health analyst was living on 112th Street in Manhattan, where she swears she witnessed a rat “flip itself over while stuck to a glue trap, pry itself off, and run away.” In a...

A rat king, or “roi de rats” in French, is a collection of rats whose tails are intertwined and bound together. It typically occurs when young rats, sleeping together in close quarters, get their tails entangled, forming a knot. The tied tails are prone to being encrusted by dirt, or stuck together by substances such as sap, sebum, blood, food, faeces or urine. When the rats wake up and attempt to scurry away from each other, the knot then tightens, trapping them.

Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday he has picked a handsomely paid “rat czar” out of thousands of applicants — but wouldn’t say who “she” is. The up-to-$170,000 position will go to a person who passionately “hates rats” and wants to wipe them out as the city’s rodent population soars, Adams said at a press conference in the Bronx. “We put out a call for a rat czar and we got thousands of responders. We dwindled it down to one person that we’re getting ready to announce. The first thing I asked her was, ‘How do you feel about rats?’” Adams...

New York City authorities have no specific timing in mind for a potential indictment and arraignment of former President Trump, but many are now concerned that arresting Trump is likely to be dangerous, a source told Fox News Digital.

Maybe the rats do run this city. New York City rodents can carry the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 – and researchers fear it could be transmitted to humans, according to a new study. The new research, published Thursday in the American Society for Microbiology “mBio,” determined that the rats could be infected with the Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants. “Our findings highlight the need for further monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in rat populations for potential secondary zoonotic transmission to humans,” Dr. Henry Wan, the study’s principal investigator, said in a statement. “Overall, our work in this space shows that animals...

The party of slavery should take responsibility for being the party of slavery. Every so often, some Democrats call for reparations to compensate Black Americans for slavery and other indignities. The latest plan comes from San Francisco, where a reparations committee is considering a program that would offer $5 million per qualified Black resident. Let’s analyze the issue of reparations from the standpoint of morality and practicality. Most people believe that compensation for misdeeds should come from the people who caused the misdeeds. For example, if John Smith and Joe Brown recklessly damage your car, you expect Smith and Brown...

They’re icing out rats in Battery Park City. Local maintenance crews are dumping dry ice in the pesky rodents’ burrows in the trendy Lower Manhattan neighborhood so that when it melts, it leaves behind carbon dioxide, which suffocates them. “Here in Battery Park City, we’re no stranger to having rodents, and so we wanted to make sure that we were able to manage them while keeping everything chemical-free,” Ryan Torres, vice president of parks operations at the Battery Park City Authority, recently told The Post. In addition to effectively killing rats, dry ice is hailed as an environmentally sound way...

WASHINGTON - Just like teens, members of Congress are setting up TikTok accounts - even as the popular app is increasingly barred from government devices and heads of federal intelligence agencies raise concerns about data collection and surveillance obtained by a Chinese-owned company. At least 32 members of Congress - all Democrats and one independent - as of early January had TikTok accounts, according to a review by States Newsroom. While there are no laws in place banning lawmakers from using the app on their personal devices, cybersecurity experts have raised concerns over data collection for those members who deal...

WASHINGTON - With a popular Democratic president in the White House and big Democratic majorities in Congress, an emboldened House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2009 pushed through a major climate change measure despite warnings of a political backlash. “We passed transformational legislation which takes us into the future,” Pelosi exulted after the House narrowly approved legislation to cut emissions following her signature wheeling and dealing to corral reluctant Democrats. It was a rare miscalculation. Her immediate future turned out to be in the minority as Democrats were crushed in the 2010 midterm elections by a public recoil to the climate...