Free Republic

Dark chocolate has a reputation as a relatively healthy treat, but research showing some popular bars might have potentially unsafe levels of heavy metals has many questioning how safe these treats are. Consumer Reports tested 28 popular dark chocolate bars from Seattle’s own Theo Chocolate to Trader Joe’s, Hershey’s to Ghirardelli, and even smaller brands such as Alter Eco and Mast. The study found cadmium and lead in every single bar. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Consumer Reports last month called on chocolate makers to commit by Feb. 14 to reducing levels of heavy metals in their bars. The...

Gold is an element, which means you can't make it through ordinary chemical reactions — though alchemists tried for centuries. To make the sparkly metal, you have to bind 79 protons and 118 neutrons together to form a single atomic nucleus. That's an intense nuclear fusion reaction. But such intense fusion doesn't happen frequently enough, at least not nearby, to make the giant trove of gold we find on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. And a new study has found the most commonly-theorized origin of gold — collisions between neutron stars — can't explain gold's abundance either. So...

When humanity finally detected the collision between two neutron stars in 2017, we confirmed a long-held theory - in the energetic fires of these incredible explosions, elements heavier than iron are forged. And so, we thought we had an answer to the question of how these elements - including gold - propagated throughout the Universe. But a new analysis has revealed a problem. According to new galactic chemical evolution models, neutron star collisions don't even come close to producing the abundances of heavy elements found in the Milky Way galaxy today. "Neutron star mergers did not produce enough heavy elements...

Enough gold, uranium and other heavy elements about equal in mass to all of Earth's oceans likely came to the solar system from the collision of two neutron stars billions of years ago, a new study finds. If the same event were to happen today, the light from the explosion would outshine the entire night sky, and potentially prove disastrous for life on Earth, according to the new study's researchers. Recent findings have suggested that much of the gold and other elements heavier than iron on the periodic table was born in the catastrophic aftermath of colliding neutron stars,...

Many commercial baby foods "are tainted with significant levels of toxic heavy metals," a report released Thursday by a House subcommittee said, raising concerns over the safety of the products industry wide. According to the staff report by the House subcommittee on economic and consumer policy, leading brands of U.S. baby foods contain dangerous levels of inorganic arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury, heavy metals that even at low levels pose particular risk to babies and children, both the U.S. Federal Drug Administration and the World Health Organization have said. The report was based on internal documents and test results voluntarily...

A Turkish businessman whose criminal case became a controversy at the highest levels of U.S. and Turkish government looks like he'll never make it to trial. Even a co-defendant's lawyer last week labeled Reza Zarrab the "stealth" defendant after he and his lawyers skipped a pretrial conference a few weeks before the scheduled date of his trial on charges that he conspired to process hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of financial transactions for Iranian businesses or Iran's government through U.S. banks. Authorities say those transactions are banned by U.S. and international sanctions. Prosecutors and the judge made no mention...

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag says Washington has told Ankara that jailed Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab -- a gold trader who is awaiting trial in the United States on charges of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran -- is in good medical condition. Bozdag made the remarks on November 16, a day after Turkey announced it had sent a diplomatic note to U.S. authorities inquiring about Zarrab. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons website last week listed Zarrab, 34, as having been released from prison on November 8. But U.S. prosecutors said that posting was an error and he remained...

America’s uranium industry has been absolutely devastated by Department of Energy decisions and political maneuvering by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and individuals closely tied to her. ... in 1976, the uranium extraction industry employed 35,000 people. Today .. fewer than 500 people in this country are involved in it .. 20 percent of our electrical power is dependent on those 500 people, that’s every fifth light-bulb. We’re now producing enough uranium to power 4 or 5 of our nuclear reactors, that’s 94 dependent on foreign uranium. ... Since 2011, DOE has sold off roughly $1 billion of publicly-owned uranium...

Here is just ONE example, although its a very good example, of why Hillary should be convicted of failing to secure CONFIDENTIAL government foreign-affairs documents... This one is from Sid Blumenthal to Hillary on April 2, 2010. Clearly from the subject matter, it does not belong on any unsecured computer system. It hints at the upcoming killing by the US, France, and NATO of Mohamar Qadaffi, and it even implys WHY this has to be done: Because Qadaffi is creating a 7-billion dollar fund of gold-backed dinars, which will be the only currency allowed for middle-east oil purchases. The message...

