Free Republic

Op-Ed Hiking L.A.'s Minimum Wage Is A No-Brainer Minimum wage Fast food workers protest low pay, demanding a $15/hour minimum wage outside during a two-day nationwide strike. (Los Angeles Times) By ELI BROAD Raising the minimum wage isn't just good for workers: It's good for business Could you support your family in Los Angeles on the current minimum wage? Raising L.A.'s minimum wage will be a win all around Of all major cities in the country, Los Angeles has the highest percentage of population living in poverty. After decades of slow job growth and stagnant wages, 28% of Angelenos —...

HOUSTON, Texas -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expected to allow thousands of illegal immigrant deportees to return to the U.S., so long as they have ties to Southern California. Taxpayers will additionally fund a media campaign in Mexico, alerting deportees that they may be eligible to come back to the United States. An agreement outlining the new settlement was announced in late August, according to the Los Angeles Times. The plan, which only applies to Southern California, was reportedly drawn up in response to a lawsuit that was filed last year by the American Civil Liberties...

From the start, little has been typical about Tesla Motors' plan for a $5 billion factory to make batteries for a new generation of electric cars. It's not just the project's massive scale, the cutting-edge technology, or even the bonanza of 6,500 good-paying jobs. It's how Tesla is deciding where to build. Through a series of unusual plays, Tesla has five states bidding up subsidy packages to land the coveted plant. The winner is expected to offer the luxury car-maker publicly financed incentives exceeding a half-billion dollars.

The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday that President Obama is notably cautious — “maybe, in this instance, too cautious” — but insisted the U.S. and its allies will coalesce behind a plan to beat back the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria before their well-funded sources take Baghdad.

Rapper Nipsey Hussle has been arrested for interfering in the arrest of a man authorities were after for violating his probation. The incident occurred on the night of Friday, August 29th. Police responded to a report that a man had violated his probation and was currently located in a clothing store in downtown Los Angeles. Upon searching the store for the alleged parole violator, they came across Hussle, who committed an undisclosed action that authorities viewed as obstructing an officer which subsequently resulted in his arrest. He was released shortly after his arrest after posting bail in the amount...

Dueling bidders for a major Pentagon stealth bomber contract would be eligible for massive tax credits under a bill that's on Gov. Jerry Brown's desk. Brown has been pushing for an aerospace tax credit that could help companies create thousands of jobs near Palmdale. In July, lawmakers grudgingly approved a $420 million tax credit that would benefit a joint bid being submitted by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. The governor signed the fast-tracked AB2389 into law after his office assured competitor Northrop Grumman Corp. that it would receive a similar deal.

The San Francisco Giants and 49ers both said Thursday they are "disturbed" by allegations that the CEO of the company that provides concessions to AT&T Park and Levi's Stadium was caught on video kicking and abusing his dog. Media reports have circulated surveillance video of a man identified as Centerplate CEO Desmond Hague kicking a frightened puppy and choking it with its leash in a Vancouver elevator last month. The Connecticut-based company handles food and beverage sales at numerous entertainment venues, including for the Giants and 49ers. Its Board of Directors said in a statement that it has censured Hague,...

Take your blood pressure medicine or just double up on your meds before watching this video. David Spady of Americans for Prosperity California takes you on a fact filled tour of the welfare abuse and fraud in California. Post your comments or your favorite cassarole recipe.

On May 21, Los Angeles voters will go to the polls to select a new mayor. Who will govern Los Angeles, however, is only the second-most important local question in the city today. The most important, by far, is who will buy the Los Angeles Times. The Times is one of the eight daily newspapers now owned by the creditors who took control of the Tribune Co. after real estate wheeler-dealer Sam Zell drove it into bankruptcy. Others include the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and the Hartford Courant. The Tribune board members whom the creditors selected...

Ending a half-century of geological speculation, scientists have finally seen the process that causes rocks to move atop Racetrack Playa, a desert lake bed in the mountains above Death Valley, California. Researchers watched a pond freeze atop the playa, then break apart into sheets of ice that — blown by wind — shoved rocks across the lake bed. Until now, no one has been able to explain why hundreds of rocks scoot unseen across the playa surface, creating trails behind them like children dragging sticks through the mud. “It’s a delight to be involved in sorting out this kind of...

