Free Republic

There's a movie out now that imagines modern America in the grips of a civil war. It is, as far as I can tell, a wholly logic-free bit of fantasy (California and Texas uniting as a rebel front!), with a script that hits its ideological touchstones like a piledriver. It's an election year, so expect more of the same, but it's worth comparing this First World fever dream of social collapse with a story grounded in a very real, recent, historical moment. The Dancer Upstairs (2002) begins with four people driving at night along a country road. They're listening to...

A pair of archaeologists, one with Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, the other with the University of Warsaw, both in Poland, has found evidence suggesting that rock carvings found in a southern part of Peru may have been inspired by people singing while consuming hallucinogenic plants. In their study, published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Andrzej Rozwadowski and Janusz Wołoszyn analyzed rock carvings found in Toro Muerto. Toro Muerto, ("dead bull" in Spanish) is a rock art complex in South America situated in a desert gorge near the Majes River Valley, spanning 10 km2. It hosts approximately 2,600 volcanic boulders,...

South American “crime tourists” who exploit the US visa system to enter the country and commit burglaries have now infiltrated at least half the states in America and taken “millions of untraceable” goods, The Post has learned. The organized groups of burglars and jewel thieves, particularly from Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, have been targeting wealthy homes across the US for decades, but their crimes have spread — and recently soared in some cities, authorities say. “They travel to cities across the nation – including in Maricopa County – and steal millions in untraceable items,” said Maricopa County Attorney Rachel...

Natalee Holloway killer Joran van der Sloot is having sex with three different women, despite serving a 28-year sentence in a Peruvian prison for murder. ... The news comes as no surprise to people who know the 36-year-old van der Sloot, who last year finally confessed to the brutal 2005 murder of 18-year-old high school senior Natalee Holloway in Aruba. “He’s a player, and has always been a player,” his childhood friend, Cas Arends, told the Post. “Women have always been attracted to him for some reason.” ... After escaping authorities investigating Holloway’s death in the Netherlands territory and the...

Early human hunter-gatherers ate mostly plants and vegetables, according to archeological findings that undermine the commonly held view that our ancestors lived on a high protein, meat-heavy diet.The evidence, from the remains of 24 individuals from two burial sites in the Peruvian Andes dating to between 9,000 and 6,500 years ago, suggests that wild potatoes and other root vegetables may have been a dominant source of nutrition before the shift to an agricultural lifestyle...Some have previously suggested that the shift to agricultural economies was driven by over-hunting, but the latest findings raise the possibility of a more gradual transition from...

A prosecutor investigating the dramatic live-broadcast armed assault last week on an Ecuadoran television station was shot dead Wednesday, the country's attorney general said. "In the face of the murder of our colleague Cesar Suarez... I am going to be emphatic: organized crime groups, criminals, terrorists will not stop our commitment to Ecuadoran society," Attorney General Diana Salazar said in a statement on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Local media broadcast images of Suarez's truck with bullet holes through the driver's window on a street in the port city of Guayaquil, the nerve center of Ecuador's war against...

WEST VALLEY CITY — A man was arrested Tuesday after police say he sexually assaulted a young girl who was petting farm animals on the property where he was living.Yelsin Almonacid Canchari, 30, who is originally from Peru, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of rape of a child, sodomy on a child and two counts of forcible sexual abuse.The investigation began on June 18 when a girl, under the age of 13, called 911 from a West Valley gas station to report she had been raped, according to a police booking affidavit. The girl's mother...

Ecuador has erupted into a 'civil war' with cartel thugs after the president ordered the army onto the streets and declared a state of 'internal armed conflict'. Crazed criminals have rampaged through the South American country's cities today after President Daniel Noboa, 36, ordered a state of emergency. Hooded gangsters seized a state TV news studio today, while a university was attacked and jail guards reportedly executed by prisoners. Ecuador has been rocked by a series of attacks including explosions and the abduction of several police officers after the government imposed a state of emergency in the wake of the...

[Catholic Caucus] "This document damages the communion of the Church, for such blessings directly and seriously contradict Divine Revelation": Strongest and clearest episcopal reaction yet from +Rafael Escudero López-BreaPastoral Message of the Bishop Prelate of Moyobamba on the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans, Published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on December 18, 2023.Dear priests, consecrated religious, and lay faithful:Grace and Peace for the Nativity of the Lord!Faced with the unprecedented bewilderment provoked by the Declaration Fiducia supplicans in the clergy and many faithful of this Prelature and in so many places in the Catholic world, I have taken...

KEY POINTS: * A copper deficit is set to inundate global markets throughout 2023, fueled by increasingly challenged South American supply streams and higher demand pressures. * Copper is a leading pulse check for economic health, and the red metal’s squeeze could be an indicator that global inflationary pressures could worsen, and subsequently compel central banks to maintain their hawkish stances for longer. ***************************************************************************************** A copper deficit is set to inundate global markets throughout 2023 — and one analyst predicts the shortfall could potentially extend throughout the rest of the decade. The world is currently facing a global copper shortage,...

