Free Republic

Imagine a dust storm, driven by monsoon downbursts, building near the Maricopa-Pinal county line. There are thousands of Interstate 10 motorists and hundreds of thousands of Phoenix exurb residents who would probably want to know about such a storm before the stinging, blinding wall of sand arrives. But does all of metro Phoenix need to get the alert? Likely not, but the National Weather Service’s Ken Waters told the dozens of attendees at the annual dust-storm workshop in Coolidge last week that that’s exactly what would happen with the existing cellphone warning system in place for dust events. “If I’m...

FABENS, Texas (KFOX14) — The family of a construction worker killed on the job makes a plea to the public and extends forgiveness to the driver who hit him. It's a sight you see often in El Paso, construction work on the side of the road. On Monday, a crash on Interstate 10 near Van Horn killed two workers and injured two others. Juan Madrid, 21, from Fabens and Christopher Guerra, 38, from Clint, were killed. Madrid's family said he grew up in Fabens, and worked hard to help them and his mother, who lives in Mexico. "He had a...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A bill that has already passed the Maryland House of Delegates would fine drivers up to $250 for lingering in the left lane of a highway after passing another vehicle.House Bill 1451 was sponsored by Frederick County Republican Delegate William G. Folden and is now pending in the Senate.Folden says the aim of the bill is to prevent traffic congestion.When it passed in the House last week, he posted the following statement on his Facebook page: “By the slimmest of margins and probably the most bi-partisan voting sheet I’ve seen, my bill for “Left Lane Passing Only”...

Years of Democratic leadership abetted by a sycophantic media have done enormous damage to New Orleans When you read about the worst cities in the United States you’ll find that they all share a common characteristic: each has been under Democratic leadership for decades. Most of you have read horror stories about some of these cities; Detroit, Cleveland, Birmingham, St. Louis, and New Orleans. In many ways, the deterioration of these cities is a microcosm of what’s gone wrong with our nation. As the 1970s drew to a close, I decided to move to New Orleans. Media at that time...

At the Ranch in Arizona, I keep water trickling for a water hole. It is the only reliable water for about three miles in any direction.  I have a game camera there, and sometimes obtain interesting photographs, like the bobcat and coyote interaction above from a couple of months ago.  The water hole is about 15 yards from the backstop of the pistol range.  Some of the water pipe was exposed over the last few years. My bother and I were at the range, shooting 170 grain cast lead .40 caliber projectiles at a half silhouette steel target.   After...

CINCINNATI - U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, will highlight in downtown Cincinnati this morning key infrastruture projects, such as the Brent Spence Bridge, as he outlines a framework to rebuild and repair the country’s infrastructure which will create millions of construction jobs. The northern Ohio Senator will be joined by Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority President and CEO Laura Brunner, and OKI Regional Council of Governments Deputy Executive DirectorRobert Koehler. President Donald Trump previously promised $1 trillion of investment in American infrastructure during his campaign. Brown joined Senate colleagues to release a roadmap for making...

BROOKSVILLE (FOX 13) - Some neighbors in Hernando County have had it with the noise. They say all-night construction on I-75 is keeping them awake, even shaking their homes. It's all related to a 6.5-mile, $95 million FDOT project that started last summer. Crews are currently widening Interstate 75 from four to six lanes, starting south of State Road 50 and finishing at the Hernando/Sumter County line. Lauretta Clemons, who lives on Shadywood Lane in Brooksville, remembers her backyard 30 years ago. "Beautiful," Clemons said. "Trees, ferns, flowers, birds and wild animals." Now, the trees are gone and she and...

President Trump issued a trio of executive orders geared toward crime and public safety. The orders were issued immediately after swearing in Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as the next U.S. Attorney General on Thursday

At least two manager level Secret Service officials were fired and escorted from the White House complex, according to a report by reporter Steve Clemons. The Secret Service has been accused of slow-walking an investigation of an agent based in Denver who publicly stated she would not ‘take a bullet’ for President Donald Trump.

Bill Bertram frequently felt uneasy as cars whizzed past while he waited in traffic to reach the Tri-State Tollway's Grand Avenue exit ramp in Gurnee in the months after a $19.4 million reconstruction project was completed in 2015. Thoughts of being a sitting duck for a rear-end crash crossed his mind. Still, the 59-year-old Round Lake Beach resident said, driving north on the tollway to the westbound exit ramp was the most efficient option to head home from his Evanston job. On Nov. 16, at about 5:15 p.m., the rear-end crash he worried about happened. Bertram was stuck in a...

