Free Republic

Explanation: Earlier this week, Earth’s shadow swept across the full Moon in the year’s only total lunar eclipse. This stunning sequence combines images showing the Moon’s path across the night sky. Each lunar image captures our planet’s shadow gradually engulfing the Moon, culminating in its red glow. Sunlight scatters and refracts as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere toward the Moon. Shorter wavelength light (blue and green) scatters more efficiently, leaving red, orange, and yellow hues to paint the lunar surface. Tsé Bit'a'í (”rock with wings”, also known as Shiprock), located in Navajo Nation, provides a powerful volcanic foreground central to...

A criminal complaint filed in federal court Wednesday offers new details about the kidnapping and killing of 11-year-old Ashlynne Mike. Authorities were led to Tom Begaye, 27, by a tip from one of his neighbors, according to the indictment. Begaye told authorities he was looking for a child to have sex with Monday afternoon and picked up Ashlynne and Ian Mike, who were playing in a ditch near their home. Ashlynne had injured her foot and agreed to get in Begaye’s car to get a ride. He took her to a desolate dirt road near the Ship Rock pinnacle, where...

When 11-year-old Ashlynne Mike and her 9-year-old brother stepped into a stranger’s van after being dropped off by a school bus Monday, they likely believed they were heading to see a movie. The stranger, it seems, had a more sinister plan. According to authorities, he abducted the children, and in a crime that shocked the entire Navajo Nation and surrounding communities, killed Ashlynne, leaving her body along a desolate dirt road that cuts through the desert near the towering rock monument that overlooks the town of Shiprock. Late Tuesday, the FBI arrested 27-year-old Tom Begaye, of Waterflow, N.M., in connection...