Free Republic

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies. The agreement resolves a lawsuit brought by conservationists after the state had sought to open 37,000 acres , mostly in the Stillwater State Forest, to timber harvesting despite what environmentalists said would be the destruction of prime grizzly bear territory. ... U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in a decision last year found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by...

"Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Aroer are deserted; they will be for flocks, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid. The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, declares the Lord of hosts." (Isaiah 17:1-14) Rabbi Sholom Berger, the Mishkolitz Rebbe An important Hassidic rabbinical leader recently offered a surprising Biblical interpretation of the War of Gog and Magog. At the festive meal that concluded the...

France on Sunday called escalating violence in Israel and Palestinian-controlled territories "extremely worrying and dangerous." The office of President Francois Hollande said "everything must be done to calm the situation and end this cycle (of violence) which has already caused too many victims." In response to rocket fire on Israel Saturday night, the Israeli Air Force launched airstrikes against two Hamas weapons manufacturing sites in Gaza. A pregnant woman and two-year-old daughter were killed in the strike. Early on Sunday morning, an Arab woman from Jaffa attempted a suicide bombing near Ma'ale Adumim east of Jerusalem, lightly injuring one policeman...

MK Yinon Magal (Jewish Home) blasted on Sunday Israeli security forces' slow response to a terrorist in Afula, blaming it on the "[left-wing] ideology" the media "has represented for decades." "We've lost our basic instinct," a distraught Magal announced on Channel 10's Orly and Guy morning show after watching the clip of police officers arguing with and eventually shooting a knife-wielding terrorist in Afula's Central Bus Station. "Some ten officers are standing there, moving backward and forward, dropping cartridges, one with a popsicle...What is this joke?" Magal charged. "A person threatening with a knife should be shot in the head....

Lawsuit alleges that executives at firm Gross founded 40 years ago plotted to remove him in power struggle that preceded his departure last yearBillionaire bond investor Bill Gross has sued his former employer, Pimco, for more than $200m (£130m) for breach of contract and plotting to oust him from the firm he founded more than four decades ago. The suit, filed on Thursday in Orange County, California, alleges that Pimco executives plotted to remove Gross in an internal power struggle that eventually led to him leaving the company in September 2014. Pimco, which is based in Newport Beach, California,...

The death of a top Iranian military commander in Syria this week has dealt a "psychological blow" to elements backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to a U.S. intelligence official. The killing of a commander in the Revolutionary Guards Corps at the hands of ISIS also highlights the extent of Iranian involvement in Syria and the dire straits in which Assad finds himself, Washington-based analysts say. Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani was killed outside Aleppo, Syria, where he was advising the Syrian army in its fight against extremists, Iranian state media reported Friday. Iranian media carried messages of condolence from Iranian...

Election officials have warned all 366 registered women candidates against addressing voters directly. They have asked them to appoint agents to do this on their behalf. The officials have also directed these candidates to create separate sections for men and women at their campaign headquarters. The officials said that violators of gender segregation rules will be fined SR10,000. The elections will take place between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Dec. 12 with the results being announced the following day. Judiea Al-Qahtani, the election commission spokesman, has asked all female candidates to acquire permits for their advertising campaigns, and to...

accounting for roads that have been decommissioned along with roads considered “unauthorized,” the mileage of road closures on U.S. Forest Service (USFS) land in Montana balloons to 21,951 miles. On Monday, Media Trackers reported that a study commissioned by the state legislature earlier this year and reported to the EQC last week found that 9,784 — or nearly 31 percent — of the nearly 32,000 miles of roads in Montana managed by the USFS were “level 1 roads,” meaning they are closed to motorized traffic and only open for “administrative use.” However, the 32,000 total miles of roads does not...

NEW YORK >> New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday joined government leaders worldwide in signing an agreement to help combat global warming and keep the Earth’s average temperature from rising dangerously. The Under Two MOU, a memorandum of understanding signed by more than three dozen government leaders, affirmed New York’s commitment to helping keep the Earth’s average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius and committed the state to working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions about 40 percent by 2030. Cuomo said he hoped New York would be able to generate 50 percent of its electricity from renewable...

Earns 51% of voter approval in Republican Liberty Caucus Straw Poll — just a few points behind Rand Paul, among Libertarians HOUSTON, Texas – Presidential candidate Ted Cruz continues to shore up his strong support among libertarian voters, earning 51 percent support from voters participating in the straw poll held at the Republican Liberty Caucus in Nashua, NH over the weekend.Cruz received 399 votes (51%), just a few points behind Rand Paul’s 445 votes (57%).“We are very encouraged by the growing support we are seeing among liberty voters in the early states and across the country,” Cruz said. “I have...

