Free Republic

China is adapting commercial car ferries into vessels capable of carrying and launching amphibious assault craft into the water. This will fill a crucial gap in China’s capability to carry out an invasion of Taiwan.The program was turned up by a brilliant piece of open source intelligence by Conor Kennedy, who published his findings at the Jamestown Foundation’s global security website.As Kennedy notes, China’s lack of amphibious assault ships has led some to question whether threats against Taiwan should be taken seriously. He looked instead at China’s fleet of Roll-On, Roll-Off (RO-RO) ships. This type of vessel was originally developed...

Summer lovin’ happened so — swiftly. In the span of just seven days, Robert F. Kennedy’s grandson Conor Kennedy went from near obscurity to dating the hottest country star in the nation. The couple were seen kissing, holding hands and getting extremely “touchy-feely” last weekend at the exclusive Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., according to a witness. Swift arrived at the compound last Friday around 5 p.m., the source said. She rented a small house on the property — a requirement for guests by the property’s managers at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. Soon, the singer and Conor, the...