Free Republic

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...

Explanation: What would it look like to leave planet Earth? Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it swung back past the Earth in 2005 on its way in toward the planet Mercury. Earth can be seen rotating in this time-lapse video, as it recedes into the distance. The sunlit half of Earth is so bright that background stars are not visible. The robotic MESSENGER spacecraft orbit around Mercury from 2011 to 2015 has conducted the first complete map of the surface. On occasion, MESSENGER peered back at its home world. MESSENGER is...

A US rocket scientist vanished without a trace on a Los Angeles hike eight months before retired Air Force Gen. William McCasland disappeared under eerily similar circumstances — and the two had a close professional connection. Monica Reza went missing on the morning of June 22, 2025, in the Angeles National Forest while hiking with two experienced companions who were exploring the popular Mount Waterman Trail, according to a Facebook page dedicated to finding her. Volunteers and authorities searched the area for months using helicopters, radar, droves of hikers, and dogs — but have found no trace of Reza, 60,...

Two more nations signed on to a letter Saturday strongly condemning Iran’s partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – isolating the Islamic Republic diplomatically as it seeks to apply maximum economic pressure by bottling up oil shipments. The two latest to join are Australia and the United Arab Emirates – one of Iran’s Gulf neighbors who has been bombarded with missile attacks from Tehran – bringing the total to 22 countries. Earlier signatories were the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan, whose Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters Thursday that she informed President Trump what her country...

Gov. Kathy Hochul is finally admitting that the “climate” law she’s long supported is toxic to New York’s economy and to “affordability” — but she only wants to delay the death sentence. We’ve warned for years that the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is leading the state to disaster — and for no purpose except to honor the delusions of green extremists and further the political ambitions of first Gov. Andrew Cuomo and now Hochul. Neither one ever admitted the fundamental idiocy; even now, when she says “a climate policy that leaves working families behind is not a...

Explanation: Spiral NGC 1300 and elliptical NGC 1297 are galaxies that lie on the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus (The River). At 70 million light-years distant or more, both are members of the Eridanus Galaxy Cluster. About 100,000 light-years across, at lower left in this sharp, galaxy group photo NGC 1300 is seen face-on with a prominent central bar and grand, sweeping spiral arms. Like other spiral galaxies, including our own barred spiral Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 1300 is thought to have a supermassive central black hole. A contrast in appearance and slightly more distant, NGC 1297 is the...

Transgender golfer Hailey Davidson has sued the LPGA and USGA for its policies that prohibit biological males who underwent male puberty from competing in women's competition. The LPGA said in a statement it was aware of the lawsuit and would "let that process play out on the proper forum." "The LPGA’s gender policy was developed through a thoughtful, expert-informed process and is grounded in protecting the competitive integrity of elite women’s golf," the statement said. The USGA and LPGA changed gender policies for events in 2025 and beyond, declaring that players must be assigned female at birth or have transitioned...

In A Nutshell: Researchers developed a breath test that detects bacterial infections by measuring a carbon-13 signal produced when bacteria consume specially tagged sugar compounds injected into the bloodstream. In infected mice, the signal tracked bacterial load in real time and dropped sharply after antibiotic treatment, suggesting the test could tell doctors whether a drug is actually working. The approach successfully detected infections in multiple tissues, including muscle, lungs, bone, and blood, using portable, inexpensive equipment. All findings are currently from animal studies, and significant testing in humans is still needed before the method could reach clinical use. Antibiotic resistance...