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Beavers are contributing to climate change, adding an estimated 800 million kg of methane to the atmosphere every year, scientists have found. Over the last century, there has been a worldwide conservation effort to save beavers from extinction. The fur trade between the 16th and 19th century almost led to the annihilation of beavers across the globe. After trapping was limited and the creatures were reintroduced to their natural ranges, their numbers grew significantly, with scientists now estimating their population to have reached over 10 million worldwide. Beavers build dams in rivers to create standing ponds,However, the consequence of this...

A handful of state legislators from across the country gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to announce the creation of “American State Legislators for Gun Violence Prevention” or ASLGVP. The new group, which claims to be non-partisan, will work to push new gun restrictions at the state level. But the coalition has one major problem – they will not let anyone know who they are.

Silent Night! Endless night! All is dark, there’s no light. Cyclone clouds have blocked out the sky, We’re almost out of our dry-meat supply. Sleep in uneasy peace. We may have to eat Aunt Bernice. What the New Yorker is calling "Climate Change Carols" are a series of Christmas songs whose lyrics have been rewritten to focus on environmental issues, gutting the carols of any relationship to the season of Christ’s birth. Not only that, but the hope and joy characteristic of Christmas has also given way to gloom and doom. Granted, this dechristianization of carols began years ago with...

Hey Freepers; A North Georgia family man who defended himself and his family with lethal force against two younger men on his own property has been charged with 1st degree murder. Bo hosted a birthday party at his home and a parent and another man later confronted him on his own property about some as yet unknown issue. A call was placed from Bo's residence to 911, a fight ensued, one man was shot and killed (Brandon Weaver). The Sheriff did not arrest Bo until some 12 days later. Bo is being held w/o bond on a 1st degree premeditated...

Michelle Obama wants you to feel bad for her, and for Barack, because they are black. “I think people forget that we’ve lived in the White House for six years,” Michelle says in People Magazine. “Before that, Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs.” Oh, the horror. Why didn’t the emperor clean up Chicago neighborhoods with his pen and his phone while he was there? Cabs likely would have stopped more frequently if the city, especially the South and West Sides, wasn't infested by crime....

More than 120,000 fighters supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been killed in the country's civil war since it began in 2011, a group monitoring the war said on Wednesday. Syria's conflict began as a peaceful protest movement calling for reforms in 2011 but descended into civil war after a government crackdown. In total, more than 200,000 people have been killed and millions more have fled their homes. Shi'ite fighters including from neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon have joined Syria's fight to aid Assad, a member of the Shi'ite-derived Alawite sect, against the Sunni rebels trying to overthrow him. Assad was inaugurated...

For the past week, Sen. Harry Reid has worked hard to prevent a vote on President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty. [snip] Only one month ago President Obama announced amnesty for roughly five million people here illegally. He did so in defiance of the manifest will of the voters [snip] [snip] Even more troubling was how the amnesty was decreed: by executive fiat, directly contrary to federal immigration law and to the Constitution. [snip] [snip] If Congress does nothing in response, we acquiesce to this constitutional crisis. [snip] Some critics have disingenuously suggested that, by fighting on amnesty, we somehow facilitated...

Over the dissents of three Justices, the Supreme Court today rejected Arizona’s request to allow it to deny driver’s licenses to young undocumented immigrants who have been permitted by Obama administration policy to remain in the United States. In a brief order, the Court refused to block a temporary ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit requiring the state to issue driver’s licenses to the so-called “Dreamers” — young adults who came to this country illegally — if they have permits allowing them to have jobs here.

Richard C. Hottelet, the last of the original "Murrow's Boys," the pioneering group of wartime journalists hired by CBS radio newsman Edward R. Murrow, has died. He was 97. CBS News spokesman Kevin Tedesco said that Hottelet died early Wednesday morning at his home in Wilton. Hottelet was a foreign correspondent for the United Press in Berlin at the start of World War II ? and even spent several months in a Nazi prison ? before joining CBS in London in 1944. He reported from many battlefronts, and went on to become CBS' correspondent for the United Nations, an assignment...

North Korean defectors are planning to attach DVDs of The Interview to 15-foot helium balloons, which they will send over the border into their home country. Fighters for a Free North Korea, led by former government propagandist Park Sang Hak, has for years used the tactic to smuggle transistor radios, DVDs and leaflets into North Korea. If all goes to plan, the latest move will see dozens of copies of the Seth Rogen movie released from South Korea and drifting for several hours before scattering over Pyongyang.

