Free Republic

Campaign in overdrive in desperate bid to wrestle state from Trump Inside Ted Cruz’s second-floor campaign office here on a recent afternoon, there were telltale signs of an operation in overdrive: dozens of volunteers calling voters and re­fueling with Mountain Dew, coffee and snacks; staffers busily working on laptops; and an ambitious message on a whiteboard: “Our Goal Today = 20,000 Calls.” But there were also indications of trouble. Volunteers said they were hearing misgivings from voters — many rooted in insults that front-runner Donald Trump had hurled at Cruz. Most people who express reservations, explained Megan Kerr, 17, of...

Comets and disaster in the Bronze AgeCosmic impact is gaining ground as an explanation of the collapse of civilisations, writes Benny Peiser At some time around 2300BC, give or take a century or two, a large number of the major civilisations of the world collapsed. The Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Early Bronze Age societies in Israel, Anatolia and Greece, as well as the Indus Valley civilisation in India, the Hilmand civilisation in Afghanistan and the Hongshan Culture in China - the first urban civilisations in the world - all fell into ruin at more...