Free Republic

"Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," said Ty Smith, who also uses the name Aries. He saw Mateen at the club at least a dozen times, he told the Orlando Sentinel. "We didn't really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times," Smith said. "He told us he had a wife and child." Orlando Police Chief John Mina said he had no information about those visits.

The pilot's comments were made in a social media chat group used by Nok Air pilots that was later leaked. In it a pilot posted a picture of Yingluck about to board their Nok Air flight over the weekend. One chat member responded with "We have prey on board". Another then added "CFIT". CFIT is an aviation acronym for "controlled flight into terrain", a term used to describe when a pilot unintentionally crashes a plane that has no technical problems. Panthongtae Shinawatra - the son of Yingluck's brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled as premier by a 2006 coup -...

/10/2016 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Explosive Ordnance Disposal Airmen from the 812th Civil Engineering Squadron blew up 20 gallons of a hazardous chemical at an on-base range June 6. The chemical was determined to be a nitrocellulose-dope lacquer, which was found at a drop-off point for hazardous materials waste in Lancaster, California. The city was able to track it back to General William J. Fox Airfield. "Nitrocellulose-dope lacquer was originally used to harden the flight surfaces of fabric-based aircraft," said Staff Sgt. Christopher Severe, 812th CES, EOD. "We knew from our research that this particular lot could...

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Authorities in Santa Monica arrested an Indiana man Sunday morning ahead of the LA PRIDE parade in nearby West Hollywood after the discovery of possible explosives in a car, according to California law enforcement. Just before 3 p.m. ET, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told the Associated Press a heavily armed man was arrested, and that man told police during his arrest he was going to the PRIDE parade. Investigators removed items from the suspect's white Acura sedan and placed them on the sidewalk near the driver's side door, according to KNBC. Santa Monica Chief of...

Early Sunday, there was a call into Santa Monica police of a suspected prowler near Olympic Boulevard and 11th Street. Patrol officers responded and encountered an individual who told officers he was waiting for a friend. That led officers to inspect the car and found several weapons a lot of ammunition as well as tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to create a pipe bomb. The car had Indiana plates. He did make comments that he was in town for the pride event in WeHo this weekend. Source said they did not know of any connection between what happened...

At precisely 7 a.m. Sunday Dan Patrick tweeted a photo with the words of Galatians 6:7. The verse reads, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." The Twitterverse circled the tweet, commenting that it was inappropriate and insensitive considering the context of the day's events. The Texas Democratic Party called for Patrick to apologize. Allen Blakemore with Patrick's office told the Dallas Morning News that the tweet was prescheduled and not a reaction to the shooting, noting, "This was certainly not done with any fore knowledge of the events of the day." Another...

Christopher Johnson was arrested on July 29, 2015, on the suspicion that he was driving while intoxicated, the lawsuit filed Wednesday states. When he was posing for his mugshot, he was allegedly choked by two Harris County employees while being booked into the county jail because he was smiling for the photo. The lawsuit does not specify who the two employees were or what their jobs were. “It was a willful violation of his civil rights and civil liberties, he should have the right to smile,” Andre Evans, Johnson’s attorney, told ABC News Friday. Evans hopes to “send a message...

Food riots and violent looting have become a daily occurrence across scarcity-struck Venezuela and a major problem for the struggling leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro. Despite hours in lines, Venezuelans increasingly find that coveted supplies of subsidized flour and rice run out before they can buy them. Many are skipping meals, getting by on mangoes stripped from trees - or taking matters into their own hands.

A man set off home-made explosives at Terminal 2 in Pudong International Airport and then attempted to commit suicide, police said today. The man, who is not identified and in his 30s, is now in a critical condition. The blasts also injured four other passengers. According to police, the explosives were stocked inside a beer bottle. The man took out the bottle from his backpack, ignited the lead and threw it near the C check-in counter at 2:26pm.

This mission was launched aboard a Delta IV Heavy configuration Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), which featured a center common booster core along with two strap-on common booster cores. The ULA Delta IV Heavy is currently the world's largest rocket, providing the nation with reliable and proven heavy lift capability. Each common booster core was powered by an RS-68A liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine producing 702,000 pounds of thrust. A single RL10 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine powered the second stage. The booster and upper stage engines are both built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. ULA constructed the Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle in...

