Free Republic

Since that time, the project—one of the world’s most complex, large-scale civil engineering projects ever attempted—has been plagued by fraud. In 2014, Venice’s then-mayor Giorgio Orsoni, along with 30 others, was arrested for charges including corruption, illicit party financing, and tax fraud totaling $6.8 billion. Orsoni was accused of taking roughly $635,000 (€560,000) in illicit campaign financing from the consortium behind the flood barrier. Orsoni resigned and received a four-month suspended sentence. He was also required to pay a $17,000 (€15,000) fine, according to the Telegraph.

Astronomers have discovered a massive proto-supercluster of galaxies -- bigger than even one million billion Suns. Scientists have called the ancient colossal structure Hyperion, the European Southern Observatory announced Wednesday. It is reported to have appeared just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang, which took place about 13.7 billion years ago. The cluster's namesake is one of 12 titans born to the gods Gaia and Uranus in Greek mythology.

“This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high redshift, just over 2 billion years after the Big Bang [~13.7 billion],” said lead author Dr. Olga Cucciati, an astronomer at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy.“Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower redshifts, which means when the Universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things. It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the Universe was relatively young!”Located in the COSMOS field in the constellation of Sextans, Hyperion was identified by analyzing the...

Venice was almost completely flooded on Monday, with rain-soaked tourists evacuated from St Mark's Square as fierce storms lashed Italy. Water transport services were halted across Venice as 75 per cent of the city centre flooded to 156cm (61inc) by early afternoon, the highest level since 2012. Residents and visitors were wading through waist-high water in St Mark's Square before the mayor gave orders to evacuate the area. Police wearing hip waders carried a number of children to safety as stranded tourists waited to be ferried to higher ground.

Italy’s far-right League party intervened on Sunday to block efforts by a Muslim association to turn a former hospital chapel into a mosque. The Muslim group last week made the highest offer for the chapel in the northern city of Bergamo at an auction organized by a local hospital, outbidding the Romanian Orthodox Church which had been using the building for its religious services. But the project proved short-lived, with League leaders in the wealthy Lombardy region, which includes Bergamo, announcing they would halt the sale by using a 2004 law that enables them to intervene and safeguard cultural sites....

Ancient 'Cyclops' wall collapsesExperts study rubble in central Italian town of Amelia (ANSA) - Amelia, January 18 - Part of a massive wall started in around 600 BC around the central Italian town of Amelia collapsed on Wednesday morning for reasons still unclear . The so-called Polygonal walls around Amelia are famous not only for their age but also their size. Built out of huge polygonal stones, they are 8-10 metres high and about 3.5 metres thick . The 20-metre section of wall which collapsed was undergoing restoration work in recent weeks although activity had been suspended for a few...

Nineteen centuries of foundered orgy looked up at the hydroairplane which last week waltzed high over Lake Nemi in the Alban hills back of Rome. And Giuseppe Cultrera, Etruscan scholar in the plane,* looked down from the vantage of his flying height through Nemi's waters and could see what none but groping divers theretofore had seen—the sunken Golden Barge whereon epileptic Emperor Caligula, great-grandson of Augustus, and his minions held their carouses.

Video Link It's a short left video report. And, of course, they want to make it solely about children. I do hope these countries start taking a sensible attitude. It's not a hard line at all. It's hard line to the native children of these countries to destroy their futures. I doubt these countries will do enough to matter on a large scale, though, but it's a start. And even if they do it's probably too late, but better now than later. Big problems ahead for all of us in the West. PS: Obviously the 2nd pic left out the...

Sky News reports that the remains of Jamal Khashoggi have been found the garden of the Saudi consul general's home in Istanbul....... President Trump also told "The Wall Street Journal" that he did believe that King Salman was aware of the operation that killed Khashoggi but did note regarding Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that: "He's running things" Trump said that if anyone was going to be informed about the matter, it would be the Crown Prince.... The European Commission has rejected Italy's proposed budget claiming the country is spending too much. They want a new budget submitted within three...

The Saudi government came out with its version of what happened to Jamal Khashoggi overnight. The Saudi government media reports that a fight took place inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2nd..... A man who is called a "Muslim hate preacher" and a supporter of ISIS, Anjem Choudry, has been released from prison in the UK halfway through his sentence.... In London at within the last hour (7AM Eastern US) Leicester Square was the scene of a rally by the "#IAmSoliderX" Movement..... The Justice Department is accusing a woman from St. Petersburg, Russia of interfering in the 2018...

