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California needs 11 trillion gallons of water to recover from its three-year drought, the US space agency said Tuesday after studying water resources by using satellite data. The first of its kind calculation of how much groundwater would end the drought was led by Jay Famiglietti of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and based on observations from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites. California has experienced rainstorms in recent days but, while welcome, scientists warn that they are not enough to end the drought. "It takes years to get into a drought of this severity, and it...

A couple of months ago, the story of a couple at the brink of separation was published on this column and I asked readers the question above. Bisola and Akinola, blessed with three children, had been married for 17 years, living with each otherÂ’s excesses as most couples do. Then one day, Bisola stumbled on three travel documents, all bearing AkinolaÂ’s names. They belonged to a strange woman, a child and Akinola. A confrontation resulted in a heated argument between them and Akinola walked out of their home. His wife was free to take whatever decision she thought best for...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Wednesday afternoon conceded to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) after a race to become the next chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Sessions, currently the panel’s ranking member, said he reached an agreement with his “good friend” Enzi. “We have talked and I am deferring to his seniority so that he can lead the Budget Committee as its Chairman beginning in 2015,” Sessions said in a statement. “Mike graciously deferred to me two years ago after he timed out on HELP as Ranking Member, and it has been my enormous privilege to serve as the panel’s...

Sen. Cruz Responds to the President’s new Cuba Policy WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the following statement regarding the President’s announcement to change U.S. policy with Cuba and lift economic embargos. “We rejoice that Alan Gross’ wrongful imprisonment by the brutal Castro regime has finally come to an end, and that he will be able to spend the holidays with his loved ones. But make no mistake, although we are glad Alan is now free, the agreement the Obama Administration has entered into with the Castro regime has done nothing to resolve the underlying problem. Indeed,...

California public employees now enjoy the highest benefits of any state in the nation. To pretend to fund this largess, California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) is an “outlier” among public pension plans in using creative accounting to blur its grossly underfunded status. This has allowed its school district clients and unionized employees to short-check their annual payment for the nation’s most lucrative teachers' pension benefits. But pressure from Moody’s credit rating agency is causing CalSTRS clients and unionized teachers to make big increases in pension and benefit funding. The latest “hokey-pokey” drama is the California State Teachers’ Retirement System...

Breaking: Sony Pictures cancels 25 December release of North Korea film The Interview after cinemas decide not to screen it.

After schools such as Columbia University and Harvard started to grant students extensions on their exams due to the protests of the recent Grand Jury decisions in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, left-wing students from across the country feel they should be entitled to the same special treatment. So, at Oberlin College, which is perhaps the most liberal college in America, a student asked for exams to be delayed with a hilariously self-important email to her professor: Read more: http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/professors-1-word-response-liberal-student-wanting-delay-exams-priceless-look/#ixzz3MCC60BRG

p>The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny Welcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

SULAYMANIYAH, Northern Iraq – The bald eagle, Old Glory and the almighty dollar are king in this portion of Iraq, where ethnic Kurds don’t hide their affection for the U.S. Shops peddle American flags, U.S. military gear is prized and the locals speak glowingly of the nation they credit with removing Saddam Hussein, the dictator whose heavy hand so often came down on the minority clustered in Iraq’s northern regions. "Imagine if America didn't exist,” said Kurdo Amin Agha, an accountant whose home is adorned with Israeli, American and Kurdistan flags, and who wears a U.S. Army shirt and Navy...

Following the return of Alan Gross to the U.S., Sen. Ted Cruz slammed the “Obama, Clinton, Kerry foreign policy,” saying the Castro brothers are “state sponsors of terrorism” and that President Barack Obama “does not understand the difference between our friends and our enemies.”Cruz, one of three Cuban American members of the upper chamber in Congress, also called the normalization of relations between the two nations “a tragic mistake” made the comments to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto Wednesday afternoon. TED CRUZ: “This is yet another manifestation of the failures of the Obama, Clinton, Kerry foreign policy. For six years we followed...

