Free Republic

Tarrant County Community College southeast campus in Arlington is on lockdown midday Tuesday after reports of an armed suspect near campus. Scanner traffic indicates that Grand Prairie Police are looking for an armed burglary suspect who has a stolen .22 firearm. Suspect is reportedly wearing a black hoodie. Officials believe the suspect may be in a wooded area behind the campus. TCC sent out an alert to students telling them a lockdown is in effect. If they were in a building, students were told to stay in the room, turn out lights and stay away from doors and windows.

The White House on April 10 released a budget proposal that includes a $100-per-flight user fee—a charge AOPA warns could be disastrous for general aviation. “We are disappointed to see this misguided idea resurfacing after it has been repeatedly and overwhelmingly rejected in the past. This is the wrong way to fund our aviation system,” said AOPA President Craig Fuller. “Congress has said it will not tolerate user fees, and neither will the general aviation community.” Two previous budgets from the Obama administration have included similar user fee proposals, but in each case Congress has rejected the idea. And opposition...

PLAINVIEW, TX (KCBD) - Don Cheadle made a brief stop in Plainview Tuesday and Wednesday to film part of a documentary focused on climate change. The eight-part documentary, which will air later this year on Showtime is called Years of Living Dangerously and features Don Cheadle along with Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Plainview portion of the documentary will focus on the recent drought, which led to the Cargill plant closure and the effect it's having on the city of Plainview. Cheadle interviewed Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and Associate...

For all the talk about President Obama’s liberalism, his immigration agenda is the last thing you might expect: conservative. His enemies might deny it. His staff might not recognize it. But the argument Obama presented Tuesday for a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants is rooted in economic and social conservatism. First, in a Las Vegas address that included the words “economy” or “economic” 10 times, Obama argued that immigration fuels corporate innovation. “It keeps our workforce young. It keeps our country on the cutting edge,” he said. “And it’s helped build the greatest economic engine the world...

This week, people were shocked when the Drudge Report posted a giant picture of Hitler over a headline speculating that the White House will proceed with executive orders to limit access to firearms. The proposed orders are exceedingly tame, but Drudge’s reaction is actually a common conservative response to any invocation of gun control. The NRA, Fox News, Fox News (again), Alex Jones, email chains, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, Gun Owners of America, etc., all agree that gun control was critical to Hitler’s rise to power. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (“America’s most aggressive defender of firearms ownership”)...

In the ongoing dispute over the Spratly Islands claimed by China and Vietnam, the latest development is that China is opening up 3G services on the islands, not only to Chinese soldiers but also for the country’s fishermen. The development will be yet another drop of lemon in the souring of Sino-Vietnamese relations in the past year. The Vietnamese government even voiced its complaint on nguyentandung.org, the Vietnamese Prime Minister’s website. The island disputes recently ignited with anti-China protests in May 2011 after Chinese patrol boats attacked two Vietnamese oil exploration ships near the Spratly Islands. Chinese soldiers and fishermen...

GREGG COUNTY, TX (KLTV) - For more than a year, KLTV has been investigating the allegations by several East Texas men that they were all married to the same woman at the same time. Now, that woman has been charged with bigamy. Candice Andrade, 32 of Kilgore, was arrested in Gregg County on November 15 and released the same day. Her trial date has not been set. In June of 2011, two men said they discovered they were married to Andrade at the same time. They told KLTV they found a third husband in Houston. In November 2011, they discovered...

A fire broke out during routine maintenance at the U.S. State Department on Saturday, injuring four maintenance workers, officials said. The fire began inside ductwork on the building's eighth floor at about 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) as workers were replacing insulation, State Department and fire officials said. Workers doused the fire with hand-held extinguishers before fire department personnel arrived, District of Columbia Battalion Chief Edward Mills said. Mills, who was one of the first responders to the scene, told Reuters TV the cause of the fire remained under investigation but did not immediately appear suspicious.

