Free Republic

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has railed against the nation’s record-high debt, on Thursday called Fitch Ratings’ downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ a “historic failure of leadership by both political parties and the executive branch.” Manchin, who is flirting with a presidential run as a third-party candidate backed by the group No Labels, has regularly criticized what he views as the lack of bipartisan cooperation in Washington. He blamed the nation’s latest credit downgrade on the inability of Republicans and Democrats in Congress and President Biden to make significant progress in addressing the nation’s $32...

Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Los Angeles all rank among the nation’s 10 “neediest” cities, according to an analysis by the personal finance website WalletHub. The report ranked 182 cities on 28 economic indicators, including child poverty, food insecurity and inadequate kitchens. Detroit ranked as the neediest metropolis. One Detroit renter in five faced eviction this year, according to a report in The Detroit News. Brownsville, Texas, ranked second. One-quarter of the city’s population lives in poverty, twice the national average, according to a recent account in 24/7 Wall St. Cleveland ranks third. Cleveland’s poverty rate is 29 percent, according to...

Joe Biden couldn't care less about Latin America, hasn't visited the place, hasn't visited even the border to the place, and now has a monster 15,000-strong migrant caravan heading to the U.S. which he will undoubtedly bow to, and let in. But here he was, host at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, and his lack of preparation pretty well made him, and America, beggars to the hemisphere's locals. And sure enough, it was accompanied by the stench of urine, more about later. Please clap. Start with the earliest controversy -- the invitation list. The past practice, and...

The Mexican president's refusal to attend a U.S.-hosted summit because of disputes over the guest list highlights how Latin America's leftists are pursuing an increasingly independent foreign policy from Washington. President Andres Manuel Lopez had said he would not go to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles this week led by U.S. President Joe Biden unless all governments in the region were asked. On Monday, he followed through as Washington said it was not inviting its antagonists Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua on the grounds of human rights and democratic shortcomings. Lopez Obrador's firm line over the past few...

Vice President Harris said Saturday that young people are stepping into an “unsettled” world amid destabilizing forces such as the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine, adding that long-held principles in the U.S. are on “shaky ground.” During commencement remarks at Tennessee State University, a historically Black institution, Harris said, “it cannot be denied also that your class has traveled a stony road — a pandemic that took away so much of the college experience that you once imagined.”

U.S. employers say it's a hard time to find and keep talent. Workers are decamping at near-record rates, while millions of open jobs go unfilled. One reason for this labor crunch that has largely flown beneath the radar: Immigration to the U.S. is plummeting, a shift with potentially enormous long-term implications for the job market. In the middle of the last decade, the U.S. was adding about 1 million immigrants a year. But those numbers, which slowed down during the Trump administration, hit a brick wall when COVID-19 erupted in 2020.

A retired sheriff’s captain who tried to unseat Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith in 2014 is trying again next year, amid a cloud of criticism over the six-term incumbent that hit a crescendo this week when the Board of Supervisors formally gave her a vote of no confidence. Kevin Jensen filed with the county registrar on Tuesday, records show, the same day that the no-confidence vote was held ...

When a new poll this week revealed that the public continues to view Ronald Reagan as its favorite modern president, there were many satisfied nods in the Simi Valley, California, offices of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. It was the latest confirmation that the foundation that supports the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum has succeeded in keeping the Gipper’s spirit alive and relevant to America’s journey.

THAT VIKINGS crossed the Atlantic long before Christopher Columbus is well established. Their sagas told of expeditions to the coast of today’s Canada: to Helluland, which scholars have identified as Baffin Island or Labrador; Markland (Labrador or Newfoundland) and Vinland (Newfoundland or a territory farther south). In 1960 the remains of Norse buildings were found on Newfoundland.But there was no evidence to prove that anyone outside northern Europe had heard of America until Columbus’s voyage in 1492. Until now. A paper for the academic journal Terrae Incognitae by Paolo Chiesa, a professor of Medieval Latin Literature at Milan University, reveals...

CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday pressed President Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on how the administration plans to help the numerous American citizens who remain in Afghanistan following the U.S. military withdrawal. The Tuesday segment came after Biden said in an address from the White House Tuesday that the federal government had “no deadline” for helping out the remaining 100 to 200 U.S. citizens still believed to be in Afghanistan. Tapper repeatedly questioned Sullivan on the issue, asking the top Biden aide why the remaining U.S. citizens were not able to get on the military evacuation flights out of...

