Free Republic

Northrop Grumman’s first big test of its future OmegA rocket seems to have ended in a small explosion. Today, the company fired up the main engine on the rocket during a ground test in Utah. Toward the end of the test, part of the vehicle’s engine burst apart, sending pieces of hardware flying. Today’s test is what is known as a static fire, when the engine of a rocket is ignited while the vehicle is held firmly to the ground. Northrop Grumman was conducting the very first static fire test of the OmegA’s first stage — the main body of...

The story of a missing 6-year-old Tennessee boy being found has gone viral over the years. Not just because he was found safe, but because of what was found next to him when rescuers reached him. Kaydon Leach, the child, went missing from his Blount County home, prompting a search effort that consisted of about 100 first responders and local officials, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, K-9 teams, Blount County Sheriff’s Office SWAT Team, and a Black Hawk military helicopter. Volunteers also partook in the effort, officials had said. The team searched about 2,000 acres starting at around 7...

Full title: Adam Schiff Demands Authority Over Executive Branch Declassification, and Advanced Warning of Investigative Content Oh, this is rich…. Shifty and hyper-partisan Adam Schiff, quite possibly the world’s slimiest human, writes a letter (as below) to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, demanding legislative branch authority over executive branch declassification. The scale of obtuse, hypocritical and self-serving protestation is off-the-charts.

A federal court permitted a lawsuit to proceed against an Illinois school district that allows high school boys to use girls’ locker rooms, restrooms and showers in order to accommodate transgender students. But girls who don’t want to be seen naked by boys got bad news, College Fix reports. The judge ruled that they have no right to “visual bodily privacy” if the government says so. Dozens of families sued the Chicago-area Township High School District 211 three years ago due to its policy letting students as young as 14 choose to use the locker rooms of the opposite sex....

In a puff piece with much emotion and very little fact, the author of the People article, Michelle Tauber, promotes  public relations expert Shannon Watts as just a “stay at home mom” who saw something that needed doing. The article in People.com has almost nothing of substance in it. It ignores the funding of the organization by anti-gun zealot Michael Bloomberg. It ignores the law. It ignores the Constitution. It ignores just about all facts involving firearms.Here is one of the very few “facts” put forward in the puff piece: As for the idea that reducing gun violence, which...

Freeper Lizma2 requested an appetizer thread last month; and since appetizers are one of my two favorite things to cook, I’m happy to oblige. I’ll repost some of my favorites and a new one I’ve found, and hopefully others will have contributions. This pastry 'Sunflower' - or 'Tarte Soleil' - is visually beautiful, but not that difficult to make. You can do it with a wide variety of fillings, and sweet or savory. Here’s a recipe from ‘Italian Food Forever’ http://www.italianfoodforever.com/2016/07/sunflower-spinach-puff-pastry-tartand from ‘Entertaining with Beth’, a video showing the technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIF-6CFsYxk****************************************************** A couple of decades ago, when chef Jean Georges...

Eleven people were killed and six people injured by a shooter at the city's Municipal Center in Princess Anne on Friday afternoon, Virginia Beach police Chief Jim Cervera said. "This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach," Mayor Bobby Dwyer said. "The people involved are our friends, coworkers, neighbors and colleagues."

At least 11 people were killed after a gunman opened fire at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, police Chief James Cervera told reporters Friday night. The shooter also is dead, Cervera said. The shooter was a public utilities worker, he said.

Eleven victims died, and six more people are injured, in a horrific mass shooting that broke out at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, building 2, near the courthouse, Virginia Beach police have confirmed. “This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach,” Mayor Bobby Dyer said. “The people involved are our friends, co-workers, neighbors, colleagues.” Police Chief James A. Cervera confirmed the casualty count and called it a “devastating incident that happened…that is going to change the lives of a number of families from our city.” A police officer was shot but was “saved by his vest,”...

Ben & Jerry's said Thursday it's planning to release a CBD-infused ice cream as soon as it becomes legal to add cannabidiol to food and beverages. The ice cream maker said it submitted a comment supporting the regulation change to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Congress legalized the sale of CBD-infused topical products, like creams and ointments, but the FDA for now prohibits ingestible products, citing health concerns. Forget your midnight pint of "Half Baked" ice cream. Ben & Jerry's said Thursday it plans to release a new CBD-infused ice cream flavor, joining other major consumer brands eager to...

