Free Republic

Lafarge SA is pleading guilty and has agreed to pay a fine of $777.8 million to resolve a criminal charge related to the French company’s payments to the terror organization ISIS to keep a plant operating in Syria.

how bad electric vehicles are for long-distance travel .. it took him 15 hellish hours to drive from Cheyenne to Casper, Wyoming. ... California told EV users not to charge their cars during its repeated summer blackouts. ... runs out of juice .. forced to pay .. a tow truck to get him to the nearest charging station. Secondly, since there are three types of charging stations all of which charge at different speeds.. sometimes he would be forced to sit overnight, only to end up with enough battery power to drive a mere 40 miles. ... Level 3 chargers,...

The woman said she felt something in her eye that she couldn’t get out, had blurred vision and pain... The doctor did a routine examination, but couldn’t figure out what was wrong until she used an instrument to keep both eyelids open and could use her hands to “find out what was going on.” That’s when she saw the contact lenses stuck together. She started pulling them out and asked her assistant to record her. She added that she had never seen anything like that in her 20 years of practice. The patient couldn’t believe it either. After the removal...

Seismic unrest is building at the world’s largest active volcano in Hawaii, where officials are urging people on the Big Island of Hawaii to pack “go bags” and prepare for the inevitable eruption of the giant Mauna Loa volcano. Yesterday, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) said that they detected 65 small-magnitude earthquakes 2-3 miles below the Mokuāʻweoweo caldera beneath the upper-elevation northwest flank of Mauna Loa, an increase in activity from the ongoing period of unrest. Global Positioning System (GPS) instrumentation on Mauna Loa continue to measure inflation at rates elevated since mid-September, indicating that magma is building inside the...

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser dismissed Arne Schoenbohm as head of the BSI agency, following reports which "damaged the necessary confidence of the public in the neutrality and impartiality" of his management, the ministry said on Tuesday.... The Cyber Security Council Germany, which Mr Schoenbohm chaired until he became the head of the BSI in 2016, was prone to influence from Russian companies and even the Kremlin’s intelligence agencies, the report said. German media have reported that one of its members was a German company that is a subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm founded by a former KGB agent, which...

The White House on Tuesday brushed off questions about whether it will release more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to deal with rising gas prices, even as it said an announcement will be coming tomorrow. “I don’t have anything to announce at this time… we are going to make an announcement tomorrow so I will let the president speak for himself,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday when asked about whether they would release barrels from the country’s oil reserves.

A Colorado electric vehicle owner called a road trip across the state of Wyoming “very difficult” after it took 15 hours to drive 178 miles. Alan O’Hashi used to live in Wyoming and explained that a trip back to the Cowboy State in his electric Nissan Leaf required lots of patience. “It was very difficult, O’Hashi told the Cowboy State Daily. “For example, [it took] 15 hours to get from Cheyenne to Casper.” The distance between Cheyenne and Casper is 178 miles, which with the speed limit taken into account should take less than 2 1/2 hours. “What I’ve learned...

TAMPA BAY, FL — Quarterback Tom Brady is growing increasingly frustrated with his offensive line after they once again failed to protect him in a brutal loss to the Steelers. Frustration changed to suspicion, however, after Brady's ex-wife Gisele was seen in a seedy alleyway slipping Bucs offensive line players wads of cash. "This definitely isn't what it looks like," said Gisele when questioned by reporters. "I'm just offering this wonderful offensive line some extra compensation so they'll do a great job protecting Tom! Yeah, that's totally what this is!" Conspiracy theorists have already been floating the theory that Brady's...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With holiday festivities gearing up in the nation's capital, sources in the White House confirmed that First Lady Jill Biden has chosen her Halloween costume, which will include a white lab coat and stethoscope to make her look like a real doctor. "Jill Biden has always been a style icon, and this year's selection of a costume that makes her look like an actual doctor is just stunning," said Lomble Von Blegnio, Editor-in-Chief of VOGUE. "It almost looks totally convincing — like she's a real physician who heals people! Amazing!" Sources say the First Lady plans to...

A $5 million interest-free loan the Biden family received from a Chinese energy conglomerate in 2017 should have been probed by the FBI as part of a possible “pay-to-play” plan, Sen. Chuck Grassley told top law enforcement officials last week. In an Oct. 13 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, Grassley (R-Iowa) questioned whether the bureau is fully investigating corruption allegations against first son Hunter Biden and demanded a “full and unredacted FBI summary” of Hunter business partner Tony Bobulinski’s October 2020 FBI interview. According to Grassley, Bobulinski told investigators...

The Biden administration on Monday officially began accepting applications for its student-debt cancellation program and said over 8 million people have already applied. The Education Department is running the application website and unofficially launched it Friday in test-run mode, according to The New York Times. The agency holds at least $1.6 trillion in student loans for about 45 million borrowers. "This is a game changer for millions of Americans,” Biden said Monday afternoon about his program. Borrower can have as much as $20,000 in debt canceled through the program President Biden put in place in August through executive order –...

Ubuntu has once again sparked debate among Linux users by implementing a very controversial approach – using the most often used shell command, notably the software update tool, to advertise its service.But first, let me explain what this is all about.Ubuntu Pro Ad in Command ShellCanonical has recently launched a fantastic initiative – a free personal Ubuntu Pro subscription for up to five machines. In other words, they opened up its previously paid-for Ubuntu Pro update service free of charge.So far, so good. The news flooded the Internet, well received by all users. And everything would have been perfect if...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that former President Donald Trump would not have had the courage to go to the Capitol during the January 6, 2021 riot. During footage taken on January 6, 2021 by her daughter Alexandra Pelosi, the speaker said she would happily go to jail for punching President Donald Trump if he came to the Capitol. During his speech on January 6, Trump said, “And after this, we’re going walk down, and I’ll be there with you. We’re going walk down to the Capitol.”

A new CNN report found that U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is more popular with Democratic candidates on the campaign trail than Vice President Kamala Harris, but what it really reveals are a set of gripes that Harris' allies have when it comes to her utilization on the stump. The report found that Buttigieg — the young, articulate military veteran who ran for president in 2020 following two terms as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana — has become the most requested surrogate on the campaign trail for Democratic candidates in the midterms apart from President Joe Biden. It's clear...

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy expressed skepticism about sending more aid to Ukraine if Republicans take back the House in the upcoming midterm elections. "I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine," the California Republican told Punchbowl News in a report published Tuesday. "They just won't do it," he continued. "It's not a free blank check." While "Ukraine is important," GOP concerns about the border and other domestic policies also carry weight, McCarthy added. The comments signal that bipartisan support for funding to Ukraine against Russia's invasion...

[H/T mewzilla]A CDC committee will convene this week and likely vote Thursday to deliver permanent legal indemnity to Pfizer and Moderna, through the process of adding the drug companies’ mRNA injections to the child and adolescent immunization schedules.By adding the shots to the childhood schedule, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will transfer liability for vaccine injuries to the federal government’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), allowing for Pfizer and Moderna to finally bring an FDA approved shot to the market without opening itself up to lawsuits. Moreover, it will act as another windfall for companies that...

— Joe O’Dea, the Republican nominee for US Senate from Colorado, fired back at Donald Trump on Monday after the former President slammed him as a “RINO” and suggested Trump’s supporters wouldn’t vote for a “stupid” person like O’Dea. In a statement to CNN, O’Dea, the CEO of a Colorado construction company, didn’t walk away from the criticism he’s been leveling at Trump, including on Sunday when he told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that he would “actively” campaign against Trump and for other GOP candidates if the former President runs again. O’Dea also told Bash that...

U.S. military strength has hit a decade low, with The Heritage Foundation 2023 review considering the U.S. military "weak" for the first time in the history of its annual report and "at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America's vital national interests." Military readiness and strength has been a coming warning from former President Donald Trump aimed at his successor, President Joe Biden. "It is rated as weak relative to the force needed to defend national interests on a global stage against actual challenges in the world as it is rather than as we...

General Motors announced that its new $300,000 Cadillac Celestiq, an electric vehicle, will get just 300 miles of range per charge — or about one mile for every thousand dollars spent. As part of General Motors’s goal to sell only electric vehicles (EVs) by 2035, the car company’s new Cadillac Celestiq — starting at $300,000, before delivery fees and options — will be hand-built to customer preferences, according to a report by Business Insider. Production of the Cadillac EV is set to begin in December 2023.

On this date in 1862, Union Gen. John McNeil had ten Confederate soldiers shot in what history has recorded as the Palmyra Massacre. The Slave Power’s northern salient, Missouri was surrounded to the east, north, and west by free soil — which made it an antebellum flashpoint since the days of the Missouri Compromise.* In the 1850s, the Missouri conflict spilled into neighboring Kansas as the enemy sides of the slavery question fought to determine whether Kansas would enter the Union as slave state or free. The Missouri borderlands of Bleeding Kansas was where the radical abolitionist martyr John Brown...