Lubbock, TX - The Department of Economics at Texas Tech University and Worth Publishers invite you to a public speech presented by Prof. Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, on Thursday, October 25th at 5:00-7:00 pm on the TTU campus in the Human Sciences Building, Room 169. Prof. Krugman's speech is entitled "The Crisis: Year Six", and will be immediately followed by a "Questions & Answer" session. Space is limited, so please arrive early. Professor Paul Krugman is the 2008 Nobel Prize winner and a Professor of Economics at Princeton University. He received his...

Work on the US$683-million Vietnam Space Center began Wednesday in Hanoi’s Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park, newswire Dan Tri reported. The nine-hectare facility will be built by the Vietnam National Satellite Center, an arm of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, with assistance from Japanese engineers and technicians. Japan will also provide official development assistance worth around $600 million for building the facility, expected to be finished in 2020. The Vietnam Space Center will function as a hub for research and production of small satellites for weather forecasting, research, and disaster management. It is expected to help reduce annual losses...

Intra-party rivals may pull him down Prime Minster Nguyen Tan Dung's grip on Vietnam's government is weakening. The Vietnamese premier is under attack by intra-party rivals who don't like his rich friends and fault his management of the economy. If Dung goes down, important changes in Vietnam's management of economic and social issues are likely to follow. As a rule, Vietnam's Communist Party doesn't wash its dirty linen in public. Its spokesmen work hard to maintain the party's aura of competence and infallibility. Party members don't gossip with outsiders about party matters. Decisions made by the party's Politburo or its...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Lubbock will consider a deal to sell water from Lake Alan Henry to a company called Citation Oil. The item comes up for discussion Thursday before the Lubbock Water Advisory Commission, which in turn will make a recommendation to City Council. City of Lubbock Director of Water Resources Aubrey Spear says he does not think the oil company plans to use a controversial practice called "fracking" also known as hydraulic fracturing. However, he still plans to suggest the Commission and the City Council to say ‘no' to the deal. Spear said, "If there's no real compelling...

Levelland, TX - High gasoline prices are bad news for most of us, but there is a silver lining. A Levelland-based company, Home Creek Energy LLC, is making the most of high prices with a major oil-drilling project. The Perry Ranch Multi-Well Production Project will be 117 wells in seven Texas counties. The locations go as far east as Baylor County and as far West as the western edge of Cochran County. It's a multimillion-dollar project with the goal of netting more than $1.15 million per month. Some of the drilling will go more than 10,000 feet below the ground....

SLATON, TX (KCBD) - Parents at Stephen F. Austin in Slaton are concerned about their children's safety after a group of preschoolers displayed inappropriate behavior on the playground. Superintendent Julee Becker confirmed that the incident did involve sexual behavior, but she says supervision levels on school grounds, especially on the playground, have been increased. Several parents of students with disabilities called KCBD NewsChannel 11, worried that their kids would not be able to defend themselves if touched inappropriately. Becker said the students involved were disciplined accordingly and says it was a one-time incident. Josie Dabila, grandparent of a Stephen F....

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A local vet is under scrutiny once again after a new complaint has been filed. Kelley Floyd filed a complaint against Lubbock mobile veterinarian Dr. Penny Kelso due to her treatment of a Labrador retriever named Spooky. "Someone else might call her and lose a beloved pet," Floyd said. "That's what we're trying to prevent." Kelso has been reprimanded by the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners five times. In 2008, Kelso had her license suspended for two years. This most recent case involved a house call that Dr. Kelso made to Patricia Mott's dog, Spooky....

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Strange glowing blue lights flying up and down, side to side and sporadically disappearing and reappearing in the night sky…this is what many south Lubbock residents say they've seen over the last few weeks. After taking several calls, emails and Facebook posts, KCBD decided to check it out and see what was behind these mystery lights. Keith Mowery was just one of many who spotted the blue lights about three weeks ago at his shop off of 87th and Avenue P. "My buddy called me and said you need to get outside right now," said Keith....