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday she's proud to have been part of an administration that "banned illegal renditions and brutal interrogations" and said the U.S. should never be involved in torture anywhere in the world. [Snip] She declared, "yes, black lives matter," a mantra of demonstrators around the country who have been protesting recent grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers involved in the deaths of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and in New York. She wondered what Kennedy would say about "the thousands of Americans marching in our streets demanding justice for all," and "the mothers...

So holds the Connecticut Supreme Court, in the just-released State v. DeCiccio. Here’s an excerpt of the reasoning as to police batons, which also applies in large measure to dirks, and which, I would argue, should apply to stun guns and Tasers (paragraph break added). (Disclosure: I represent the Association of Women Against Rape and Endangerment, as amicus curiae, in Commonwealth v. Caetano, now pending before the Massachusetts high court; that cases involves the question whether stun guns and Tasers are “arms” for Second Amendment purposes; we argue that they are.)

In his first interview since he announced Tuesday that he was actively exploring the possibility of running for president, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said he thought he could persuade the Republican base to support his position on immigration. Bush has advocated for Republicans to soften their tone on immigration, and has repeatedly called on Congress to address the issue with comprehensive legislation. “A candidate gets to persuade,” Bush said to Miami’s NBC 6. “I think there’s a compelling case that if we want to be young and dynamic again, we have to make legal immigration easier than illegal immigration,...

A wanted man may have thrown four pipe bombs from a car in Southeast Portland Tuesday during a police pursuit. The person of interest is still at large. Investigators said the same man likely led police on three other chases in the past few days. Neal Allen Panschow, 43, was suspected of speeding away in a silver Honda Civic two-door car on Southeast Flavel Drive just after 4:40 p.m. when officers tried to pull the car over, according to Sgt. Pete Simpson of Portland police. The driver threw what appeared to be an explosive device from the car onto the...

DECEMBER 15--The grand jury witness who testified that she saw Michael Brown pummel a cop before charging at him “like a football player, head down,” is a troubled, bipolar Missouri woman with a criminal past who has a history of making racist remarks and once insinuated herself into another high-profile St. Louis criminal case with claims that police eventually dismissed as a “complete fabrication,” The Smoking Gun has learned. In interviews with police, FBI agents, and federal and state prosecutors--as well as during two separate appearances before the grand jury that ultimately declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson--the purported eyewitness...

Sam Ro December 17, 2014Oil prices are surging. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on Tuesday rose to $58.98 from $54.20. Brent crude rose to $63.50 from about $58.70. At this point, there seems to be no obvious explanation for the move. On Tuesday, oil prices tumbled to five-year lows. WTI touched $53.60 and Brent sank to $59.86, both were the lowest levels since May 2009. (snip)

ALBANY — The Cuomo administration announced Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State, ending years of uncertainty by concluding that the controversial method of extracting gas from deep underground could contaminate the state’s air and water and pose inestimable public-health risks... That conclusion was delivered publicly during a year-end cabinet meeting called by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in Albany. It came amid increased calls by environmentalists to ban fracking, which uses water and chemicals to release natural gas trapped in deeply buried shale deposits.

The "Black Lives Matter" protest movement continues to reverberate on campuses. At Oberlin College this week, the president rejected a petition signed by more than 1,000 students demanding no failing grades this semester. Student activism over decisions by grand juries not to indict police officers for the deaths of unarmed back men in Missouri and New York remains strong. And unlike most student protest movements, this one has extended into finals -- and has some students asking for flexibility on grades or exams, and others taking the unusual step of protesting in libraries during a period when student stress about...

Martha McSally (R) has been officially declared the winner in Arizona's second congressional district by a razor-thin 167-vote margin over incumbent Rep. Ron Barber (D). This was the final race of the 2014 election that was yet to be decided, as Arizona law mandates a recount if an election is decided by fewer than 200 votes.Member-elect McSally released the following statement thanking everyone who worked on her campaign and the people of southern Arizona: "We're grateful to everyone who devoted their time and resources, especially during the extended vote and recount processes, to get us over the finish line," said...

Recent declines in North Sea Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices – and the recent decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to maintain oil output – has caused speculation about whether the boom in U.S. shale exploration and production could continue. The U.S. shale revolution has created in a boom in U.S. oil production over the past five years, growing from 5.4 million barrels of oil per day (MMbopd) in 2009 to 8.6 MMbopd today. Shale gas production has also soared from 59.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2009 to more than...