Free Republic

In the first two weeks of Ukraine’s grueling counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry it sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to American and European officials. The toll includes some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians. The startling rate of losses dropped to about 10 percent in the ensuing weeks, the officials said, preserving more of the troops and machines needed for the major offensive push that the Ukrainians say is still to come.

During his short press conference Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave no real inclination as to the severity of the actual documents being sought by the Department of Justice in former president Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.All we’d known up until Thursday night is that the documents were related to the Presidential Records Act of the 1970s, and that the National Archives were demanding the remaining documents still in Trump’s possession. The raid happened despite the fact that Trump’s lawyers had been cooperating with federal agents in the months prior.However, a new report from the Washington Post strongly indicates that...

On Sunday morning, The Blaze posted a story about the “return” of ACORN on the world-wide scene. While reading through some of the background material on that story, I noticed something significant. ACORN founder Wade Rathke has been busy mocking the story that broke on The Blaze earlier this week about a multi-front plot to target JP Morgan Chase in an attempt to crash the stock market. We’ll look at his criticisms in a second. No need to bury the lede here. Rathke seems to answer the question we’ve been asking all week — does bank plotter Stephen Lerner still...

CALGARY, ALBERTA--A newly detected stream of stars festoons the northern sky in a sweeping arc that cuts across the entire constellation of Ursa Major (through the Big Dipper), from just above the head of Leo the lion to the constellation Cancer the crab. Although it spans fully 63 degrees (one-third of the northern celestial hemisphere), the star stream escaped notice until now because its individual stars are far too faint to see with the naked eye. Also, they don't jump out as a readily discernible shape or pattern, like a cluster or constellation, amid the surrounding star fields. To snare...

This fall 4,852 freshmen are expected to enroll at UCLA, but only 96, or 2%, are African American — the lowest figure in decades and a growing concern at the Westwood campus. For several years, students, professors and administrators at UCLA have watched with discouragement as the numbers of black students declined. But the new figures, released this week, have shocked many on campus and prompted school leaders to declare the situation a crisis. UCLA — which boasts such storied black alumni as Jackie Robinson, Tom Bradley and Ralph Bunche, and is in a county that is 9.8% African American...

(For fans of Monty Python's Flying Circus) The AP* has uncovered startling new details on the death of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat following an assiduous investigation. The AP* recently obtained highly classified documents from an as-yet unidentified member of the CIA*. Those documents revealed that Arafat was literally scared to death while lying in hospital when a giant hedgehog peered into his private room’s window. Witnesses, who wish to remain anonymous, have identified the enormous rodent as Spiny Norman, the long-time nemesis of Britain’s notorious arch-criminal, Dinsdale Piranha. The CIA* operative, who previously worked for the UK’s MI5* was...