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - KCBD NewsChannel 11 has confirmed that a Lubbock airport police officer was arrested Thursday, accused of soliciting prostitution and trespassing. A police report says Gary Dwane Fisher, 58, and a 44-year-old woman "knowingly agreed to engage in sexual conduct for a fee while on public school property." The woman was also arrested. The school property was the Lubbock ISD Administration Building, 1628 19th Street. The report also says that Fisher "knowingly solicited another in a public place to engage with him in sexual conduct for a fee." The City of Lubbock confirms that Fisher is not...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - They clean houses, but this new Lubbock business claims to offer nude or partially nude services. It's called Lubbock Fantasy Maid Service. The owner, Melissa Borrett, tells us she started the business after struggling to make ends meet. "As a single mother, I had been working a variety of different jobs, including waitressing out at the strip club. I was having to answer to a lot of people," Borrett said. For $100 an hour she says they will clean your house nude or topless. They opened about a month ago and she says business is booming....

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A federal appeals court scolded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday for rejecting a series of state pollution control projects in Texas that federal regulators said failed to satisfy requirements of the Clean Air Act. The ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stopped short of ordering the EPA to accept the previously rejected Texas measures. Yet the three-judge panel directed the agency to take another look at the state's regulations and issue a quick decision.

The President and CEO of Lubbock's Planned Parenthood has been arrested for indecent exposure. According to Lubbock Police, Tony Ray Thornton, 56, was arrested at the baseball fields inside of Mackenzie Park. According to the incident report, Thornton was taken into custody at 3:25 Monday afternoon. He was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center and released from jail Tuesday morning around 11 a.m. Thornton has worked with Planned Parenthood in Lubbock for several years. We'll have more information as it becomes available. Copyright 2012 KCBD. All rights reserved.

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Occupy Lubbock will be forced to leave next month due to City of Lubbock maintenance. Protesters have occupied the area on 19th Street and University for nearly six months. They started by holding signs on the corner of the street. Now they have several tents where they sleep and organize protests. They say they are protesting against the one percent of people that control the majority of our country's wealth. The group chose their location because it was city property, not a park. Therefore, they were allowed to stay under the condition they would not vandalize...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - The City of Lubbock received official word on Tuesday morning that it is being sued for more than $8.9 million by a company called Republic Power. In a sense, the story begins in 1983 when Lubbock, Brownfield, Floydada and Tulia created the West Texas Municipal Power Agency. WTMPA buys wholesale power on behalf of the cities. Republic Power says starting in 2008, it had a partnership with WTMPA to purchase two power plants in Odessa. It goes on to say the City of Lubbock had a 92% majority interest in WTMPA and could have objected at...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Lubbock teenager is accused of posting online advertisements and forcing an underage girl into prostitution. According to court documents, Markee Toliver, 19, is facing three felony charges of knowingly employing a child who was under the age of 18 to engage in sexual conduct, causing a person under the age of 18 to commit prostitution, and trafficking of a person who is under the age of 18 into forced labor (sexual performance of a child). Toliver was caught through an undercover sting operation this week, conducted by the Lubbock Police Department. Investigators say they tracked...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - The Transportation Security Administration unveiled new, less-invasive scanners last month, promising to keep up security while protecting passenger privacy. The new software used Automated Target Recognition technology to focus on the detection of unusual objects without showing a detailed image of the bodies being scanned. Now, less than a month later, the scanners are no longer working. The Aviation Director for the Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport says they suffered water damage after a nearby air conditioning unit leaked on them. The TSA is currently determining whether to fix the scanners or to replace them entirely....

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) will use a part of its current deposit insurance fund for foreign currencies and gold after starting to mobilize gold bullion from the citizens, said a SBV official. The fund will only be used in case of mass gold withdrawal when gold prices hike, the official who wants to remain anonymous told Tien Phong newspaper. "The central bank will raise gold through credit institutions," he said. It is expected that the SBV will submit the scheme for mobilizing gold from the citizens to the Government in the middle of Q2/2012, according to Tien Phong....

