Free Republic

"President Donald Trump landed in Northern California Saturday to tour the damage wrought by the state’s worst-ever wildfire, pressing his argument that the state’s forests must be managed more aggressively to prevent future disasters."

Update, 7:15 p.m. Thursday: The situation surrounding the damaged spillway at Oroville Dam has escalated into a crisis, with state water managers hoping they can dump enough water down the badly compromised structure to prevent the state’s second-largest reservoir from pouring over an emergency release point that has never been used before. Flow rates down the collapsing spillway were increased late Thursday morning to 35,000 cubic feet per second. The result was a spectacle of churning mud and water and the further damage to the concrete structure. [snip] Officials at the media briefing repeated further reassurances that the integrity of...

One pilot died and another was injured after they ejected from a U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane that crashed in Northern California Tuesday, an Air Force spokesman confirmed.

SUTTER COUNTY, Calif. (KCRA) —One pilot was killed and a second pilot was hurt after ejecting from a U-2 plane out of Beale Air Force Based that crashed into the Sutter Buttes in Sutter County, Beale AFB officials confirmed...

Peace groups outside the main gate of Beale Air Force Base today are protesting the treatment of the private suspected of handing secret reports over to WikiLeaks. They are also calling on military personnel at the base to resist war and the use of the drones. Protesters from Veterans for Peace, CodePINK and other groups are asking for "basic constitutional principles and human rights" be extended to Pfc. Bradley Manning. Manning is suspected of downloading thousands of secret reports and diplomatic cables and handing them over to WikiLeaks. The protesters are encouraging members of the military at the base near...

On one August day last year, some US ground troops were preparing to move out down a certain dangerous road in Afghanistan. SrA. Andres Morales of the Air Force had a related mission. As it happened, his mission grew and grew. At first, Morales was tasked to supply intelligence information about three specific points of interest along that Afghan road route. Morales, an analyst in DGS-2, USAF’s Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) node at Beale AFB, Calif., provided the information within minutes. It was based on a blend of imagery and electronic communications signals captured by the sensors on surveillance...

One of the largest unmanned aerial systems operating in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, the RQ-4 Global Hawk, surpassed 30,000 combat flying hours and 1,500 combat sorties Feb. 10 here. The Global Hawks are assigned to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing from Beale Air Force Base, Calif. They provide a broad spectrum of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection capability to support joint combatant forces in worldwide peacetime, contingency and wartime operations. The 380th AEW Global Hawks reached their 1,500th combat sortie on Feb. 10. The historic sortie and flying hour mark nearly coincided, said Capt. Michelle Campbell, the...