Guess How Many on the Terror Watch List Were Released in America

The first Spanish city to be founded on the American mainland lasted just 14 years before it was burned to the ground amidst an Indigenous uprising. During its short existence, the settlement witnessed more than its fair share of drama and tragedy, as revealed by the findings of the first ever mapping study at the ancient site.Among the structures discovered by the researchers were houses, streets, workshops, and most striking of all, a bullet factory.Located in northern Colombia, on the fringes of the notorious Darién Gap, the city of Santa María de la Antigua del Darién was founded in 1510 by a group of Spanish conquistadores. According to BBC Mundo, the site was chosen because, unlike elsewhere along the Caribbean coast, the locals didn’t use poison arrows in battle, making them easier to overcome.Describing the importance of the city in Latin American history, the authors of the new study say its foundation represents “a turning point, one of those key moments in history in which we can say that there is a 'before' and an 'after', with continental and regional consequences that continue today.” In less than a decade and half, the Spanish residents of Santa María set in motion some of the key events that would define the geopolitical reality of South and Central America for centuries to come.In 1513, for example, the city’s first mayor, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, became the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean, returning to Santa María with riches and slaves from the west coast. It was also from this early city that the expeditions leading to the conquests of Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua were launched.“Santa María de la Antigua became the first Spanish 'foot' in the new continent, the first foundation that managed to survive in a lasting way from where those who would be the protagonists of the early conquest passed through,” write the study authors.Yet life was far from fun and games for the city’s colonial inhabitants. Mosquito-borne diseases and locust-driven famine killed huge numbers of Spaniards, while a strange “plague of sleepiness” – possibly caused by radioactive minerals – is reported to have overtaken the European settlers, causing hundreds more to die from sheer inability to wake up.When the city was eventually razed to the ground in 1524, royal notary Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo reported that Santa María de la Antigua del Darién had claimed "more lives than there are stars in the sky". It would be another four centuries before the site was rediscovered by archaeologists, and it has taken until now for the ill-fated settlement to be studied in depth.Using a combination of satellite imaging, ground-penetrating radar, and archaeological surveys, the study authors have been investigating and mapping Santa María since 2013. Presenting their preliminary findings, the researchers reveal that the city was built on top of an earlier Indigenous village inhabited by Cueva-speaking cultures that were virtually wiped out within two decades of the conquistadores’ arrival in the region.Houses and gardens from this pre-Hispanic phase were dated to the early 12th century CE, with subsequent structures attributed to the European colonists built on and and around these older elements. Among the features identified by the researchers were “patios in boulders of Spanish houses, the western street of the city, a house for indigenous servants next to a Spanish lot, a water intake site, a workshop for the preparation of bullets for firearms, a blacksmith’s workshop and the southern River Wharf.”According to the study authors, Santa María also had its own cathedral, hospital, prison “and everything a Castilian city needed in the early 16th century.” In the end, though, even the local bullet factory couldn’t protect the inhabitants from annihilation.The study is published in the conference series Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2024 Workshops.

Three new fossils, including part of a humerus, have been found at Mata Menge on the Indonesian island of Flores. They indicate that Homo floresiensis, popularly known as Hobbits, were descended from Homo erectus, and became small relatively soon after arriving on Flores. Indeed, it seems at least some Hobbits from 700,000 years ago were even smaller than the ones whose diminutive size earned them the nickname.The discovery of specimens from Liang Bua cave on Flores stunned the world, revealing that a species of human we had known nothing about had coincided with modern humans. Indeed, the timing suggested our ancestors probably reached the island in time to encounter these diminutive people, and were quite likely responsible for their extinction. With the Lord of the Rings films filling the cinemas and H. floresiensis standing only 1.1 