Free Republic

Global climate models aren’t given nearly enough credit for their accurate global temperature change projections. As the 2014 IPCC report showed, observed global surface temperature changes have been within the range of climate model simulations. Now a new study shows that the models were even more accurate than previously thought. In previous evaluations like the one done by the IPCC, climate model simulations of global surface air temperature were compared to global surface temperature observational records like HadCRUT4. However, over the oceans, HadCRUT4 uses sea surface temperatures rather than air temperatures. There’s a common myth that models are unreliable, often...

A small semi-submersible vessel containing four people and eight tons of cocaine was discovered by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on July 18 in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The self-propelled craft was first spotted off the coast of El Salvador by a Navy maritime patrol aircraft flying overhead. The semi-sub was hundreds of miles offshore in international waters. The U.S. Coast Guard was called in to assist with intercepting the craft. Four individuals were detained by the Coast Guard boarding team in the process. Roughly274 bales of cocaine were found in the semi-sub, weighing...

The State Department released a third batch of highly sought after emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's controversial private email account today. Posted on the State Department's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) website, the collection includes just over 1,300 emails all dated in 2009. One email sent to Secretary Clinton in November of 2009 shows how then-Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill described Iraqis as "a collective pain in the neck." The State Department has established a full-time staff, with one project manager, two case analysts, nine FOIA reviewers and a slew of additional information analysts who have been...

AP reporter Matt Lee sparred with a State Department spokesperson who insisted the administration was adequately briefed on a side deal between the IAEA and Iran, despite not having read it. “We haven’t received a written copy of it, but we have been briefed on its contents,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said. “So someone with a photographic memory has looked at it and copied everything down in their brain and then repeated it up on the Hill?” Lee asked. The Obama administration has defended this anti-transparency measure, calling it standard practice and objecting to the term “secret deal.”...

Over the last several months the Obama Administration has consistently maintained that no deal with Iran is better than a bad deal, but we now know this claim — as with many claims made throughout these negotiations — was merely political spin. The deal announced by the Obama Administration last week provides Iran with $150 billion in unfrozen assets with which to fund terrorism, puts our national security at risk, and does little to stop Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon. For these reasons and others we believe that Congress must reject this deal. President Obama promised that a deal...

New York's new $15 minimum wage for fast food workers applies to more than 100 brands doing business in the state. The only criteria: They must operate in at least 30 locations nationwide. Laura Jankowski owns three Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchises on Long Island. The brand has 16 locations in New York and more than 400 nationwide. Research suggests that most fast food workers in New York are 22 or older. But Jankowski says the vast majority of her employees are high school and college students. Most earn $8.75 an hour but her shift leaders earn $9.75. The new higher...

New Yorkers are proving to be cost conscious when choosing a private health insurance plan from New York State of Health, the marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act, which has now enrolled more than 10 percent of state residents. Of the 2.1 million enrollees, 415,352 chose a private plan, 1,568,345 signed up for Medicaid and 159,716 enrolled in Child Health Plus, according to an enrollment report released Wednesday by the state's health department. Other highlights from the report: - The state's call center handled calls in 92 different languages and dialects. - Two-thirds of those who purchased a private...

Financial companies are facing extortion threats from hackers who threaten to knock their websites offline unless firms pay tens of thousands of dollars, an FBI agent told MarketWatch Thursday. More than 100 companies, including targets from big banks to brokerages in the financial sector, have received distributed denial of service threats since about April, says Richard Jacobs, assistant special agency in charge of the cyber branch at the FBI’s New York office. With these types of attacks, known as DDoS, criminals jam websites by flooding them with useless traffic. The ransom requests typically run in the tens of thousands of...

Daylen Brickley, a baby from the US state of New Hampshire, is the proud owner of a lifetime permit to hunt and fish - the first license holder under a new program. His fishing license is valid, but he will need to complete a hunter safety course before receiving that permit. His mother, Erica Brickley, is not concerned about his future training. The whole family was raised around hunting and fishing, "so I figure he'll kind of get in the swing of things". "It was only natural to kind of keep it going," she told the New Hampshire Union Leader.

Benghazi! Falling approval ratings! Email-gate! Lately the headlines have been full of gloom for Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, prompting a spate of columns and commentary about whether her campaign is Officially in Trouble. "Both her and her campaign are in trouble," pollster John Zogby said in a recent television interview. "She is frankly sinking like a rock." But is it really so? Here are some reasons why - and why not - the former secretary of state should be concerned about her presidential prospects.

Venezuela could stop making beer by August, as local breweries run out of ingredients needed to produce the country’s most popular alcoholic drink. A brewery shutdown would reduce the country’s beer supply by a terrifying 80 percent, according to industry leaders. Local breweries say they are down to their final batches of barley, malt and other imported products needed to make beer, thanks to Venezuela’s strict currency controls that have made it almost impossible to purchase supplies. The industry, which is calling the situation an “unprecedented crisis,” is already some $200 million in arrears to suppliers around the world. “Beer...

The union representing state transit police in Baltimore says commanders and agency administrators made "detrimental and disturbing" decisions that endangered officers during April's riots — adding another layer of criticism to the response by law enforcement leaders. In a letter, AFSCME Local 1859 President Jerome Damon called on the Maryland Transit Administration to investigate the agency's handling of the April 27 unrest, noting that four officers dispatched without protective gear to a West Baltimore subway station had to be rescued by an armored vehicle after crowds set two MTA police vehicles and the nearby CVS pharmacy ablaze. The concerns —...

Barack Obama has called on African nations to treat homosexual people equally under the law in his first presidential visit to his father's homeland. The US President likened gay rights to the American civil rights movement when he was asked about the issue in Kenya's capital. In a joint news conference with his Kenyan counterpart, Mr Obama said he was "painfully aware of the history when people are treated differently under the law". Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta dismissed it as a "non-issue" for his country. "There are some things that we must admit we don't share - our culture, our...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to have it his way with New York's fast-food industry — and restaurant owners aren't loving it. Franchise owners say they're considering a lawsuit against Cuomo's plan to raise the minimum wage in their eateries to $15 an hour, arguing that it is not fair or legal to be saddled with such a significant increase in labor costs that won't apply to retail, landscaping, child care or other traditionally low-wage industries. "Singling out fast food restaurants while ignoring other industries that hire workers who are paid under $15 is unfair and discriminatory, harms New York workers,...

Story Highlights: * Bernie Sanders' national favorable score doubles to 24%. * Hillary Clinton's image slips, now tilts negative, 48% to 43%. * Sanders still trails Clinton in favorability among Democrats. Bernie Sanders' favorable rating among Americans has doubled since Gallup's initial reading in March, rising to 24% from 12% as he has become better known. Hillary Clinton's rating has slipped to 43% from 48% in April. At the same time, Clinton's unfavorable rating increased to 46%, tilting her image negative and producing her worst net favorable score since December 2007.

Senate conservatives couldn’t stop a vote on the Export-Import bank. So they’re going to try to force a vote on Obamacare instead. Conservative firebrand Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) announced on Friday that he plans to use a complicated procedural maneuver known as the nuclear option to repeal the Affordable Care Act with just 51 votes. Democrats famously used the strategy in 2013 to break a Republican blockade of President Obama’s nominees to fill judicial openings. Now Lee wants to use the partisan procedure get rid of Obamacare. It’s unclear whether Lee’s gambit will work — but if it does, there...

Baltimore’s hotel business is slumping this summer, just a year removed from a banner season for tourism and reflecting the lingering impact of April’s riots. Hotels in downtown’s central business district posted an average occupancy rate of 73.3 percent in June, down from 82.5 percent in the year-ago month, according to data from travel research firm STR Inc. The occupancy rate in May dropped 17.1 percent to 64.7 percent. As colleague Camille Harrison and myself reported in Friday’s cover story of the BBJ, hotels aren’t the only businesses feeling the sting from the riots. Museums and attractions are struggling, and...

In stark contrast to the U.S. government's measured approach to countering ISIS in Iraq through the deployment of military advisors and stand-off airstrikes, Iran flatly offered Iraq an "open check" to battle the Islamic extremists, the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. said today. "In relation to Iran, it also sees the threat of ISIS is a threat to its national security," Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily told the audience at the Aspen Security Forum today, noting that at one point ISIS forces were within 25 miles of the Iranian border to Iraq's east. "And their approach to it, more or less,...

There's a battle brewing behind the scenes to keep health plans affordable for consumers. The Obama administration weighed in this week, sending letters to insurance regulators in every state and Washington, D.C., that ask them to take a closer look at rate requests before granting them. In Maryland, for example, the dominant insurer on the exchange, CareFirst, is asking for a rate increase of 30 percent for some of its plans. In Kansas, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas is seeking increases averaging 37 percent. Insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski says that forcing people to change plans in order...

A couple of missed calls, a voicemail — even a Snapchat — from his teacher notified Steinmetz College Prep graduate Cesar Bustos, 18, that he was headed to the White House. Bustos, who was at work when he got the news, is one of 130 students selected to attend first lady Michelle Obama’s Beating the Odds Summit on Thursday. The summit is part of the first lady’s Reach Higher initiative, which is intended to get more U.S. students to continue their education after high school. “The experience sounds so surreal,” Bustos said. “Being undocumented, I never believed I would ever...