Free Republic

A Russian satellite believed to be part of Moscow’s nuclear anti-satellite weapon program appears to be malfunctioning, with erratic movements suggesting it may no longer be operational. The development could be a major blow to Russia’s military space ambitions, US analysts said. Cosmos 2553 was launched just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Over the past year, it has shown signs of uncontrolled tumbling, according to radar data from LeoLabs and optical tracking shared by Slingshot Aerospace with Reuters. The satellite is believed to serve as both a radar tool for intelligence gathering and a platform for radiation testing....

When wildfire smoke drifts into the Methow Valley, it tends to stay, settling in the folds of the Cascade foothills like a choking fog. Recent summers have brought weeks-long binges of unhealthy air to one of Washington state’s poorest counties, rivaling some of the most polluted cities in the world. Countering this intensifying threat are small nonprofit organizations such as the Methow Valley Citizens Council, which has been distributing air purifiers, maintaining a network of air quality monitors, and spreading the message about how to keep safe when the smoke rolls in. Much of that work was funded by a...

Senior Food and Drug Administration leaders are planning for cutbacks to the number of routine food and drug inspections conducted by the agency, multiple officials say, due to steep layoffs this week in support staff. Around 170 workers were cut from the FDA's Office of Inspections and Investigations, according to two federal health officials who were not authorized to speak publicly. One of the biggest immediate impacts on the agency's inspectors stems from the elimination of the office's travel operations division, one official said. The team's work ranged from booking flights to coordinating with the State Department to secure translators...

One of the most interesting things about humanity is how it manages to take something dangerous to it, and make it useful to itself. We took wolves and domesticated them, turning them into dogs, which have done everything from help us hunt, find dangerous items, warn us of impending danger, or even just sit on our laps and lower our blood pressure. Mankind does a lot of things with its miraculous intelligence, but one of the things it's actually best at is taming that which threatens us. And it looks like mankind has now gotten around to taming one of...

In Marco Rubio’s view, such a partnership would "be good for the world" and also buttress relations between Russia and the US long termWASHINGTON, February 18. /TASS/. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio believes that if everything works as planned with the Ukraine settlement, Washington and Moscow could have a beautiful economic partnership on their hands. He made the corresponding statement at a press conference following Russian-American talks in Riyadh. According to Rubio, the parties have agreed among other things to begin "to engage in identifying the extraordinary opportunities that exist should this conflict [in Ukraine] come to an acceptable...

As avian flu drives egg prices to record levels and increasingly poses a risk to humans, moves by the White House to cut spending and restrict communications have hobbled public health officials’ response, with the new administration yet to outline a clear strategy on how it plans to stem the spread of the virus. Widespread funding cuts across the government and new restrictions on funding for National Institutes of Health grants have also created uncertainty among infectious disease researchers and local health officials, who are unsure about what resources they will have to work with going forward. Meanwhile, cuts to...

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons. An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.” The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning. Some...

For a growing number of people who ski and snowboard out of bounds and in the backcountry, the daily avalanche forecasts written by the Sierra Avalanche Center provide crucial, life-saving information about the stability of the snowpack and the risk of avalanches in Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada. But the Sierra Avalanche Center announced this week that due to ongoing staff cuts by the federal government, it may have no choice but to cut back on the number of forecasts it issues. The center currently works with three forecasters who are employed by the U.S. Forest Service. They cover...

Phthalates are recognized as reproductive toxins and carcinogenic substances. A recent study highlights the ongoing exposure of Southern Californians to hazardous air pollutants known as plasticizers, including a chemical that has been prohibited in children’s products and cosmetics. Plasticizers are chemical compounds that make materials more flexible. They are used in a wide variety of products ranging from lunchboxes and shower curtains to garden hoses and upholstery. “It’s not just for drinking straws and grocery bags,” said David Volz. Previous California monitoring programs focused on plasticizers called ortho-phthalates, some of which were phased out of manufacturing processes due to health...

There was an incident earlier this afternoon involving a contract employee near an ash landfill, located to the south of the Ray Nixon and Front Range Power Plants. We contract with this company to maintain our heavy equipment/large trucks that move material – such as ash and coal – at the site. The Colorado Springs Fire Department will lead the investigation effort. The contractor’s employee has been airlifted to Denver for medical treatment. We cannot speak to his condition at this time. While our focus is on the health of this individual, we can report to our community that the...

