Free Republic

A group of archaeologists excavating the doomed city of Pompeii found quite the surprise earlier this week: a banquet hall complete with paintings inspired by the Trojan War. The discovery was announced earlier this week, The Associated Press noted. The banquet hall and its mosaic floor were uncovered during a project to help prevent further demise of the ruins of Pompeii.

Job growth soared past expectations in January and wages rose faster than inflation, exhibiting more strength at the start of an election year in which the economy could be a huge factor. The U.S. economy added 353,000 jobs last month, according to the Labor Department, about double what economists were expecting in different forecasts. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent. Wages on nonfarm payrolls rose by 0.6 percent to $34.55, double the monthly pace of headline inflation in December. Annual wage growth ticked up to 4.47 percent, still considerably higher than the 3.5-percent growth that many economists think...

President Donald Trump is boasting a massive 43-point lead in Iowa, a Morning Consult survey found. The polling examining the race in Iowa shows Trump with a stunning, garnering 58 percent support. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, not Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, emerges to a distant second place, 43 points behind with 15 percent support. DeSantis falls closely behind with 14 percentage points, followed by Vivek Ramaswamy with ten points, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with two points, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson with a single point. The surveys were taken between December 1, 2023, through Jan....

A leading Iowa Evangelical activist believes that the critical state caucuses are "tailor-made" for an upset with a Republican field that is "wide-open," saying that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has run a strong ground game as former President Donald Trump dominates the polls.As Republican presidential hopefuls focus on wooing conservatives in Iowa, Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the Iowa-based advocacy group The FAMiLY Leader, discussed the state of the race in The Hawkeye State in an interview with The Christian Post.Vander Plaats takes an active role in the primary campaign by interacting with the candidates and hosting the FAMiLY...

Special Counsel John Durham recently appeared before Congress to answer questions about his bombshell report on the FBI’s botched handling of Donald Trump’s alleged Russian collusion in 2016, and what Americans heard in the hallowed halls of the Capitol should chill them to the core. Durham told the House Judiciary Committee, "The FBI was too willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research, such as the Steele dossier. The FBI relied on the dossier and FISA applications, knowing there was likely material originating from a political campaign or political opponent." And whose political campaign you might ask...

Ron DeSantis’ 2024 campaign launch ran into a few glitches on Wednesday evening, but it wasn’t long before he hit his stride. After spending 75 minutes talking policy with Elon Musk, the Florida man shifted over to do primetime interviews with Mark Levin and Trey Gowdy before holding a tele-town hall with voters. He’s scheduled to cap his roll-out off in Iowa on Tuesday with an in-person rally at a baseball stadium. Still, the headlines from the mainstream press weren’t kind to DeSantis. Many proclaimed his launch to be a “disaster,” with some going so far as to claim his...

The Biden administration estimates that since December, Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, including more than 20,000 killed. Among those killed, nearly half were believed to be soldiers from the private military company Wagner Group, which is heavily involved in the grinding fight for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, White House national security council spokesman John Kirby said Monday.

The U.S. labor market clocked a shockingly strong month in January, adding 517,000 jobs and dipping down to 3.4 percent unemployment, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. The numbers blew past expectations. Analysts were projecting an increase of around 185,000 jobs and for the unemployment rate to edge up to 3.6 percent. In December, the unemployment rate dipped back down to 3.5 percent and added 260,000 new jobs, according to revised figures released Friday. “This is an unbelievably strong unemployment report, not to suggest there’s a problem with credibility. The unemployment rate takes out the recent historic...

Greta Thunberg was famously arrested yesterday in that protest over the expansion of a German coal mine. John wrote about her first arrest, and there was a second yesterday.Footage emerged of the “arrest” later in the day, after some still shots made the rounds to dramatic effect. Thunberg, victim of the hideous German state determined to despoil the environment, yada yada yada.Her stand was, of course, stunning and brave. A true climate warrior willing to risk life and limb in order to save Gaia from physical despoliation and of course doing her best to prevent the planet from burning up,...