Prior research has suggested that during the Late Horizon, a period of Inca history, the Inca rounded up people living outside of the Inca Empire and forced them to relocate to places inside the empire as a means of bolstering the population and thus the economy. Unfortunately, to date, evidence for such forced migrations has been scant. In this new effort, the researchers conducted a thorough investigation of the remains of six people buried in a cemetery in what was once a part of the Inca empire during the Late Horizon -- they suspected that all six were people who...

The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating, with Thursday's 150,000 new cases the highest in a single day and nearly half of those in the Americas, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. "The world is in a new and dangerous phase," Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from WHO headquarters in Geneva. "The virus is still spreading fast, it is still deadly, and most people are still susceptible." More than 8.53 million people have been reported infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 453,834​ have died, a Reuters tally showed as of 1326 GMT on Friday. edros, whose leadership...

Full title: Four ancient skulls unearthed in Mexico suggest that North America was a melting pot of different peoples and cultures 10,000 years ago The first humans to settle in North America were more diverse than previously believed, according to a new study of skeletal fragments. US scientists analysed four skulls recovered from caves in Mexico that belonged to humans that lived sometime between 9,000 to 13,000 years ago. The researchers were surprised to find a high level of diversity, with the skulls ranging in similarity to that of Europeans, Asian and ...

Who are the first Americans? In the 1920s and 30s, discoveries made near Clovis, NM suggested a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture that dates back nearly 13,200 years ago. But new evidence may actually point to Texas as a possible origin. Archaeologist Wilson W. "Dub" Crook has found that may just change the way we see history.

By sequencing and analyzing 15 ancient genomes found throughout the Americas—six of which were older than 10,000 years—these researchers determined that, around 8,000 years ago, the ancestors of Native Americans were still on the move, migrating away from Mesoamerica (what is today Mexico and Central America) toward both North and South America. These groups moved rapidly and unevenly, sometimes interbreeding with local populations, complicating the genetic—and historical—picture even further. The close genetic similarity observed between some of the groups studied suggests rapid migratory speed through North and South America. The Meltzer and Willerslev team, which included dozens of researchers from...

A group of archaeologists has discovered the remains of more than 50 children who were ritually sacrificed by the pre-Columbian Chimu culture on the northern coast of what is now Peru. The site is located a close to another where evidence of the biggest-ever sacrifice of children was found, with more than 140 youngsters were slain. But the most recent discovery may be even bigger. “So far we have found the remains of 56 children who were sacrificed by the Chimu culture,” archaeologist Gabriel Prieto told AFP. “At this new site, we can easily double the number of remains we...

On a rugged bluff overlooking the Ohio River, known locally as "Devil's Backbone," centuries of overgrowth obscures a secret of history... In 1799, early settlers found six skeletons clad in breastplates bearing a Welsh coat of arms. Indian legends told of "yellow-haired giants" who settled in Kentucky, southern Indiana, southern Ohio and Tennessee -- a region they called "the Dark and Forbidden Land." Archeologists debunk the legend. They say that evidence indicates that the natives of the region once conducted a vigorous trading network nearby and buried their dead on the bluff... Upstream about 14 miles from Louisville, Ky., the...

Parts of the Amazon previously thought to have been uninhabited were home to thriving populations of up to a million people from as early as 1250 AD, research shows. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence there were up to 1,500 fortified villages in the rainforest away from major rivers - two-thirds of which are yet to be discovered. By analysing charcoal remains and excavated pottery, researchers found a 1,100-mile (1,800km) stretch of southern Amazonia that was continuously occupied from 1250 until 1500 AD. People had assumed ancient communities had preferred to live near these waterways, but the new evidence shows this was...

t’s en vogue for enraged liberals to compare Trumpism to Argentine Peronism, wielding the analogy as a warning about the potential apocalypse that they fear is about to engulf us. Most recently it was Larry Summers, a member of the Democratic establishment for decades, who took to Twitter to declare: “I worry about the Argentinization of US government.” Summers sent the tweet after President Trump accused Democrats of treason and the media reported on the president’s childish wishes for a military parade. He employed a standard characterization of Peronism as an authoritarian movement, a familiar depiction that no doubt had...

One of the oldest human settlements ever found in North America has been uncovered in British Columbia. The 14,000-year-old village was found on Triquet Island 310 miles (500km) northwest of Victoria, Canada. The discovery is three times older than Egypt's pyramids.