Free Republic

Interstates remained gridlocked around the Raleigh-Durham area Wednesday night, creating eerily similarities to the traffic nightmare in Atlanta just two weeks ago. The trouble started around lunch as businesses and schools released early, just as the heaviest snow started falling. NCDOT online maps showed no one was moving on I-40, I-85 and other major roads. According to ABC 11 in Raleigh, police weren't even responding to minor accidents, instead telling drivers to exchange license and insurance information. Officers want to clear the roads as quickly as possible. One driver in Durham told The Weather Channel he'd only gone one mile...

by John Urban | Top Right NewsIt was a remarkable -- and disturbing -- catch. Not fruit-pickers. Not landscapers. Not roofers or housekeepers. Not "hard-working immigrants" performing "an entrepreneurial act" by crossing the border, as elitist tool George Will described illegal aliens to Laura Ingraham this past Sunday. Not quite. In just three days last month, Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector recently re-arrested more than a dozen convicted felons, including two MS-13 gang members, most of whom were not supposed to be in the United States, officials said. A majority of the felons were sex offenders convicted of...

For the second day in a row, chunks of ice fell from the Freedom Tower — but this time streets remained open and Port Authority officials didn’t close the nearby PATH station. Instead, pedestrians had to fend for themselves, scurrying for cover about 11 a.m. Saturday in the shadow of the nation’s tallest building. “We just saw ice falling down the building,” said startled Austrian tourist Katharina Amann, 24, who is visiting the city with her family. “It was scary. Then I heard it shatter.” Ice also fell from 7 World Trade Center, which is 52 stories tall, some chunks...

The Olympic Team Ice Skating event features 8 skating performances by each team and a totally messed up scoring system. It started with 4 short program skates with 10 teams and you scored 1 point for showing up and 1 extra point for every competitor your were better than. After the 4 short programs (mens', ladies', pairs', heterosexual dancing') came the 4 long programs with only the top 5 teams advancing. Now here is where the stupid part comes. The 4 long program skates with 5 teams and you scored 6 points for showing up and 1 extra point for...

DULUTH, Minn. -- A frigid winter is pushing Lake Superior toward a complete ice-over for the first time since 1996, though there's still a ways to go before you can skate from Duluth to the Soo Locks. Lake Superior had at least some ice across an estimated 91 percent of its surface as of Thursday, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. That compares with the 40-year average annual Lake Superior ice coverage for February of just 30 percent. George Leshkevich has been tracking Great Lakes ice for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory...

Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat satellite show that the volume of Arctic sea ice has significantly increased this past autumn. The volume of ice measured this autumn is about 50% higher compared to last year. In October 2013, CryoSat measured about 9000 cubic km of sea ice – a notable increase compared to 6000 cubic km in October 2012. Over the last few decades, satellites have shown a downward trend in the area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice. However, the actual volume of sea ice has proven difficult to determine because it moves around and so its thickness can change....

Thousands of Atlanta students stranded all night long in their schools were reunited with their parents Wednesday, while rescuers rushed to deliver blankets, food, gas and a ride home to countless shivering motorists stopped cold by a storm that paralyzed the business capital of the South with less than 3 inches of snow. The result was gridlock on freeways that are jammed even on normal days. Countless vehicles were stranded and many of them abandoned. Officials said 239 children spent Tuesday night aboard school buses; thousands of others stayed overnight in their schools. One woman's 12-mile commute home took 16...

by John Urban | TopRight News A potentially disastrous security breach by the Pentagon was discovered by sheriff's deputies during a routine traffic stop in Southern Arizona. Pinal County deputies stopped a 2006 Ford Expedition for a traffic violation. The Mexican national initially presented an Arizona Identification Card, in the name of Armando Villalobos of Phoenix. A records check revealed that not only did the illegal alien have no driver's license, but there were outstanding felony warrants for his arrest in Texas.The suspect eventually told the deputy that his real name was in fact Mario Bustamante, 37, and that he was in...

A Russian research ship and a Chinese icebreaker that were stranded in Antarctica have broken free from heavy ice and no longer need to be rescued by the United States, Australian officials said Wednesday. More than 50 scientists, researchers and tourists had to be airlifted from the Russian-owned vessel Akademik Shokalskiy after it became trapped on Dec. 24, 100 nautical miles east of French Antarctic station Dumont d'Urville and about 1,500 nautical miles (2,250 miles) south of Tasmania, Australia. The protracted international rescue effort was itself delayed by the conditions, with blinding snow, strong winds and thick sea ice preventing...