meters (3.6 feet) high, the nickname was inevitable.What was less clear was where the Hobbits fitted into the human family tree. The most obvious explanation was that they were descendants of H. erectus, known to have been a few hundred kilometers away in Java from considerably earlier. The phenomenon of island dwarfism, where species shrink when confined to limited locations, is widespread (as is its counterpart, island gigantism). Dwarf stegodons (elephant relatives) are known to have inhabited Flores along with the hobbits.However, some features of the Liang Bua hobbits looked less like H. erectus and closer to more ancient human ancestors such as H. habilis and Australopithecus afarensis (made famous by the individual Lucy.) A more extraordinary tale needed to be considered, where one of these ancestors, previously known only from Africa, somehow made it all the way to Southeast Asia’s islands. Since these forebearers were already quite small, little island dwarfism would be needed to explain the Hobbit’s height.The discovery of teeth, stone tools, and partial jaw at Mata Menge, also on Flores, in 2014 raised hopes of settling the question. These remnants were from 700,000 years ago, and appeared to also be from Homo floresiensis. Now a team including Dr Gerrit van den Bergh of the University of Wollongong have found three new fossils of the same age, which make those who have examined them more confident of the Hobbits’ story.We originally thought it must be from a child.Dr Gerrit van den BerghThe 2014 finds appeared small, but they were not the best body parts to measure the whole person’s size, which is why the humerus, partial as it is, is so important. It’s tiny, but investigation reveals it comes from an adult, unlike some of the teeth at Mata Menge, which are from children.It's hard to believe this was the humerus of a fully grown human.Image Credit: Yousuke Kaifu“This 700,000-year-old adult humerus is not just shorter than that of Homo floresiensis, it is the smallest upper arm bone known from the hominin fossil record worldwide,” said Professor Adam Brumm of Griffith University in a statement.  “This very rare specimen confirms our hypothesis that the ancestors of Homo floresiensis were extremely small in body size; however, it is now apparent from the tiny proportions of this limb bone that the early progenitors of the ‘Hobbit’ were even smaller than we had previously thought.” This bone was 9-16 percent shorter and thinner than the equivalent from the Liang Bua Hobbits.Van den Bergh told IFLScience the bone is so small “We originally thought it must be from a child.” Bones can often be identified as adults when they have fused to their neighbors, but the humerus is too partial for that. However, team members looked at the microstructure of a small piece. “The outside of bone is laminated,” van den Bergh said, “but it gets remolded over time, the outside is lost, and it is replaced with other bone.” The ratio of the two bone types does not provide a reliable age, but can distinguish adults from children, which was all that was needed in this case.The fact one adult Hobbit was probably just 1 meter (3.3 feet) tall 700,000 years ago might be considered evidence for their descent from already small species. However, the authors argue the two new teeth found in the same dig show a clearer affiliation with H. erectus than those located earlier.    Van den Bergh told IFLScience, “We don’t know why the cranial and skeletal structures from Liang Bua have features similar to H. habilis. Maybe on Flores they spent more time in the trees and adapted to the local conditions.” Given that the other inhabitants of Flores included Komodo dragons with iron-tipped teeth, rediscovering your ancestors’ arboreal skills does seem wise.The authors conclude that a H. erectus population arrived on the island 1.0-1.27 million years ago and shrank dramatically in stature by 700,000 years ago. Whether they rebounded a little by the time of the original finds, or if this arm comes from a particularly small individual, will take more specimens to answer.This still leaves the question of how H. erectus reached Flores, which was never connected to mainland Southeast Asia. The paper describing the new fossils proposes they got there “Probably unintentionally (ie through accidental ‘rafting’, perhaps on tsunami debris).” Van den Bergh notes tsunamis are common in the highly volcanic Indonesian islands and points to examples of people surviving at sea for a long time while clinging to branches afterwards.On the other hand, recent evidence that early humans crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, where tsunamis are unlikely, even earlier suggests they may have had more boat-building skills than has been acknowledged. Van den Bergh admitted to IFLScience that this is a part of the Hobbit’s story we may never know.The work is open access Nature Communications.

