Free Republic

Commuters who take the Interstate 10 high-rise bridge over the Industrial Canal should be ready for continued delays, with two eastbound lanes shut down out of concern for the span's structural integrity, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development said Friday. Following a large tire fire Wednesday under the bridge on the east side of the canal, crews have shut down two of the three eastbound lanes on the bridge, and the work could continue into early next week. The westbound lanes are open. An overhead traffic camera operated by WWL-TV on Friday showed heavy traffic on the eastbound approach...

Researchers go after the biggest problem with self-driving cars By Steve LeVine November 01, 2017 The biggest difficulty in self-driving cars is not batteries, fearful drivers, or expensive sensors, but what's known as the "trolley problem," a debate over who is to die and who saved should an autonomously driven vehicle end up with such a horrible choice on the road. And short of that, how will robotic vehicles navigate the countless other ethical decisions, small and large, executed by drivers as a matter of course? In a paper, researchers at Carnegie Mellon and MIT propose a model that uses...

PRESIDIO – City of Presidio Administrator Joe Portillo informed Presidio County commissioners last week of the Mexican government’s decision to direct transmigrants – usually South American salvagers – to the Presidio-Ojinaga port of entry. If you live near the border, you may recognize the transmigrants and their cargo: salvaged vehicles (often from California) towing another vehicle and stuffed with used furniture, appliances, and other goods. The transmigrants, Portillo explained, are mostly from Guatemala, but come from other South American countries such as Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. According to Portillo, Mexican Customs at ports currently used by the transmigrants, such...

VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTHI) - It's the interstate many of you have sworn to never travel again. Just this summer, Interstate 70 was the host of several horrific accidents, in a matter of days. But why is that? That is why we are taking a look into what makes I-70 so dangerous. ----------- They are the titans of the road; the giants of the interstate. They are semis. “…semis carry 80 thousand pounds of weight.” Big to all, scary to some. But to Corban Matney, they're a way of life. "Altogether, I've been driving about 30 years." As a semi-truck...

Poor decisions and lax standards made by the crews of the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain contributed to the deadly collisions last summer that killed 17 sailors, according to a new Navy investigation. "The collisions were avoidable," said Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, in the executive summary to the report. "Both of these accidents were preventable and the respective investigations found multiple failures by watchstanders that contributed to the incidents," he added in a statement accompanying the report's release. "We must do better." On June 17, the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a...

In the abortion debate, there aren't many areas where the two sides agree. But shouldn't women's safety be one of them? Whole Woman's Health doesn't think so, and its latest inspection report proves it. The company's network of abortion centers is making headlines in Texas for subjecting mothers to third-world conditions that show just how little respect the industry has for the women it claims to protect.Over a six-year period, the Texas Department of State Health Services stumbled on one horrifying scene after another in the group's chain of facilities. Despite raking in millions from its abortion business, Whole Women's...

If you have an AR-type rifle with a standard flash suppressor on it, and you store it outside of a case as in a rack, and place a plastic dust cover over the flash suppressor, what happens if, in an emergent situation, you grab it, stick a mag in it, rack it and go "hunting", and (God forbid!) fire it, forgetting to remove the dust cap? Anything bad?

State officials intend to redirect highway funding to improve safety on Maine roads and stem a rising trend of injuries and deaths among pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.Changes to transportation funding follow the completion of a report by a state task force on roadway safety. The task force was commissioned in February by Transportation Commissioner David Bernhardt in response to a rising trend of vehicle collisions, specifically pedestrian deaths. It released its report publicly on Friday. “We had a terrible year last year with fatalities on our road system,” said Joyce Taylor, chief engineer at Maine Department of Transportation. “That really...

One night I asked my husband if he understood that as a woman I’m afraid much of the time. He didn’t, so I explained it to him. Yesterday the words “Me too” were re-tweeted, posted, and shared all over Facebook and Twitter. News organizations responded by reporting how Alyssa Milano’s initial call to write “Me too” if you have ever been sexually harassed or assaulted had erupted into a huge viral event. Was it a shock? Were people really that surprised? Or maybe it was only men who didn’t realize how pervasive of an issue this is. Are men that...

Deinstitutionalization: How Does It Affect You Today? What Is the Real Cause of Mass Shootings Today? By Kimberly Amadeo Updated July 11, 2017 Definition: Deinstitutionalization is a government policy that moved mental health patients out of state-run "insane asylums" into federally funded community mental health centers. It began in the 1960s as a way to improve treatment of the mentally ill while also cutting government budgets. In 1955, the number peaked at 558,000 patients or 0.03 percent of the population. If the same percentage of the population were institutionalized today, that would be 750,000 mentally ill people. That's more than...