Earlier this week, we told a fascinating story about an unprecedented, multi-year smuggling ring involving Turkey, Iran, and Dubai (as well as China, Russia and countless other nations) which saw corruption reaching to the very top of the political and financial establishment: from president Erdogan in Turkey, to one of Turkey's richest people, Iran-born Riza Sarraf, to Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, the son of the ruler of Abu Dhabi and one of the world's richest people. The smuggled object in question was gold, billions of dollars worth of gold. The focus of the story was the previously unknown...

DENVER (AP) — The mustard-colored muck that spilled from a Colorado mine and surged into a river contains heavy metals including lead and arsenic, federal environmental officials confirmed Friday, but they didn't immediately discuss amounts in the water or health risks. The spill also contained cadmium, aluminum, copper and calcium, the Environmental Protection Agency said. During a public meeting in Durango, EPA Regional Director Shaun McGrath did not mention whether the elements posed a health hazard but said local authorities were right to close the Animas River to human activities. At least two of the heavy metals can be lethal...

It’s a town most people in Alabama don’t even know exists. But, that’s not the way things have always been, as this tiny Tallapoosa County community was once one of the largest cities in Alabama. The reason can be found deep beneath the woods near the main road that runs through town. James “Coy” Powell, whose ancestors have lived in Goldville for generations, said he hopes the history of this town doesn’t fade away like the population has. “It’s a sacred spot that I can go back and I can tell people like you, you know this wasn’t easy back...

The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir Putin's latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: "Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World." The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world's largest uranium producers and brought Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain. But the untold story behind that story is one that...

The presidential ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton have become ensnared in an obscure gold-mining project in Haiti, as the Democratic favorite for the presidency begins her second run for the White House. In a story that suggests cronyism, questionable ethics and a blurring of the lines between charity and profiteering, The Daily Mail reported on Sunday that Hillary Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of VCS Mining when the unlisted, Delaware-based junior was granted a permit to mine gold in Haiti following a massive earthquake on the impoverished island nation in 2010. The permit was the first to...

Full title.....Gold Mine: Hillary Clinton’s Brother Granted Super-Rare Mining Permit from Haiti After State Dept. Sent Country Billions Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of a self-described mining company that in 2012 received one of only two “gold exploitation permits” from the Haitian government—the first issued in over 50 years. The tiny North Carolina company, VCS Mining, also included on its board Bill Clinton’s co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. The Rodham gold mine revelation is just one of dozens featured in a forthcoming bombshell investigative book by...

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them. Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his...

Editor’s Note: This story first appeared in the Wall Street Journal. We reprint in part here. Hillary Clinton’s State Department was part of a panel that approved the sale of one of America’s largest uranium mines at the same time a foundation controlled by the seller’s chairman was making donations to a Clinton family charity, records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show.The $610 million sale of 51% of Uranium One to a unit of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, was approved in 2010 by a U.S. federal committee that assesses the security implications of foreign investments. The State Department, which...

Four leading House Republicans, citing national security concerns, are urging Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to block the sale of a Wyoming-based uranium mine to an arm of the Russian government's main nuclear agency. The lawmakers are raising alarm over the proposed sale of a Powder River Basin, Wyoming-based uranium processing facility operated by Uranium One USA, a Canadian-based company, to Atomredmetzoloto, a subsidiary of the Russian government agency Rosatom, according to a letter obtained Tuesday by The Washington Times. The sale was first announced on Aug. 31, and the lawmakers claim that it could give Moscow control of up...

I've watched the weather here for 50 years; growing up we did not have haze at 30,000 ft for months on end. Every day, it's like being in a greehouse, an obvious light filter prevents the full sunlight from reaching the ground. The past few years they've turned up the haze a lot. Spring - so far only 2 or 3 days above 70. Summers have been very cool. Have not had a really clear day in a long time. Decades ago, had really clear days all the time. What's really annoying is that they think we're so stupid we...