Free Republic

Three months after Turkey’s president Erdogan fired his statistics chief as inflation hit a mere 36%, now that inflation has almost doubled since then, the latest official in charge of compiling Turkish inflation statistics has decided to do the smart thing and step down on his own, becoming the latest prominent departure at an institution that’s facing harsh criticism over the reliability of its economic data. On Friday, the Turkish Statistical Institute said Cem Bas resigned as head of the department of price statistics for “health reasons.” Furkan Metin, who previously oversaw the digital transformation and projects department at the...

After a weekend of driving that took it about 10 feet across the surface of Mars, the Spirit rover was parked on Monday in front of a rock that NASA scientists plan to study for much of the next week. Though Spirit is capable of moving more quickly across the rugged surface of the red planet, the six-wheeled craft spent 30 minutes traveling to the rock, nicknamed "Adirondack" by project managers, because like any Earth-bound tourist it stopped repeatedly to take pictures. "We went for a little Sunday drive," joked mission manager Mark Adler. The scientists believe that the pyramid-shaped...