Myriam Ducre-Lemay, 20, died in 2012 after kissing her boyfriend — he'd eaten a peanut butter sandwich and wasn't aware of her peanut allergy (or the severity of it) and she was not carrying her EpiPen with her at the time, CTV News reports. Her mother is just now publicizing the story to help others avoid the same situation. According to CJAD, Ducre-Lemay and her boyfriend had been out at a party earlier that night, which is why she didn't have her medication or her Medic Alert bracelet on her. After the kiss, she had trouble breathing, tried using her...

Scientists have found dangerous drug-resistant "super bacteria" off beaches in Rio de Janeiro that will host Olympic swimming events and in a lagoon where rowing and canoe athletes will compete when the Games start on Aug. 5. The findings from two unpublished academic studies seen by Reuters concern Rio's most popular spots for tourists and greatly increase the areas known to be infected by the microbes normally found only in hospitals. ... A study published in late 2014 had shown the presence of the super bacteria - classified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an...

Bond guru Bill Gross believes the growing global move toward negative yields will have dire consequences. In a tweet from his firm, Janus Capital, Gross goes back half a millennium to assert that the current situation with the world's debt market is unprecedented and dangerous: The warning comes as yields on Japanese government bonds and German bunds hit record lows.

Erdogan was initially on the roster of speakers on the funeral — a list that includes a number of famous names, such as former president Bill Clinton and comedian Billy Crystal. However, on Monday, Ali family spokesman Bob Gunnell had said that two unnamed speakers had been added to the program, meaning that foreign guests Erdogan and King Abdullah II of Jordan would no longer be able to make an address. Gunnell told reporters that the two world leaders had been “gracious and understood.” But there were a number of suggestions that perhaps Erdogan had been removed from the list...

Shooters broke into the house in a mountainous area known as Sierra Negra early on Friday morning and killed five women, four men and two girls, before fleeing on foot, according to the state attorney general's office. Two other girls with chest and stomach wounds were taken to a hospital in nearby Tehuacan. Vicente Lopez de la Vega, a mayor from the city of Coxcatlan, said it was not immediately clear if the shooting was the result of a family feud or organized crime.

A ten-year project to decipher inscriptions on the ancient Greek “Antikythera mechanism” has revealed new functions, including the first hint that the device was used to make astrological predictions. The writings also lend support to the idea that the gadget, often called the world's first computer because of its ability to model complex astronomical cycles, originated from the island of Rhodes. Until now, scholars have focused on decoding the sophisticated array of gearwheels inside the 2000-year-old artifact. The new publication tackles instead the lettering squeezed onto every available surface. “It’s like discovering a whole new manuscript,” says Mike Edmunds, emeritus...

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - A 55-year-old Chester woman died Wednesday after being stabbed in the chest by a beach umbrella that had been caught in the wind. Virginia Beach Police responded to the beach at 33rd Street just after 5 p.m. after receiving calls about a woman in cardiac arrest. Medics arrived and transported the woman to a local hospital, but she died as a result of her injury. She has been identified as Lottie Michelle Belk.

It's that time of the year again when some of the world's most powerful people lock themselves behind closed doors for three days of high-profile discussions. Known as the world's most secretive meeting, the Bilderberg Meetings, held annually since 1954, will take place from June 9 - 12 in Dresden, Germany. It has always attracted curiosity, as no one knows quite what is discussed – although topics released ahead of this year's meeting include the vague "Current events" (Brexit, Trump, migrants?). Other topics of discussion include Europe, Russia, cyber-security, geo-politics of energy and commodity prices (Saudi Arabia?) and 'Precariat and...

Nine months after announcing that China would help build a high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, the private U.S. company behind the plan said late Wednesday that the deal was off. A bullet train stops at the platform before it travels to Lanzhou from the Urumqi south railway station in XpressWest said the decision to terminate the relationship with China Railway International was based “primarily upon difficulties associated with timely performance and CRI’s challenges in obtaining required authority to proceed with required development activities.” XpressWest indicated that its “biggest challenge” was a federal government requirement that high-speed...

The newly revealed structure consists of a 184-by-161-foot (about 56-by-49-meter) platform that encloses a slightly smaller platform originally paved with flagstones. The east side of the interior platform had been lined with a row of columns that once crowned a monumental staircase. A small 28-by-28-foot (8.5-by-8.5-meter) building was centered north-south atop the interior platform and opened to the east, facing the staircase. This enormous open platform, topped with a relatively small building and approached by a monumental facade, has no known parallels to any other structure in Petra. It most likely had a public, ceremonial function, which may make it...