You could ABC is already in love. During Tuesday’s ABC News Special Report on Vice President Kamala Harris selecting Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, the liberal journalists were ebullient over Walz as not only “folksy” and “personal”, but also “the All-American definition of a man from middle — Middle America” with a “perfect backstory” and both a “moderate” and “progressive”. Good Morning America co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos went first, gushing to senior White House correspondent Selina Wang that “Walz appears to fit the all American definition of a man from middle — middle America. High school teacher — teacher, football coach, member of the Army National Guard before becoming a member of Congress and now governor.” A day after she gave cover to anti-Semitism by referring to opposition to Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) as having to do with “views” he holds being a “concern” for “Arab Americans”, Wang didn’t beat around the bush when celebrating Walz: ABC is pleased Kamala Harris went with Tim Walz, saying he “has that perfect back story” of being “folksy, personal”, and “fit[s] the all American definition of a man from middle — middle America”.... George Stephanopoulos: “Walz appears to fit the all American definition of a… pic.twitter.com/xgGl9Il3mC — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 6, 2024 Chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl came next and also didn’t bring up Shapiro being Jewish as why he didn’t get the nod, instead citing sources as having said the call really came down to Harris having “really hit off with — with Tim Walz”. As you can see below, Karl tried to have it both ways with Walz’s labeling: ABC’s Jonathan Karl says Tim Walz was “the most progressive...of the three finalists,” BUT had “a record in Congress as — as a rather moderate Democrat” “[I]f you look at his experience in Congress, George, you know, he’s a six-term member of the House before he ran for… pic.twitter.com/Cpi2QubDTl — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 6, 2024 Chief White House correspondent and lead Democratic Party apple polisher Mary Bruce was giddy at the idea of covering Walz, proclaiming he’s so “folksy” and “plainspoken” that “appeals to a lot of voters”. She even celebrated him as referring to half the country as “weird” (which speaks volumes about how Bruce sees Americans she supposed to work on behalf of): ABC’s Mary Bruce, already chief apple polisher for Kamala Harris, fawning over her having to make this “decision...alone”, settling on a “folksy” man Tim Walz who has such a “plainspoken way of talking” “[H]is Midwestern appeal, that plainspoken way of talking that he has, he’s… pic.twitter.com/KOUgpJ3ZVs — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 6, 2024 Congressional correspondent Rachel Scott and political director Rick Klein brought it home with the former cartoonishly suggesting it could continue to be a struggle for Republicans to define the Harris-Walz ticket. Klein suggested this could help really lock down a Democratic win (click “expand”): KLEIN: [T]he Harris campaign knows that if you win in the upper Midwest, you almost certainly win the election and the movement that we’ve seen in the battleground state polling in the 538 polling average just since Joe Biden left the race is substantial, and it’s particularly pronounced in those upper Midwest states in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania. Now, Tim Walz isn’t from any of those states. Other finalists like Josh Shapiro were, but Walz is from just the other side of those states. He represents a part of the country, a redder part of a bluer state, as Jon Karl pointed out. That’s critical. A lot of voters there are similar to the voters in Wisconsin and in Michigan and in Pennsylvania that will almost certainly decide the election. I think it’s fair to assume that Governor Walz, after he’s selected, will spend plenty of time in those battleground states, as will Vice President Harris herself. She’s going to be in Pennsylvania later today. She’s planning to hit all of those big battlegrounds in the next couple of days. You see that shift, all of those three states at the top — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that by themselves almost certainly would make Vice President Harris president. Harris. And her hope will be that Tim Walz helps deliver those states. STEPHANOPOULOS: Doubling down on the Midwest. To see the relevant transcript from August 6, click “expand.” ABC News Special Report August 6, 2024 9:12 a.m. Eastern GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Vice President Kamala Harris is set to pick Minnesota Hovernor Tim Walz as her running mate. There he is right there. Two term governor — governor of Minnesota. Want to go straight to Selina Wang, who is there in Philadelphia. And, Selina, “Walz appears to fit the all American definition of a man from middle — middle America. High school teacher — teacher, football coach, member of the Army National Guard before becoming a member of Congress and now governor.” SELINA WANG: Exactly. He really has that perfect back story. He also has those rural roots, and he’s really emerged as the dark horse in this veepstakes race. He has emerged as the favorite very recently as he has been on the cables, on the network, showing that he can effectively push back on those Republican attacks. He’s the one, George, remember, who labeled J.D. Vance and his Republican allies as, “weird,” which gained a lot of steam with the Harris campaign. He has this folksy, personal, informal vibe that is really appealed to a lot of Democrats. And they believe that his rural backstory, the fact that he was a former member of the NRA, as you say, he is this high school former high school teacher, he was a football coach, that this can help a appeal to those independent swing state voters. But it is unprecedented, George, how all of this has played out. I was told that, as of last night, according to sources, Vice President Harris still had not made her decision and that her team was printing out signs with multiple different candidates on it ready to go at any moment. This decision coming down to the wire, her and her close team have been keeping this decision under lock and key. They wanted to avoid any leaks. STEPHANOPOULOS: And let me bring in Jon Karl, our chief Washington correspondent. We know that the vice president met with — with three finalists on Sunday, not only Governor Walz, but also Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. JONATHAN KARL: Yeah, all three had strong arguments to make to be her running mate. All three under serious consideration until the