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera tweeted Wednesday that he “could never support” longtime friend Donald Trump again. Rivera, a rotating co-host on “The Five,” said the ex-president’s...

Ahead of the rally former President Donald Trump was scheduled to have in Arizona (later postponed due to the death of Ivana Trump), the Fox News website posted a stunning three-minute video featuring a host of Trump supporters in Maricopa County talking about ditching him in 2024 for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). The incredible montage features a group of Arizona voters who — save for one identified as Beverly who enthusiastically backed a Trump 2024 bid — all said they wanted to see Trump sit it out next time and identified DeSantis as the person they want to take over...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday during her weekly press briefing called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "tyrant" and said it was "stunning" to see him enter Ukraine. "It's stunning to see in this day and age a tyrant roll into a country. This is the same tyrant who attacked our democracy in 2016," Pelosi said during the briefing.

n May 2021, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the total fertility rate was 1,637.5 births per 1,000 American women (or 1.64 births per American woman) in 2020, another U.S. record low. This birth rate is approximately 21 percent lower than the commonly recognized replacement level fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman (proposed in 1929 by American demographer Warren Thompson as a component of his four-stage demographic transition model). The replacement level fertility rate is the fertility rate a nation needs to stabilize the population. If the replacement level fertility rate declines below 2.1 births, as the...

If you’re going to sacrifice your career to serve on this panel, you might as well come to play. We cannot leave the violence of January 6th — and its causes — uninvestigated. The American people deserve the full and open testimony of every person with knowledge of the planning and preparation for January 6th. We must know what happened here at the Capitol. We must also know what happened every minute of that day in the White House — every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during, and after the attack. Honorable men and women have...

House conservatives successfully derailed two bills that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to fast-track through the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday evening, a victory the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus told Breitbart News was “stunning.” “That’s stunning,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the House Freedom Caucus chairman, said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

CARMEL, Ind — “'Men working' signs are a problem,” Blair Babione told the Carmel City Council Monday night. Blair, 11, and her 9-year old sister, Brienne, came to the meeting after an invitation from council president Sue Finkam. The girls had recently sent letters to Finkam about “men working” signs they had noticed recently in their neighborhood. ‘Why is this sign here? Why does it say, ‘men working’ when we’ve seen plenty of women doing construction?’” they asked. Leslie, the girls’ mom, said her daughters wanted to know. When she couldn’t give them an answer, they decided to research it....

WASHINGTON — The nation is entering “a very vulnerable period” that could see the number of coronavirus deaths rise rapidly, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned in conversation with Yahoo News on Monday. The warning comes at a time when the virus is already causing widespread devastation, averaging close to 1,500 deaths per day, according to the COVID Tracking Project. About 257,000 people have succumbed in the United States to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Asked if that number could double, Fauci expressed concern about the onset of colder weather and the “sequential holiday seasons” of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa...

CARIBBEAN—The U.S. Coast Guard announced today that they discovered a man who has been stranded on a deserted island in the Caribbean Ocean for over 5 months after his boat sunk in a storm. A spokesman for the USCG reported that this heroic man has been responsibly wearing his mask the entire time on the island, even though he is the only living soul in a thousand-mile radius.

I do not know a Washington D.C. columnist by the name of Daniel Bobinski. To the best of my recollect, I have never read anything he has written until this week. Writing for a website, uncoverdc.com, Bobinski has just made seven predictions he is pretty sure will occur within the next month and, I find myself agreeing the likelihood of all seven is a pretty good bet. He is said to be “a certified behavioral analyst, best-selling author, corporate trainer, executive coach, and columnist. He’s also a military veteran and a self-described Christian Libertarian - one who believes in the...

<p>MINOT, N.D. — In a June 1 email sent to all of the police department, Fargo Deputy Chief of Police Todd Osmundson apologized for activities at the George Floyd protest in downtown Fargo that other officers have called into question.</p>