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina said it doesn't seek another war over the Falkland Islands, and accused Britain of militarizing their sovereignty dispute by announcing Tuesday that it is sending an advanced warship to the islands along with Prince William "in the uniform of a conquistador." The assignment of Prince William, a Royal Air Force helicopter pilot, for a six-week military mission in the Falklands in February and March has been a sore point for Argentina. It has sought to reclaim the South Atlantic archipelago that it calls the Malvinas Islands ever since Britain seized the islands some 180...

A 65-year-old man shot two teens, one fatally, as they tried to rob him Wednesday morning on a trail near the Schuylkill River, police said. The Berks County coroner's office did not release the name of the boy who was killed, saying only that he was a 16-year-old from the city. Officials said his mother asked them to give her time to notify relatives before releasing his name. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:17 p.m. by Deputy Coroner Jonn M. Hollenbach. An autopsy is scheduled this afternoon in Reading Hospital. The other teen, who was shot once,...

SLATON, TX (KCBD) - One person is dead and two are in the hospital after a Slaton homeowner interrupted, and shot, a home intruder Thursday. Fred Melcher, 69, was entering his home on the 1400 block of Lynn Street when he and Edith Ayers, 51, interrupted an intruder. Authorities say Melcher knew the intruder and believed he was being robbed. Authorities are withholding the name of the man who was killed until the family can be notified. Melcher was shot during the struggle, but was apparently able to shoot and kill the intruder. Ayers was also shot during the struggle....

VietNamNet Bridge – It is quite normal to see elderly people and married people, who have to feed dependent children to “save up for the rainy day” by keeping gold at their coffers. However, hoarding gold has become “in fashion” among young people as well. Nguyen Ngoc Huyen, an officer of a medical equipment distribution company, said she began hoarding gold eight years ago, when she was the fourth year student of the university and began working to get the money of her own. Huyen did not spend the money she earned but bought gold to keep in her coffer....

Vietnam's navy has taken delivery of its first locally-made warship, equipped with artillery and missile systems, local media report. The Hong Ha shipbuilding company started building the model in 2009 and tested the warship last year.

When Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne introduces the Dodge Dart compact car this week, he will be showing off the first example of what a merger between Chrysler group LLC and Italy's Fiat SpA can create. The 2013 Dart -- to be unveiled at the Detroit auto show -- is based on a Fiat-engineered platform that also will serve as the basis for the next generation of Jeep SUVs. With the Dart, Chrysler aims to take market share from Toyota Motor Corp's Corolla and Honda Motor Co's Civic in an area the U.S. automaker has traditionally fallen short.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming. The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon," or hawk. The radio signal travels deep into the arid countryside, hours by foot from the nearest road. There, the 8-foot-tall (2-meter-tall) dark-green branches of the rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in the dirt draws power from a...

Two tourists from Hong Kong are selling their own pictures in the Pham Ngu Lao backpacker area in Ho Chi Minh City to earn money for their daily meals while waiting for new visas after being robbed off all their possessions, including passports. On December 15, in a rented room in Binh Thanh District, Kit Kay, one of the two victims, told VnExpress newswire that on December 12, he and his girlfriend Leung Ka Kei, who goes by the nickname Doris, both of Chinese origin and born in 1988, arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, their first destination on a...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Dallas based adult entertainment business with a club right here in Lubbock is getting sued by some current and former dancers. The dancers say they're hired as independent contractors rather than employees paid by the hour. Documents from the federal lawsuit show 8 dancers suing Jaguars. According to the lawsuit they worked in Lubbock, Abilene, Odessa, Dallas, and Fort Worth. We've been unable to determine how many dancers worked at the Lubbock location or if they're still employed. Texas Tech labor law professor Jarod Gonzalez explains the difference between an employee and an independent contractor....