For more than 50 years, Cuba has refused to cash the checks because it hasn't recognized the legitimacy of the lease the US entered into with the country in 1901, which the Cuban Constitution says gives the US "complete jurisdiction and control" over Guantanamo. Now, with today's historic announcement by President Barack Obama that relations between the US and Cuba are on the mend, there are questions about whether Guantanamo came up during the discussions between Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro. State Department documents that include copies of uncashed rent checks — they were recently released in response to a...

Ebola toll rises to more than 6,900: WHO"More than 6,900 people have now died from the Ebola virus, almost all of them in west Africa, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. As of December 14, there were 18,569 cases of infection of the deadly … Yahoo! · 1 minute ago *****

In response to a wave of bad behavior by the popular ride-sharing service Uber—with one executive suggesting digging up dirt on journalists who write negative articles about the company—many advocated a switch to Uber’s competitor, Lyft. But this approach ignores the fact that Uber’s abuses are baked into how “sharing” companies operate, a way of doing business that is shared by its competitors. More important, it misses a way to transform these companies that is right there in front of us: by socializing ownership among their workers. Cutting through the marketing BS of Silicon Valley is a good goal for...

"Russia is at a critical juncture and given the sanctions placed upon them and the rapid decline in oil prices, they may be forced to dip into their gold reserves, if it happens it will push gold lower." That is what, according to some people Bloomberg has quoted, is in the cards.

"Most people would have thought the interstellar medium would have been smooth and quiet," study researcher Don Gurnett, professor of physics at the University of Iowa, and the principal investigator of Voyager 1's plasma wave instrument, said in a statement from NASA. "But these shock waves seem to be more common than we thought."

Gov. Scott Walker firmly denounced President Barack Obama's move to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba after more than 50 years of severed ties between the countries. "I think it's a bad idea," Walker told reporters Wednesday. "I don’t think there’s been any noticeable change towards making that a more free and prosperous country. There’s a reason why we had the policy in the first place." Walker said he hasn't seen solid evidence that Cuba has made changes that would warrant a shift in U.S. policy, which has remained in place through administrations of both parties. "These 50 years have shown,...

A settlement agreement announced Tuesday calls for St. Anthony Village to allow an Islamic group to use a portion of a building the group owns for worship and other religious activities. The U.S. government reached the settlement with the city over its 2012 rejection of a proposed Islamic center. Since the Islamic center bought the St. Anthony Business Center in 2011, its leaders have wanted to maintain office space for the current tenants and to hold its religious gatherings in the building's basement level. U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced the results of settlement negotiations agreed upon Dec. 11 at a...

MICHELLE MALKIN Allow me to unite America’s left, right, and center in just three words: No, Jeb, No. Florida’s former GOP governor Jeb Bush made the obvious official this week when he announced on Facebook that he’s “actively exploring” a 2016 White House run. Of course he’s running. That’s what inveterate politicians do. Well, I hate to break it to Jeb Inc. There’s no popular groundswell for Bush Part III. None, zip, nada. Independents, progressives, and conservatives are all weary of the entrenched bipartisan dynasties that rule Washington and ruin America. Only in the hallowed bubble of D.C. and New...

First spotted by USA Today reporter Gregory Korte, the key bit is at the very end of the clip below. No wonder they had a meeting of the minds: Castro and The One are both fans of rule by decree. When I first saw Korte’s tweet, I thought Castro was bringing up executive action on his own initiative, maybe as a way to tweak the Republicans in Congress whom he well knows will try to block normalization with the U.S. “Make ‘em cry again, Barack,” he seemed to be saying, “just like you did last month on illegal immigration.”But...

DECEMBER 17, 2014 Is Jeb Ready for Hillary? By Jim Geraghty Back in 2005, Peggy Noonan wrote about the increasingly public friendship between George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton: