Free Republic

Three children grew up in the same household, raised by the same parents, exposed to the same environment. Yet their lives unfolded in dramatically different ways—all because of a single gene. The older brother met all of his early developmental milestones and could read at the age of 5. He had an excellent memory for car license plates and could make rapid mental calculations. His social deficits, however, came to light once he started school. He was socially awkward, had few friends, couldn’t understand social cues, and was prone to mood swings. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which is...

Apparently, we can finally talk about it in the mainstream media. For years, we were censored, called names, and polls were done asking people whether we belonged in concentration camps. Half of Democrats believed it should be a criminal offense to question the efficacy of the vaccine. Seriously. Almost half of Democrats once believed that if you were a vaccine skeptic, you belonged in a camp and should have your children taken away. One of my own family members believed that. Other findings from the poll:Other punitive measures in the same pollFrom the same survey, with Democrat shares described in...

Below is the transcript of a speech I gave at a Net Zero Watch event in Edinburgh on 9 March 2026: . Good evening, and thank you for inviting me to speak today. Scotland is often described as an electricity superpower. Not only is that not true, the Scottish grid is actually extremely vulnerable, being held together by just two power stations: Peterhead and Torness. So critical is this dependence that the National Energy System Operator, NESO, will not allow both to go on maintenance at the same time. Yet within the next 5-6 years both could close. Today I’m...

A married mom who vanished last year may be tied to a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances of US scientists and military officials with access to potentially sensitive information, according to a report. Melissa Casias, who worked with her husband as an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory [LANL] — famous for developing nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project — has not been seen since she dropped lunch off for her daughter in New Mexico last summer. She is one of four high-clearance people who have died or gone missing since June 2025 with connections to UFO-linked retired...

Explanation: Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies, now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups. The four prominent galaxies seen in this intriguing telescopic skyscape are one such group, Hickson 44. The Hickson 44 galaxy group is about 100 million light-years distant, far beyond the foreground Milky Way stars, toward the northern springtime constellation Leo. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with distinctive, warped dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187. Along with the bright elliptical, NGC 3193 (left) they are also known...

Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000–year–old sling bullet with a taunting message for its target – 'Learn your lesson'.The small, almond–shaped weapon, which would have been shot out of a handheld projectile pocket, was found in the remains of the ancient city of Hippos in Israel.It measures 3.2 x 1.95cm (3.2 x 0.76 inches), weighs 38 grams and was likely used by the Greek defenders of the city.While dozens of lead sling bullets have been found at the site, this one stands out – as it is the first one to bear this specific inscription...And it joins similar bullets inscribed with...

A large teen gathering in downtown Chicago descended into chaos Wednesday night—prompting a curfew enforcement order and intensifying the debate over how to stop repeat takeovers in the Loop. The activity centered on State and Lake streets, where witnesses described crowds of young people running through the area, climbing on vehicles and engaging in fights. Alderman Brian Hopkins said conditions escalated quickly before officials intervened. In a post on X, Hopkins said the situation was "out of control" before a curfew enforcement order was issued around 10 p.m. He said the crowd began to thin out within about 40 minutes,...

WASHINGTON — President Trump ended two days of guessing Thursday by saying that Iran had gifted him 10 “big boats” of oil in a show of goodwill. “They said, ‘To show you the fact that we’re real and solid and we’re there, we’re going to let you have eight boats of oil — eight boats, eight big boats of oil.’ … and I didn’t think much about it,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting. “And then I watched the news, and they said … ‘There are eight boats that are going right up the middle of the Hormuz Strait, eight...

If you don’t like fossil fuels — and who does? — our betters in academia and environmental NGOs have the perfect answer: we can just get our energy in the form of electricity from the wind and sun. The fuel is abundant and free for the taking. The New York Times has reported that the cost of electricity generated from wind and sun is now lower than the cost of generation from fossil fuel sources. And even as we save money on electricity, we’ll be saving the planet! All the sociology and gender studies majors agree that we have a...

The U.S. military said it carried out a strike Wednesday on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, killing four people, as the Trump administration pushes forward with a monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America while waging a war against Iran. The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 163 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September. As with most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and...