LUBBOCK (KCBD) - One person is behind bars following a confrontation at the Occupy Lubbock camp. Protestors say three men, in a black pickup truck, parked behind the camp, at 19th Street and University Avenue, around 6:45 p.m. Monday, and began shouting obscenities at them. One of the protestors, Andrew McMillan, confronted the men, who witnesses say threatened to beat him up if he came any closer. McMillan tried to get the truck's license plate as the men drove off. Protestors say the driver stopped, then one of the men got out and pointed a gun at McMillan. When officers...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Lubbock Police are looking for a suspect who they say stole a $400 generator from Occupy Lubbock. The theft occurred Sunday around 5:30 a.m. Some Occupy Lubbock members say they were on site at 19th Street and University Avenue when a thief cut the chain attached to the generator. According to police, the suspect then stole it and drove off in a white passenger car. "And Loaded it into their car while it was still running, hopefully they don't have carbon monoxide poisoning," said one of the protesters Andrew McMillan. Anica Wilson, one of the protesters...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - United States Attorney General Eric Holder has personally intervened in the criminal case against a Lubbock resident, Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 21. Holder signed a document on October 25th that was filed in Lubbock federal court on Monday. Holder claims that if classified material is made public in the Aldawsari case it "...reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security of the United States." Aldawsari is accused of assembling the material needed for a chemical bomb in his Central Lubbock apartment. Court records say his proposed targets included the home of former President...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Lubbock man, Jeff Gunselman, 29, is suspected of committing $40 million worth of wire fraud. Court records related to Gunselman's company, Absolute Fuels, were unsealed Monday, solving some of the mystery surrounding a mid-October federal raid at several Lubbock and South Plains locations. On Oct. 19, Secret Service Agent Michael Fiveash requested 36 seizure warrants for properties and bank accounts related to Gunselman or Absolute Fuels. Each request for a seizure warrant accuses Gunselman of selling "Renewable Identification Numbers" for bio-diesel fuel that never existed. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 obligated fuel makers to...

Background A little after 1600 UTC on February 21, 2010, in the #wunclub IRC channel, a user (LDO, a European region monitor) threw out the question "Vietnamese numbers? 10255" I had been paying fairly close attention to the Asian numbers stations for the past year or so, and immediately tuned to the indicated frequency of 10255 kHz. Sure enough, there was a previously unreported Vietnamese language numbers station on that frequency. S6 or stronger here in Southern California. What made this signal fairly interesting is that as far as I know no Vietnamese numbers station of any kind had been...

Fallout from the Texas budget cuts is starting to hit home. Public colleges are losing about 15 percent of state funding for financial aid, roughly $140 million statewide, and they're sending out award notices for the start of school next month. No surprise that the price of college is going up sharply for many students who can least afford it. In addition to less aid, enrollments are climbing for students who qualify for Texas grants, which usually translates to family incomes of less than $40,000 annually. For many, the only option is to borrow more money. "Private alternative loans --...

A respectful crowd of Permian Basin residents gathered at Midland Center on Wednesday to speak at a public hearing about the listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard as an endangered species. The listing possibly could shut down oil and gas, grazing and farming operations in Andrews, Crane, Gaines, Ward and Winkler counties in West Texas and Chaves, Eddy, Lea and Roosevelt counties in New Mexico. The hearing was conducted by officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, overseen by Jeff Humphrey, public outreach specialist with the service out of Arizona. Wally Murphy, New Mexico state field supervisor, told the...