very end. Tim Walz came through as somebody that frankly, Kamala Harris was comfortable with. She actually had known Josh Shapiro much longer. The two of them both former attorneys general she had known had a longer relationship with him. But people that I’ve spoken to said she really hit it off with — with Tim Walz. Both of them coming from states that are important, Pennsylvania, perhaps the most important battleground state. But Minnesota, a — a state that Democrats, won last time and were counting on winning again, but where Donald Trump had shown strength and more importantly, it’s that whole area Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan. The feeling was having a Midwest governor who had governed in a state that — that — that — that has significant pockets of Republican voters would be good for her. And, if you look at his experience in Congress, George, you know, he’s a six-term member of the House before he ran for governor. His district is a district that Donald Trump carried quite handedly, a pretty conservative district. And as a member of Congress, he was viewed as a — as a moderate Democrat. Now, he is seen certainly among these three finalists as the most progressive, the most liberal politically of the three finalists. But he does, you know, have a record in Congress as — as a rather moderate Democrat representing a very moderate to conservative district in Minnesota. STEPHANOPOULOS: And let me bring in Mary Bruce, our chief White House correspondent. Mary, that personal chemistry, obviously paramount in the final decision. But in the last couple of weeks, Tim Walz also had been performing very well on the stump and a lot of Democrats believe he lines up well with former President Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance. MARY BRUCE: Yeah, certainly, George, his Midwestern appeal, that plainspoken way of talking that he has, he’s a bit folksy, and I think that certainly appeals to a lot of voters, especially perhaps some — some Joe Biden supporters. He clearly showed — Kamala Harris believes that he is able to get out there on the stump, clearly articulate the case against Donald Trump and he was creating a lot of buzz, as Selina said, he coined that, that — that — that one word takedown of the Trump-Vance team, just calling them weird. That is something that really gained a fair amount of traction. And so much of this decision while yes, it is about, you know, who can put what states in play, you know, looking at the map, looking ahead to the future, it is also a decision that is simply about chemistry, camaraderie, compatibility. This is a job, of course, that Kamala Harris knows better than anyone else. And clearly, when it came down to it, she believes that she and Tim Walz make a good team here, that they are going to be able to not just govern well, but also win. All of these things factor into this decision. And, of course, this is the most consequential decision of her career and one that she has had to make at absolute warp speed. Just 16 days, George, 16 days. That’s how long she has had to get used to being a candidate and to making this huge decision. And despite all of the decision making, all of the vetting, when it comes down to it, this decision was up to Kamala Harris alone. STEPHANOPOULOS: No question about that. Let’s bring in Rachel Scott with the first reaction from the Trump campaign. Rachel. RACHEL SCOTT: Yeah, we’re just getting word in from Donald Trump’s campaign and also from the former President and his allies saying, “even worse than dangerously liberal and crooked Kamala Harris.” That’s the reaction to this news that we are now reporting that Harris is picking Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate. Just yesterday, George, the former president Donald Trump, was saying quite the opposite. In fact, during an interview, he said that whoever Harris chooses to be, her running mate would be better than her. We know that the Trump campaign for days now has really been trying to recalibrate their focus, trying to figure out what exactly their strategy is, because they wanted to run against President Joe Biden. Once President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, they now have tried to figure out what their new line of attack is not only on Vice President Kamala Harris, but also now on someone who is going to be her running mate. When — when President Biden was still in the race, we know there was that phone call between Senator JD Vance and also Vice President Kamala Harris agreeing to meet again once again on the debate stage. We’ll have to see what happens with a potential vice presidential debate and whether or not Governor Tim Walz will agree to debate senator JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, George. STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, Rachel, thanks. Let’s bring in our political director, Washington bureau chief Rick Klein. And, Rick, as now that we know that it’s going to be Walz, I imagine he’s going to be on a continuous loop between the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And we’re seeing this at a time when Kamala Harris does have some momentum in those states. RICK KLEIN: George, the Harris campaign knows that if you win in the upper Midwest, you almost certainly win the election and the movement that we’ve seen in the battleground state polling in the 538 polling average just since Joe Biden left the race is substantial, and it’s particularly pronounced in those upper Midwest states in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania. Now, Tim Walz isn’t from any of those states. Other finalists like Josh Shapiro were, but Walz is from just the other side of those states. He represents a part of the country, a redder part of a bluer state, as Jon Karl pointed out. That’s critical. A lot of voters there are similar to the voters in Wisconsin and in Michigan and in Pennsylvania that will almost certainly decide the election. I think it’s fair to assume that Governor Walz, after he’s selected, will spend plenty of time in those battleground states, as will Vice President Harris herself. She’s going to be in Pennsylvania later today. She’s planning to hit all of those big battlegrounds in the next couple of days. You see that shift, all of those three states at the top — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that by themselves almost certainly would make Vice President Harris president. Harris. And her hope will be that Tim Walz helps deliver those states. STEPHANOPOULOS: Doubling down on the Midwest. Okay, Rick Klein, thanks very much. One more time. Vice President Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz — poised to pick Tim Walz as her running mate.