Police in Peru made a surprise discovery when they searched a delivery man who came to their attention for acting drunk at an archaeological site in Puno. Inside his cooler bag was an ancient mummy. The man said that he had been sharing his room with the bandaged mummy and considered it "a kind of spiritual girlfriend". He had put the remains in the bag to show them off to his friends, he said. He explained that he kept "Juanita", as he had nicknamed the mummy, in a box in his room, next to the TV. He added that it...

The mummy, known as "Juanita" or the "Inca Ice Maiden", was an Inca girl who is thought to have been sacrificed in a ritual more than 500 years ago. Scientists worked with a specialist in facial reconstruction to build a silicon bust of the mummy. Johan Reinhard, the US archaeologist who first found the mummy in 1995, said the bust "makes her even more alive". A team of Peruvian and Polish scientists worked with Oscar Nilsson, a specialist in facial reconstruction from Sweden, to build the silicon bust of the teenage girl. The scientists said body scans, skull measurements, DNA...

Mexican politicians were shown two mummified corpses this week that a UFO expert claimed are “a clear demonstration” of “non-human” aliens.

A groundbreaking new peer-reviewed study has found that ivermectin use in COVID-19 patients during the pandemic resulted in a staggering 74 percent reduction in excess deaths. According to the ecological study, a natural experiment occurred when the government of Peru authorized ivermectin for use during the pandemic. The Peruvian government’s decision resulted in evidence of the drug’s effectiveness and ability to reduce excess deaths. The situation in Peru was unique as other governments around the world had banned the use of ivermectin for Covid patients in an effort to promote mRNA vaccines. The paper’s results were published on August 8...

Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has been killed, the country’s president Guillermo Lasso has said, vowing the “crime will not go unpunished”. Local media had earlier reported Villavicencio, a former lawmaker who had been polling at 7.5%, had been shot at a campaign event in Quito.

According to reports, members of the Ikitu tribe in a rural Peruvian district believe that they have been attacked by 7ft-tall 'aliens' that they have dubbed 'Los Pelacaras' or 'the face peelers'. Described as having large heads and yellow eyes, these mysterious assailants are said to be invulnerable to weapons and have been linked to attacks on multiple villagers. One victim - a 15-year-old girl - even ended in hospital. Some of the locals have now taken to conducting night patrols and there have been calls for the military to get involved before someone is seriously hurt, or worse We...

Terrified villagers in a rural Peruvian district have claimed they have come under attack by 7ft-tall aliens they have dubbed Los Pelacaras, or The Face Peelers. Members of the Ikitu tribe from the San Antonio native community have reported mysterious figures in dark-coloured hoods attacking the villagers, who live in the rural district of Alto Nanay, north east of Lima, Peru. After one such 'attack', a 15-year-old girl had to be taken to hospital. According to the community leader, Jairo Reátegui Dávila, the teenager narrowly escaped but 'as a result of the struggle they cut part of her neck.' Now,...

Who lived at Machu Picchu at its height? A new study, published in Science Advances, used ancient DNA to find out for the first time where workers buried more than 500 years ago came from within the lost Inca Empire.Researchers, including Jason Nesbitt, associate professor of archaeology at Tulane University School of Liberal Arts, performed genetic testing on individuals buried at Machu Picchu in order to learn more about the people who lived and worked there...It was once part of a royal estate of the Inca Empire.Like other royal estates, Machu Picchu was home not only to royalty and other...

This documentary rewrites the history of South America: Did Roman slaves escape to the "New World" 2000 years ago?In 146 B.C., Rome attacked Carthage. The fate of the survivors: they became Roman slaves. This thrilling South America centric documentary poses a thought-provoking question: Could some of these Carthaginian refugees have fled their Roman captors, journeying across the Atlantic to seek refuge in the untamed landscapes of South America?Unveiling for the first time, compelling evidence that sheds new light on this hypothesis, our documentary delves into fresh archaeological findings in the lush Amazon, employs cutting-edge genetic analyses of South Americas contemporary...

Dylan Mulvaney is back Stateside for a flashy film festival event in California after she traveled to Peru, claiming she didn’t feel safe in the US. The transgender influencer, 26, appeared in good spirits as she wore a daring dress at the celebrated LGBTQ+ festival Outfest at downtown Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theatre on Thursday. The model opted for a see-through dress for the star-studded premiere, pairing the look with bold eyeliner and a pair of black heels. She enjoyed several photo ops on the pink carpet, before posing for snaps with TikTok star Chris Olsen. Mulvaney attended the screening of...