The fatal lunchtime accident that shut down Interstate 10 for hours on Tuesday caught Vidor resident Theresa Manley's attention right away. "My 17-year-old totaled her car in that spot last summer," said Manley, 45, as she filled up her car at the Flying J in Orange on Wednesday. "That was a scary phone call." Manley said her daughter, who was driving with Manley's 12-year-old son, rear-ended a pick-up truck after it rear-ended the car in front of it. Her daughter's small Pontiac went under the large truck and was destroyed, she said, but her children were unharmed. The accident happened...

Prematurely accelerating the implementation of fully autonomous trucking (no driver in the cab) seems like an idea that could be fraught with risk. While driverless long-haul trucks have the potential to increase economic productivity by enabling more cost-effective transport of goods, the technology is not yet ready for prime time. There is growing pressure, however, to make it a reality sooner rather than later – particularly as long-distance trucking faces a worsening driver shortage. At the same time, highway infrastructure in many parts of the country is clearly inadequate even for today’s traffic, let alone a mixed bag of driven...

CASA GRANDE — Republican Congressional District 1 candidate Paul Babeu says he plans to make improvements to Interstate 10 a greater priority for the federal government. Babeu, who is Pinal County sheriff, assembled a number of Republican state lawmakers on Monday to discuss his intentions as a congressman to prioritize widening a portion of I-10 that runs between Phoenix and Casa Grande. His plan is to work on expanding this section from two lanes to three in each direction. Doing so, Babeu said, improves safety and economic development. “This is directly linked to a prosperous future for western Pinal County...

http://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Part_107_Summary.pdf

The world’s leading smartphone makers just can’t stop copying each other. While the company has certainly improved its image over the past few years, Samsung is likely most famous for being an Apple copycat. After all, the company was sued repeatedly by Apple for stealing its technology and designs. And as we all learned, things got so crazy at one point that Samsung even created a 132-page internal document to help its engineers copy the iPhone pixel by pixel. Of course, Apple is hardly innocent in all this. The iPhone maker has aped plenty of features from Android in recent...

A Hong Kong based manufacturer, USB Kill, recently developed a device that can annihilate any modern device there is. The USB Killer is not a toy. Created by a manufacturer based in Hong Kong, USB Kill, it is thumb drive that destroys the physical components of any modern device that it is plugged into. The thumb drive named USB Kill 2.0 is a testing device created to test USB ports against power surge attacks. How it works? It simply collects power from the USB power lines until it reaches a certain voltage (240V). Following which it discharges the stored voltage...

Some time back, I published an opinion piece stating that it might benefit Trump to be pro-water-resources in the western states. But I have found a much better wedge issue for him to exploit, and I know he is part way there already. Fix the damn roads and get the worst drivers off them. I just came back from a six-day driving trip that included the states of WA, OR, ID, NV, and UT in a loop starting and ending in my home in BC, Canada. Our roads are not always that great either, and all my comments about drivers...

Black Gun Rights Activist Launches ‘Black Guns Matter’Gun rights activist Maj Toure is seeking to educate his fellow black citizens on the importance of the Second Amendment, gun ownership, and gun safety via his new group, “Black Guns Matter” (BGM). The launch of BGM “kicked off a planned 13-city tour, with similar events in cities like Baltimore and Chicago with high rates of gun violence, where he feels gun training could make a difference.

TOLEDO (13abc Action News) - Self-driving cars are getting closer to becoming a reality in America. Testing is underway in a few places around the country and if you travel the Ohio Turnpike, you'll soon be sharing the road with them. We spoke with drivers and the head of the Ohio Turnpike Commission about the testing. The autonomous vehicles could be on the turnpike by the end of the year. The Ohio Turnpike will be turned into a test track of sorts for the emerging technology. Randy Cole is the Executive Director of the Turnpike Commission, "It's 241 miles of...

U.S. Traffic Fatalities Continued to Surge in First Half of 2016 Deaths rose 9%, extending a trend that began two years ago as the economy improved and travel increased Traffic fatalities were up 9% in the first six months of this year compared with the same period last year. By Beckie Strum Traffic fatalities rose 9% in the first six months of 2016, compared with a year earlier, as a stronger economy and falling gas prices encouraged Americans to spend more time behind the wheel, the National Safety Council said on Tuesday. Traffic fatalities have been trending upward since 2014,...