President Donald Trump’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure may be unprecedented in size and ambition, but it mimics a controversial scheme championed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was the governor of Indiana. That’s why Pence is the public face of the Trump initiative, and executives from financial firms that helped privatize Indiana’s toll road are in the White House, busily sculpting Trump’s national plan. Pence and his allies like to boast about how Indiana sold control of major roads to private firms, claiming the move prompted corporations to invest money in infrastructure that would otherwise have...

With the recent impact of two hurricanes, Harvey and Irma, on the United States, there is going to be a lot of ammunition that was submerged for some time.To prevent damage, many people keep ammunition in waterproof ammo cans. They tend to work very well, if the can is not submerged more than a few feet. Not everyone stores ammunition in ammo cans, and the cans can be damaged or leak.The two storms flooded tens of thousands of houses. A recent survey showed that about half of the homes in the United States have a gun owner living in...

Dive Brief: The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has announced the completion of the state's first-ever diverging diamond interchange (DDI), located on Interstate 70, according to Equipment World. The DDI design eliminates left turns across oncoming traffic, improving vehicle flow and decreasing the chance of accidents. The agency also chose the DDI configuration because it could use the former interchange's cloverleaf footprint, reducing the impact of construction on the area. PennDOT said it modified the traditional DDI design slightly. Dive Insight: Design is one way transportation agencies are combating gridlock resulting from increased traffic. Other tools in DOT arsenals are...

A government watchdog is raising new concerns about the safety and readiness of US ships in the Pacific region following a series of collisions that led to the deaths of US sailors. More than a third of warfare training certifications for the Navy's Japan-based destroyers and cruisers had expired in June -- a five-fold increase from two years prior, the Government Accountability Office has found. In testimony to be delivered Thursday, the GAO found that 37% of the Navy's destroyers and cruisers in Japan had expired -- up from 7% in January 2015 -- and over two-thirds had been expired...

Jack Webb, the co-franchisee of a Carl's Jr. in Alberta, Canada, was discovered to have committed multiple food safety violations while being filmed by in-store security cameras, CBC reported. The first clip of 10 shared with CBC shows Webb almost elbow-deep in barbecue sauce. Webb is mixing the sauce with his bare hands, a clear violation of food safety measures, going so far as to refuse a spoon when a worker offers it to him. Other clips show Webb mixing sauces and scooping them from one container to another with his bare hands. In one case, he uses a spatula...

The theme for 2017 is “Together for Peace: Respect, Safety and Dignity for All.” (September 21 2017)

A leftist Wisconsin group, Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) is opposing teaching children gun safety in schools. They prefer that children not be taught about gun safety, because if they learn about guns, they may decide that guns can be fun and useful.From wrn.com: A group dedicated to preventing gun violence has concerns, over a bill that could have Wisconsin high schools teaching kids how to safely handle guns. The legislation from Republican lawmakers requires the Departments of Public Instruction, and Natural Resources to develop the curriculum. “Our concern is that it’s not actually firearms safety, it’s really about teaching...

A Cabinet split over whether to allow the import of controversial “chlorine washed” chicken could cause a major stumbling block in Liam Fox’s trade talks with the US today. It is more than one-fifth cheaper than British chicken, and has been deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority, despite the EU ban.

America's doctors are warning that the use of sparklers on the Fourth of July is just too darn dangerous for your children. To avoid the risk of injury, you should give your kids bubbles, glow sticks and pom-poms to play with this Independence Day. Those things are safer and almost just as fun. Sparkler injuries lead to 1,900 emergency visits each year in the United States (pop.: 321.4 million), according to Providence, Rhode Island NBC affiliate WJAR. "They're actually not so benign," Dina Burstein of the Injury Prevention Center at Rhode Island Hospital told WJAR. "And I think what people...

Blue flames are products of extreme heat but “green” flames are products of extreme environmentalism, as we saw last week when fire engulfed London’s Grenfell Tower. From London to California’s Sun Valley, so-called green policies that disregard basic principles of fire safety are sparking deadly infernos. This issue deserves our immediate attention far more than Russian hacking myths and fairytales.The odor of burning plastic filled the air as 250 firefighters rushed to the scene of Grenfell Tower on June 14. But the flames spread too quickly and intensely for even this army of professional flame-stoppers. At least 30 people died,...