All right stop, collaborate and listen: the universe has chosen in recent weeks to teach everyone a little lesson about the pranks that fate likes to play on we humans. A group of scientists sallied forth into the hinterlands to research climate change, more commonly referred to as global warming, by recreating a 1912 expedition and then comparing findings. The better to show how the ice is melting. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum: the "missing ice" investigators found ice. Or more accurately, found themselves in ice. Or more humorously, they were hoisted by...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A U.S. Coast Guard heavy icebreaker left Australia for Antarctica on Sunday to rescue more than 120 crew members aboard two icebreakers trapped in pack ice near the frozen continent's eastern edge, officials said. The 122-meter (399-foot) cutter, the Polar Star, is responding to a Jan. 3 request from Australia, Russia and China to assist the Russian and Chinese ships because "there is sufficient concern that the vessels may not be able to free themselves from the ice," the Coast Guard said in a statement. The Russian research ship Akademik Shokalskiy has been trapped in ice-clogged...

The 52 passengers rescued from an icebound ship in Antarctica might now become the rescuers. The Chinese ship that sent a helicopter to rescue the passengers on board the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy is now stuck in Antarctic ice and might need a rescue of its own, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. An Australian icebreaker carrying the 52 passengers is waiting in open water to see if it has to go back to help the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon.

A working truck has been carved out of more than 11,000lb of ice as a Canadian battery company prepared the ultimate test for their product. A team of ice sculptors from Ontario created the truck, complete with license plates and pine tree-shaped air freshner, around the frame of a regular chassis. They then drove it for about a mile, at 12mph, in a feat that those involved in the project hope will make it to the Guinness Book of World Records.

After 10 days stranded far from home, all 52 passengers from a ship stuck in Antarctic ice have now been transferred by helicopter to an Australian icebreaker. "It's 100% we're off! A huge thanks to all," tweeted Chris Turney, an Australian professor among the group of scientists, journalists and tourists marooned on the ship. A helicopter from a nearby Chinese icebreaker ferried passengers Thursday to the Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis. The rescue is the latest chapter in a saga that began Christmas Eve after the Russian-flagged MV Akademik Shokalskiy got stuck in unusually thick ice. Officials abandoned a succession...

"Sydney — All 52 passengers who spent Christmas and New Year trapped on an icebound Russian research vessel in Antarctica were airlifted from the ice Thursday in a dramatic rescue mission. A Chinese helicopter which landed on a makeshift landing pad next to the marooned ship ferried the scientists, tourists and journalists in groups of 12 to an Australian government supply ship, the Aurora Australis. The passengers had been stuck for 10 days in thick pack ice ...........

An air rescue for the passengers aboard a research ship that has been trapped in Antarctic ice for a week will wait for a break in the weather to start airlifting people from the vessel, Australian maritime authorities say. The 74 scientists, tourists and crew aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian-crewed research vessel touring the Antarctic, have been trapped in ice since Christmas Eve. A helicopter on board a Chinese icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, will be used to collect the passengers once there is a break in the weather, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a Monday night conference...

SYDNEY (AP) — A Chinese icebreaker that was en route to rescue a ship trapped in Antarctic ice was forced to turn back on Saturday after being unable to push its way through the heavy sea ice. The Snow Dragon icebreaker came within 7 miles (11 kilometers) of the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been stuck since Christmas Eve, but had to retreat after the ice became too thick, said expedition spokesman Alvin Stone. The Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been on a research expedition to Antarctica, got stuck Tuesday after a blizzard's whipping winds pushed the sea ice...

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement defended the role of federal agents in transporting illegal immigrant children after a federal judge complained they were hand-delivering smuggled kids to parents in the United States. “While the court’s comments did not relate specifically to ICE, it is clear that the transportation of unaccompanied children (UAC) by ICE personnel is appropriate and legal,” acting Director John Sandweg wrote in a brief email obtained by FoxNews.com. The email was sent Monday and addressed to “all ICE employees.”

FAIRFAX, Va. (CBSDC/AP) – Nine people were arrested during a protest outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in northern Virginia on Monday morning, authorities say. The nine were among a group of about 60 protesters who formed a human chain Monday outside the ICE building in Fairfax County. County police told the group they had a right to protest but would be arrested if they blocked the road. Carolina Velez with the Richmond-based Wayside Center for Popular Education tells The Associated Press that the protesters lay across the roadway to protest an increase in deportations to nearly 400,000 annually...

Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years. Gore made the prediction to a German audience in 2008. He told them that “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”