The first witnesses to an enduring natural mystery are an engineer, a biologist and a planetary scientist who met thanks to a remote weather station. Lacking direct evidence, explanations for this geologic puzzle ran the gamut, from Earth's magnetic field to gale-force winds to slippery algae. Now, with video, time-lapse photographs and GPS tracking of Racetrack Playa's moving rocks, the mystery has finally been solved.

For years scientists have theorized about how large rocks — some weighing hundreds of pounds — zigzag across Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, leaving long trails etched in the earth. Now two researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, have photographed these "sailing rocks" being blown by light winds across the former lake bed. Richard Norris and James Norris said the movement is made possible when ice sheets that form after rare overnight rains melt in the rising sun, making the hard ground muddy and slick. On Dec. 20, 2013, the...

It's a geological enigma that's had scientists speculating for half a century. But the mystery behind Death Valley's 'Wandering Stones' has finally been uncovered. It was previously unknown what caused the rocks to move across Racetrack Playa, a desert lake bed in the mountains above California's Death Valley, leaving their distinctive trails behind them. But researchers have witnessed a thin layer of water freezing over the lake, before breaking into sheets the thickness of a window pane and nudging the rocks as they were blown by the breeze. “It’s a delight to be involved in sorting out this kind of...

(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona) A rolling stone gathers no moss – but on Mars it can nevertheless cloak itself in mystery. This NASA image shows the track of a boulder that rolled across the Nili Fossae region of Mars. For now it is anyone's guess what set the rock in motion. This false-colour picture (click on it for higher resolution) was posted on 7 June to the Beautiful Mars Tumblr feed, a collection of high-resolution shots from the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It shows dark, jagged tracks left in the soil by a lumpy boulder, probably...

One of the mysterious peripatetic, or roving, rocks of Death Valley National Park in California and Nevada sits at the end of a curved track in a summer 2010 picture. Found in the Racetrack—an aptly named dry lakebed, or playa—the moving rocks have stumped scientists since the 1940s. For instance, the rocks are thought to move as fast as a walking person, but they've never been seen in action. Previous studies have shown that gravity or earthquakes can't explain the objects' movements. Now a student-research project led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has lent support to the idea that,...

Actively studied for 50 years, the rocks that mysteriously move around the dried lake bed playa in Death Valley, called the Racetrack, are yet to have an unquestionable explanation for their movement. ... In 1976 Robert Sharp and Dwight Carey diputed the ice-sheet theory. They analyzed the tracks and concluded because of track characteristics and the geometries of the tracks relative to each other that ice sheets could not have been involved in forming the tracks and moving the rocks. Sharp and Carey concluded due to the non-parallel nature and the crossing of some trails that it would be impossible...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 April 10 Unusual Rocks in Death Valley Credit & Copyright: Joe Orman Explanation: How did those big rocks end up on that strange terrain? One of the more unusual places here on Earth occurs inside Death Valley, California, USA. There a dried lakebed named Racetrack Playa exists that is almost perfectly flat, with the odd exception of some very large stones, one of which is pictured above....

By now, most of us know there is water on the moon. But did you know that it comes in three flavors and there is so much of it--158 billion gallons--that it could fill all of Seattle's water needs for three years? It turns out there is water all over the lunar landscape, which is rather astonishing since astronomers were convinced for such a long time that it was bone dry. Discovery.com and Space.com report this all changed when actual measurements were taken using the Mini-SAR and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3 or "M-cubed") instruments on India's Chandrayaan-1 moon probe and...

Boulder, CO, USA – A geologist's sharp eyes and upset stomach has led to the discovery, and almost too-close encounter, with an otherworldly geological process operating in a remote corner of northern Chile's Atacama Desert. The sour stomach belonged to University of Arizona geologist Jay Quade. It forced him and his colleagues Peter Reiners and Kendra Murray to stop their truck at a lifeless expanse of boulders which they had passed before without noticing anything unusual. "I had just crawled underneath the truck to get out of the sun," Quade said. The others had hiked off to look around, as...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...