On the heels of the United Kingdom’s and Europe’s disastrous immigration policies, both Denmark and Italy are fighting back against open borders.Inger Støjberg, Danish Integration and Immigration Minister, recently rejected EU migrant quotas for 2018, detailing that refugees do not do enough to contribute to Denmark.Støjberg told Jyllands-Posten: Although we have gained significantly better control over the influx, we are still in the position that we are struggling to integrate the many refugees who have come to Denmark in recent years. Despite the fact that more refugees have come to work, there are still too many who do not support...

Zanolli and colleagues examined dental remains from the sites of Fontana Fanuccio, located 50km southeast of Rome, and Visogliano, located 18km northwest of Trieste. At around 450,000 years old, these teeth join a very short list of fossil human remains from Middle Pleistocene Europe. Using micro-CT scanning and detailed morphological analyses, the authors examined the shape and arrangement of tooth tissues and compared them with teeth of other human species. They found that the teeth of both sites share similarities with Neanderthals and are distinct from modern humans. There has been much debate over the identities and relationships of Middle...

Talk about a headache. When Mount Vesuvius erupted, the explosion caused such extreme heat that victims' skulls exploded, their blood boiled and their muscles, flesh and brains were replaced with ash, according to a new study. "New investigations on the victims' skeletons unearthed from the ash deposit filling 12 waterfront chambers have now revealed widespread preservation of atypical red and black mineral residues encrusting the bones, which also impregnate the ash filling the intracranial cavity and the ash-bed encasing the skeletons," the study's abstract reads.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor and dubbed “mutti Merkel”, mother of refugees, just committed what can be described as political seppuku. Again. This time, she threatened Italy with a new migrant-flood via German flights transferring so-called refugees. No, this is not a joke, but the sad political state of affairs in the European Union. Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who just became my personal hero, had a very short and concise answer to Merkel’s “proposal”: we will close airports to German flights bringing refugees to Italy. In other words, read my lips Angela: Italy will accept no more refugees. It’s your...

A senior scientist has given what has been described as a "highly offensive" presentation about the role of women in physics, the BBC has learned. At a workshop organised by Cern, Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation". He said male scientists were being discriminated against because of ideology rather than merit. He was speaking at a workshop in Geneva on gender and high energy physics. Prof Strumia has since defended his comments, saying he was only presenting the facts . . .

-snip- Alessandro Strumia, the physicist in question and a professor at Pisa University in Italy, gave his presentation to a crowd at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), one of the word's most important nuclear physics organizations. The topic of the day was gender in physics, and the crowd was mostly composed of women, according to The Guardian. Over the course of several slides of his presentation, which are available online, Strumia laid out an IQ-based argument for disparities between men and women in physics. "Physics graduates have top IQ," he wrote. "It's needed." He pointed to a study that...

October 3, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – An Italian organization of sex abuse victims has accused Pope Francis and those who work closest with him of failing to “intervene” in Italian cases where they knew of clerical abuse.  On 2 October, the Italian organization of sex abuse victims Rete L’Abuso, or “abuse network,” together with the international abuse victim organization Ending Clerical Abuse (ECA), hosted a press conference in Rome. According to a Kath.net report, Rete L’Abuso's president Francesco Zanardi accused both the Vatican as well as the Italian government of gravely negligent omissions in this field of sexual abuse.  Zanardi called...

...the latest discovery to surface in the archaeological dig they have led since 2001: a painted tomb from the 2nd century B.C. In excellent condition, the tomb depicts a banquet scene, fixed by pigments. Twice the size of Pompeii, the ancient city of Cumae is located 25 km west of Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea facing the island of Ischia, at the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park. Ancient historians considered Cumae the oldest Ancient Greek settlement in the western world. Founded in the latter half of the 8th century B.C. by Greeks from Euboea, the settlement grew quickly and prospered over...

Members of the far-left Autonomous University Collective (CUA) have sparked controversy after releasing posters of populist Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini calling for his assassination. The far-left group debuted the poster at a university event in Bologna this week which bears the caption, “Assassin. Take aim at this,” and shows a picture of Salvini with a target around his head, Il Giornale reports.

MILAN (Reuters) - The Panama Maritime Authority has revoked the registration of search and rescue ship Aquarius 2 in a move that means there will be no charity rescue ships off the Libyan coast in the near future unless the vessel can find a new flag to sail under. Aquarius 2, the one remaining charity rescue vessel still operating in the Central Mediterranean area, is currently at sea with 58 survivors on board. The decision by the Panama Authority (PMA) means that once the ship comes into port it will be deflagged and will not be allowed to operate again...