A rare 1966 Shelby GT350 has hit eBay after being hit pretty badly in an accident. The white fastback featured on BarnFinds.com  is being offered with a salvage title, and it’s easy to see why. The left rear corner is bashed in so far that the cabin is crooked, while the right front fender is also crushed. It looks like it’s in pretty good condition, otherwise. There’s no significant damage to its 289 V8, which the Glendale, Calif., seller says turns over but doesn’t run because of a hole in the gas tank, and the parts of the interior that survived are in great shape...

R.I.P. iTunes. Apple is phasing out its content download and streaming service, Bloomberg reports. CEO Tim Cook will unveil a spread of new features geared to move the company’s focus away from the iPhone starting Monday at the tech giant’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Mueller the golden retriever is almost as famous as special counsel Robert Mueller. Almost. Maximus Mighty-Dog Mueller II, or Max for short, has been the mayor of the Southern California town of Idyllwild since 2014. The town, which is non-incorporated, has has been electing canines for its highest office since 2012. Nonprofit Idyllwild Animal Rescue Friends sponsored the town's first-ever mayoral election, in which any resident was permitted to nominate his or her pet, according to the mayor's website.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador dispatched his foreign relations secretary to Washington on Friday, as the country scrambles to negotiate a solution with the United States following President Trump’s surprise move this week to slap tariffs on Mexico in the hopes it would remedy the illegal immigration surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr gave a 48 minute interview to CBS on a variety of issues related to recent events. The interview is packed with insight about the ongoing DOJ investigations of prior DOJ and FBI conduct in the 2016 election. Rather than post the edited excerpts of the interview as broadcast, the full audio and transcript is below. Very interesting

Georgia’s Medicaid and PeachCare programs covered 20,000 fewer children at the end of 2018 than the year before, a new report says. That 1.6 percent drop is less than an overall 2.2 percent decline in enrollment nationally, according to the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. The report, released Thursday, said that nationally, about 828,000 fewer children were enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which in Georgia is called PeachCare for Kids. Not every child cited in the statistics is now necessarily without coverage. With unemployment low, many less affluent people have been able to...

FREMONT (CBS SF) — The occupants of five to six ramshackle tree houses built in a private industrial park near Stevenson Boulevard in Fremont are facing eviction. Crews equipped with chainsaws and handsaws have begun clearing out the structures and cutting off limbs in order to make it harder to reoccupy and easier to spot the homeless who are taking refuge in the trees. They are about halfway through the long line of more than 60 eucalyptus trees. Neighboring business owners say the first tree house went up in February and started multiplying over the next three months. The structures...

At present the U.S. is involved in a protracted trade war with China that has yielded nothing in concessions from Beijing, cost U.S. companies and consumers billions, obliterated $5 trillion from the stock market, and is threatening to tip the economy into a recession. At the White House, Donald Trump has learned the lessons of this failed strategy and decided to…drag the U.S. into another unwinnable trade war, this time with one of our neighbors and largest trading partner.Yes, Tariff Man announced Thursday night that starting June 10, he will impose a 5 percent tariff on allMexican imports, a levy that will “gradually increase” all the way to...

[Catholic Caucus] Fr. Rosica replaced as retreat director for liberal US priests’ conference May 31, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A priest accused of decades of plagiarism will no longer be attending the annual conference of a left-wing American priests’ association. Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, CEO of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, was originally scheduled to direct a retreat at the 2019 Association of United States Catholic Priests (AUSCP) Assembly in St. Louis, Missouri this June. In March Fr. Bob Bonnot, the executive director of AUSCAP, defended the choice of the disgraced priest as the association’s retreat director. Now a revised...

Elton John biopic’s gay sex and kissing footage edited out in effort to play down singer’s sexuality A Russian media company has reportedly cut all scenes featuring gay sex and men kissing from the Elton John biopic Rocketman because of laws banning “homosexual propaganda”. An estimated five minutes of footage have been cut from the film in an attempt to play down the sexuality of one of the world’s most famous gay celebrities for a conservative Russian audience. “all scenes with kissing, sex and oral sex between men have been cut out… The nastiest part is that the final caption...