This year, hurricane season has taken off with a ferocious, ominous start thanks to Beryl—the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded, with winds topping out at 165 mph. Beryl bulldozed the Caribbean, made its way through Mexico and then plowed into Texas. As of the time of publication, over 2.1 million Texans are without power, just as a severe heat wave descends on the region. The increasing severity of hurricanes acutely stresses power grids like those in Texas, which could adversely affect everything from homes to health care facilities. It could cost a city "billions of dollars to recover from...

California is bracing for a powerful winter storm that could bring up to 10 feet of snow and high winds to the Sierra Nevada. “A second winter storm will impact the West Coast on Thursday and Friday,” the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Weather Prediction Center said in a forecast discussion Thursday. “The storm will create heavy mountain snow that will affect many passes. Multiple feet of snow are likely (over 80% chance) for higher elevations, especially above 5000 feet, including many Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountain passes,” the notice added. “Extremely heavy snow rates surpassing 3 inches per hour are...

As we've warned time and again on ANP over the last several years, with the globalists getting away with launching the COVID bioweapon attack upon America and the world that allowed them to steal the 2020 U.S. election and impose medical tyranny upon most of the planet, we should be completely prepared for the next 'attack' to come along, and with the NY Post reporting in this May 23rd story that the head of the World Health Organization just announced "the next pandemic, 'even deadlier’ than COVID, is coming," we can see the next 'psyop' unfolding before our eyes. As...

Heeere we goooo. Fingers toes and eyes crossed for a successful test flight of the 33-Raptor engine Superheavy booster and Starship first time into space. Both vehicles are planned to splash down...the booster in the Gulf of Mexico and Starship off of Hawaii.

our cereal could be killing you. A new study out of England published Tuesday links ultra-processed foods with heightened risk for developing and dying from cancer. Researchers at London’s Imperial School of Public Health collected diet data for nearly 200,000 middle-aged adults and monitored their health over roughly 10 years, specifically their risk of developing 34 types of cancer. The medical researchers found that every 10 percentage point increase in the consumption of “ultra-processed” food — defined as items heavily processed during production such as ready-to-eat meals and a majority of breakfast cereals — was associated with a 2 percent...

For almost two years, COVID-19 vaccine holdouts have been the objects of earnest pleading and financial inducements, of social-media shaming and truth campaigns. They’ve missed weddings, birthday celebrations and recitals, and even forfeited high-stakes athletic competitions. Until last month, they were barred from entering the United States and more than 100 other countries. Now the unvaccinated are suddenly back in the mix. They’re dining in restaurants, rocking out at music festivals and filling the stands at sporting venues. They mingle freely in places where they used to be shunned for fear they’d seed superspreader events. It’s as if they’re no...

The impact of the use of a nuclear device in Ukraine will depend on the details. Like any large-scale industrial army, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have obvious pressure points that would be vulnerable to nuclear attack. These include logistical centers, command and communications nodes, and concentrations of front-line forces. During the Cold War the Soviet Union expected to use tactical nuclear weapons against NATO (and expected that NATO would use them in return) and it is therefore likely that the Russian armed forces have workable theories as to how they might best use tactical nukes to inflict damage on Ukraine’s...

On a four-mile rural road eerily nicknamed the Devil's Promenade, just off the old Route 66 in the north-east corner of Oklahoma, a paranormal mystery has puzzled spirit seekers for more than 100 years. The Hornet Spook Light – a mysterious, basketball-sized glowing orb named for the former town of Hornet – has been appearing in the night sky here since 1881. No-one knows what this peculiar, smouldering ball of light signifies, where it comes from or what it's composed of. Even the Army Corps of Engineers have concluded that it's a "mysterious light of unknown origin". It moves, spinning...

Ban on fracking to be lifted as part of Liz Truss's energy plan Fracking was banned in England in 2019 after new research raised fresh fears over the risk of earthquakes. Protesters are worried about contamination of drinking water and earthquakes Liz Truss has announced the ban on fracking will be lifted as part of plans to accelerate the UK's domestic energy supply. The prime minister said lifting the moratorium, brought in by the Conservatives, will enable developers to seek planning permission for fracking and get gas flowing in as soon as six months. Ms Truss said she was "setting...

Zombie ice from the massive Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10 inches (27 centimeters) on its own, according to a study released Monday. Zombie or doomed ice is ice that is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but is no longer getting fed by those larger glaciers. That’s because the parent glaciers are getting less replenishing snow. Meanwhile the doomed ice is melting from climate change, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “It’s dead ice. It’s just going to melt and disappear from...