In the Spring 2010 issue of City Journal, I described an archive of documents from Soviet government agencies smuggled to the West by the Russian researcher Pavel Stroilov and the Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. These documents, I noted, were available to anyone who wanted to consult them. But nobody did. Publishers were indifferent. Only a fraction of the documents had been translated into English. This was, I argued, a symptom of the world’s dangerous indifference to the enormity of Communist crimes. Within weeks of the article’s appearance, I received hundreds of e-mails. Many came from victims of Soviet Communism—there is...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Two weeks ago we told you about oil and gas companies taking a growing interest in properties south of Lubbock. After our story aired, viewers came to us with questions about how the advanced drilling methods could affect the environment. Tuesday, we spoke with the chair of Texas Tech's Petroleum Engineering Department to get some answers. As we reported, geologists are looking for natural gas and oil in a large rock formation more than a mile below the surface. They'll inject a combination water, sand, and sometimes chemicals into the rock called shale. When it breaks,...

LYNN AND TERRY COUNTY, TX (KCBD) - Advanced methods and technology have oil companies interested in drilling throughout several counties in our area. Land owners are receiving offers to lease mineral rights to the companies, and many of them are seeing big offers. Geologists think there is oil and natural gas in large shale formations underneath Hockley, Terry, Gaines, Dawson, and Lynn counties, and they want to get it out. If they're right, the economy of communities in these counties could change forever. "I don't think I'd have an opportunity in 3 or 4 lifetimes to see this," Bill McGowan...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Slaton man is among four people who sued President Barack Obama and other government officials on Friday to stop implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Arthur Enloe and other members of a Knoxville Tennessee-based group called the Liberty Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit in Lubbock federal court. Why Lubbock? "Because Lubbock is the most Constitution following town we could find," says lead attorney Van Irion. Defendants include the President, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and U.S. Attorney General...

UPDATED at 8:52 p.m. The Texas Senate just gave final approval to a GOP-backed law that will require voters to show an approved photo identification card to cast a ballot in elections. Approved by a vote of 19-11, along party lines, the measure is touted by both sides as one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country. The final approval came in two votes: One on final reading, the second after a brief delay so the Senate could start a new legislative day, a procedural move. The bill now goes to the House for consideration. Lt. Gov. David...

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas environmental regulators on Wednesday approved a crucial air quality permit that paves the way for construction of a coal-fired power plant in Corpus Christi, defying a request by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deny the permit. The three-person Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted 2-0 to approve the permit for the planned Las Brisas Energy Center, with a few minor modifications. Commissioner Carlos Rubinstein abstained from voting due to being briefed on the permit when he previously served as deputy executive director. The permit's approval marked the latest chapter in a feud between the state...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - As the investigation continues into Elizabeth's death, frustrated citizens have questions for the Lubbock Police Department. People have posted concerns on the police department and KCBD's Facebook page. Comments have also been found on Craigslist and other public forums. Most of the questions ask LPD why two weeks went by before police viewed surveillance tapes from the motel where Elizabeth was last seen. One person posted the following on LPD's Facebook page: "You can ignore us but we can be in your face for answers either through the Chief or Mayors Office." Captain Greg Stevens was...

AUSTIN — Outraged groups — from doctors and health executives to teachers, the elderly, advocates for abused children and even some Republicans — ripped the proposed House budget Wednesday, saying it would send the state backward. Critics heaped scorn on the House GOP leaders’ all-cuts approach to the state’s giant budget hole, particularly for reductions in education that would eliminate pre-kindergarten programs, shutter four community colleges and close university opportunities for tens of thousands needing financial aid. Any advancement in curtailing high school dropout rates, improving college graduation statistics and preparing Texans for future jobs would be, at best, placed...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - You can expect to see some changes to the Lubbock Police Department's fleet. LPD is buying 50 new SUV or Sport Utility Vehicles to replace aging police cars. Police have traditionally used a Ford Crown Victoria as their most common vehicle. However, Mayor Tom Martin says the Crown Victoria is no longer an option. Internet reports indicate that Ford will stop production of that particular model in 2011. "I did talk with the police administrators and it's not going to be as much as we thought," said Councilman Floyd Price, Lubbock City Council. Councilman Floyd Price...