Bookies and analysts suspected that Vice President Kamala Harris might name Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate. He could help her garner favor in a critical swing state and also help reassure moderate voters that a future Harris administration wouldn't pander to the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party. Harris has instead opted for a more radical pick in a state where she is already poised to win. Four sources close to the selection process told CNN that Harris has decided to go with Tim Walz — the 60-year-old Minnesota governor and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association who recently claimed that "one person's socialism is another person's neighborliness." Walz, a former geography teacher who spent time in the Army National Guard, served in the House of Representatives from 2007 until 2019 and was the ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. He assumed office as governor of Minnesota in 2019, just in time to take a relatively relaxed approach to the deadly BLM riots that would ultimately ravage his state, waiting days to call in the National Guard — by which time a Minneapolis police station had been torched and half a billion dollars in damage had been inflicted. 'The Harris-Walz California dream is every American's nightmare.' Walz, who deemed President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) "weird dudes," has gone to great lengths to secure favor with fellow hard-core leftists, particularly in LGBT activist circles. Earlier this year, he issued a decree indicating that his state is a "refuge" for those who seek and provide confusion-affirming genital mutilations and irreversible hormone therapies to children and adults alike. Harris' running mate also favors flouting federal immigration law and further transforming his state into a haven for illegal aliens. In Walz, Harris also has found a fellow advocate of limitless abortion. Last year, he signed a bill codifying the right of women to have their unborn children killed at any stage, including in the third trimester. While denying the unborn the right to life, Walz has fought to expand rights for ex-cons. In 2023, he ratified legislation ensuring over 55,000 former prisoners could cast votes, claiming doing so was part of a move to "keep our elections safe, free, and fair for all." Walz, who has also signed anti-gun legislation, will join Harris tonight for her rally in Philadelphia. Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a statement, "It's no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State." "While Walz pretends to support Americans in the Heartland, when the cameras are off, he believes that rural America is 'mostly cows and rocks'. From proposing his own carbon-free agenda, to suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars, and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote, Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide," continued Leavitt. Leavitt added, "If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American's nightmare." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Harrison Butker, Kansas City Chiefs player and noted promoter of traditional values, has signed a contract extension that makes him the highest-paid kicker in NFL history.A four-year, $25.6 million extension puts Butker at a salary of $6.4 million through the 2028 season, the most any kicker in the NFL has ever made. Butker slightly passes the salaries of fellow kickers Justin Tucker of the Baltimore Ravens and Jake Elliott from the Philadelphia Eagles, who both average $6 million per year.Butker's previous contract was nothing to sneeze at, which paid him an average of $4.055 million per year, according to Spotrac.'The better you are at the job the more a team is willing to put up.'ESPN reported that the kicker even represented himself and negotiated the deal, too."There's no place I'd rather be than with the Chiefs, excited to finalize a 4 year extension. To the Heights!" Butker excitedly wrote on his X page.Besides being one of the most reliable kickers in the NFL, Butker made headlines for a May 2024 speech at a Catholic university that promoted Catholicism and traditional values, while disavowing woke culture.The kicker became a target for leftist activists who called him anti-woman and antigay.Of course, there were a few detractors after Butker inked his new deal, including former ESPN host Trey Wingo, who said the kicker's contract proved an old adage that teams will put up with troublesome players if they are good enough on the field."The Harrison Butker extension ... making him the highest paid kicker ... underscores the inherent truth of the NFL: the better you are at the job the more a team is willing to put up with pure and simple." — (@) Radio host EJ Stewart said that the Kansas City Chiefs were "dignifying weirdos" when they resigned Butker. He added that resigning the player was "unbecoming of a championship head coach" like the Chiefs' Andy Reid.However, Butker's numbers do not lie.Butker has the second highest field-goal percentage of all time at 89.1%, second only to Tucker at 90.2%. He is also coming off a season in which he went six for six from beyond 50 yards, finishing 2023 with a 94.3% field-goal percentage.As well, the Georgia-born player has multiple clutch playoff field goals to go with his three Super Bowl rings.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

THIS --> Trump Team Goes THERE With First Tim Walz Ad and HOO BOY It Will DEFINITELY Leave a Mark (Watch)

Tuesday Morning Minute

'Most Left-Wing Ticket': No Mercy Shown in Republican Reactions to Kamala Harris Picking Tim Walz

The Press Rush to Put Lipstick on the Pig, but the Tim Walz Pick Is a Disaster for Democrats