The alleged “honor killing” last month of a young pregnant woman who fled Syria after being gang raped is the latest case to leave Germans horrified by the crimes and customs of some of the refugees pouring in from the war-torn Middle East. The woman, identified only as Rokstan M., fled Syria in 2011 after being gang-raped by Syrian soldiers and found work as an interpreter. After authorities in the small, eastern city of Dessau discovered her body, stabbed and buried behind a housing complex for Syrian refugees Friday, suspicion has focused on her father and brothers, who prosecutors believe...

This is the second high-profile homicide where a stolen gun was used to kill an innocent victim.The gun used to kill both a tantra yoga teacher hiking in Fairfax, California, and a Canadian tourist in San Francisco was stolen from a car parked near Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco police revealed in a news conference Friday. And the motive for both homicides appears to be robbery, Cmdr. Toney Chaplin said — the first time a possible reason for the seemily bizarre and violent deaths on two innocent victims was revleaed. On Friday, the Marin County District Attorney charged drifters Sean Michael...

Nothing says “election season” quite like politicians dumping their long-held policy stances overboard in a desperate gambit to gain votes, but you have to hand it to Hillary Clinton. With her recently-announced opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, she’s making one of the more brazen flip-flops in recent political memory. What’s so amazing about Clinton’s newfound opposition to the highly controversial deal is the jaw-dropping transparency of the move. It’s such an open ploy to counter both the rise of staunch TPP critic Bernie Sanders and the possible entry of TPP supporter Joe Biden that it’s almost refreshing in...

Over four decades after the 1973 war that saw Egyptian forces seize of the Sinai Peninsula from occupying Israeli forces in a shock offensive, the legacy of the brief conflict lives on. One of the tales of the war known by some Egyptians is the existence of a “secret code” used by the Egyptian army that Israeli intelligence was unable to crack. The cypher was simple yet unorthodox: using an unwritten language from one of Egypt’s ethnic minorities, the Nubians. With the system, words and commands that would have been undecipherable to even a veteran Israeli intelligence officer could be...

A longtime economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin is leaving the school, saying the state's new campus carry law -- which makes it legal for some Texans to carry concealed handguns into college classrooms beginning next August -- has "substantially enhanced" the chances of a shooting. "With a huge group of students my perception is that the risk that a disgruntled student might bring a gun into the classroom and start shooting at me has been substantially enhanced by the concealed-carry law," economics professor emeritus Daniel Hamermesh, who has been at UT since the mid-90s, wrote in...

Hundreds of thousands of people rallied on Saturday in the German capital against the massive free-trade accord being negotiated by the European Union and the United States. Responding to a call by a group of political parties, trade unions and environmental and anti-globalisation groups, the demonstrators gathered at Berlin's main train station for a march through the city. Organisers said 250,000 people showed up to the protest, much more than the 50,000 to 100,000 expected to take part. Police said around 100,000 participated in the protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) under negotiation between Washington and Brussels,...

The federal Bureau of Prisons, a subdivision of President Barack Obama's Justice Department, has banished all pork products from the menus in all federal prisons ... The government says it made the decision to do this because a survey showed that inmates do not like eating pork products. The Council on American-Islamic relations said “we welcome” the move by the government to deny pork to prisoners, but warned that it might spark “Islamophobia.” ... They just don’t like the taste of pork…. “The National Pork Producers Council isn’t buying it. 'I find it hard to believe that a survey would...

Crowds gathered at the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. were led in a “down, down USA” chant Saturday morning by a female speaker. The Native American woman proclaimed that Muammar “Gaddafi is still alive” and called for President Barack Obama to pardon Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who was convicted of murdering two Federal Bureau of Investigation officers in 1975. The woman then led the crowd in a chant of “down, down USA.” “They have a whole race of indigenous people on reservations, concentration camps. They’re out there killing the indigenous people spiritually,” she said. The woman followed...

        DISCOVERING GOD Tomorrow, many will enjoy a day off to celebrate Columbus Day. Columbus Day is a legal holiday that we, as North Americans along with Latin Americans, celebrate the landing of Columbus in the Bahamas in 1492. Because of this discovery, a country, the United States of America, would come into existence based upon a pursuit of God Jehovah and the right to worship as we please. Admiral Byrd, the explorer, one day was passing through the lobby of a hotel when a large company of people commenced cheering him. Two men were joining...

CNN - Donald Trump said Saturday that he doesn't know why Hillary Clinton is even in the race for the White House. "Honestly, she shouldn't be allowed to run," Trump said to cheers at a large campaign rally in Norcross, Georgia. "If that were a Republican that did what she did with the emails they would have been in jail 12 months ago. Clink!" He added, "It's a very unfair system." The leading Republican candidate has repeatedly called the former Secretary of State's email situation... "a criminal problem."