Archaeologists have analyzed a mass grave in southeastern Europe that held the remains of women and children who were violently murdered 2,800 years ago...The grave was unearthed at the archaeological site of Gomolava, located near the modern town of Hrtkovci in northern Serbia. Originally founded as a settlement on the Sava River in the sixth millennium B.C., both settled and mobile cultural groups used Gomolava repeatedly over the centuries. By the ninth century B.C., semisedentary groups in the Carpathian Basin were consolidating around sites like Gomolava, creating tension over land use and ownership...Archaeologists discovered postholes around the burial pit that...

Explanation: In the words of today's astrophotographer, Rositsa Dimitrova, "What have these silent sentinels watched pass across the sky?" The volcanic mo'ai (meaning statue) of Ahu Tongariki stand guard over Rapa Nui (Isla de Pascua, Easter Island), a Polynesian island (annexed by Chile in 1888) located thousands of kilometers off the coast of South America in the Pacific Ocean. Due to the island's remoteness, the mo'ai, with their backs to the dark ocean, are able to gaze upon a clear and vibrant night sky. Pictured, these larger-than-life statues stare at the bright band of the Milky Way, partly obscured by...

President Trump recently signed an Executive Order that expands U.S. production of glyphosate, a herbicide contained in commercial and domestic weed killers, such as Roundup. Glyphosate has been rigorously tested in more than 2,000 studies, including the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s large Agricultural Health Study, and has been used by farmers and home gardeners for more than 50 years. Yet some environmental advocates and other groups contend it causes cancer, specifically non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. This outcry stems primarily from a 2015 hazard assessment by the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC), a semi-autonomous agency of the World Health Organization, which...

Oil giant Chevron will begin purchasing oil from Sable Offshore Corp., the Houston-based company announced Tuesday. The dramatic move comes amid a legal battle between California and the Trump administration. The petroleum corporation plans to purchase an initial 20,000 barrels of oil per day from offshore platforms near Santa Barbara, just weeks after the federal government approved the restart of production, Bloomberg reported. The move is a boost for Sable, which has faced strong environmental opposition to resuming operations in California waters. “We’re going to run Sable’s crude at El Segundo in April,” Chevron executive Andy Walz told the outlet,...

Explanation: Is gravity the same over the surface of the Earth? No -- in some places you will feel slightly heavier than others. The featured Earth map video shows in colors and exaggerated highs and lows where the gravitational field of Earth is relatively strong and weak. A low spot, where you would feel slightly lighter, can be seen just off the coast of India, in blue, while a relative high occurs in the mountains of Chile in South America. The cause of these irregularities does not always follow present surface features. Scientists hypothesize that other important factors lie in...

A woman is celebrating her third wedding anniversary after marrying a river. Mrs. Meg Avon, 29, was blessed in holy matrimony with the River Avon in the South West of England. The Bristol-born researcher, activist, and writer explains how she and her “darling” still keep their romance alive as they celebrate their third anniversary. She married the River Avon in a “joyful” ceremony to protect it and raise awareness of water pollution on 17 June 2023. Meg – née Trump – says she and the river are still “very much in love” three years on. Meg said: “I am still...

Explanation: What's happening at the end of that street? Pictured here are not auroras but light pillars, a phenomenon typically much closer. In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually, these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground and are sometimes known as a crystal fog. These small ice crystals may then reflect not the Sun but ground lights....

As New York approaches the Green Energy Cliff, developments are starting to come more quickly. When last I addressed the subject on March 6, there had just been “leaked” a three-page memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to the Governor’s office, revealing that implementation of what New York calls its “cap and invest” program — actually, an artificial scarcity program intentionally designed to drive prices up and impoverish the people — would cost every New York household thousands of dollars in increased energy costs. (I put the word “leaked” in quotes because most knowledgeable...

As tensions grow between the United States and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Air Force has launched A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircrafts to target boats that are ambushing ships through the essential waterway. During a Pentagon briefing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said, “The A-10 Warthog is now engaged across the southern flank, targeting fast-attack watercraft in the Strait of Hormuz.”

For years, turning 65 with a blood pressure reading above 130 meant one thing: medication. A new analysis of the 2025 American Heart Association guidelines shows that this practice is changing, finding that roughly 10 percent of older adults previously flagged for treatment may no longer meet the criteria, a move experts say prevents overtreatment, but one that carries its own risks. The 2025 guidelines marked a significant departure from the 2017 AHA guidelines, which recommended treatment for all adults over 65 with blood pressure at or above 130/80 mmHg. The updated 2025 guidelines replace that blanket approach with one...