Free Republic

The Department of Transportation is taking action to expedite permitting for infrastructure projects nationwide, minimize delays, and clear the backlog of projects awaiting federal approval, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. The agency has historically had some of slowest permitting timelines across the federal government. According to government data, the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Aviation Administration each take more than seven years to complete reviews while the Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Transit Administration each take more than five years to approve projects. At the same time, the average age of America's bridges is 47 years, meaning a bulk...

Just over two months ago, the Rand Corporation released a study on the cost of producing multi-family housing in three states: California, Colorado, and Texas.The results were paradoxically shocking, yet utterly predictable.California, it turns out, is a ridiculous place, run by ridiculous people, with ridiculous regulations. Or, as the folks at Rand put it, “The average market-rate apartment in California is roughly two and a half times the cost of a similar apartment constructed in Texas on a square-foot basis—and regional differences within California, where costs in the San Francisco Bay Area are roughly 50 percent higher than costs in...

In the dawn light of a South African savanna, a team of rangers huddle around a satellite dish aimed skyward. Their phones spring to life with a signal – an unthinkable result just months earlier in this remote, off-grid conservation zone. The source is Starlink, Elon Musk and SpaceX’s satellite internet service, offering encrypted, high-speed connectivity far from state-controlled networks. But in South Africa, this signal didn’t just connect – it disrupted. And that disruption provides some subtext to the extraordinary “Wild West Wing” showdown between Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in May, which played out in...

The U.S. Department of Energy has ordered another power plant, this time an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania, to keep its turbines running through the hottest summer months as a precaution against electricity shortfalls in the 13-state mid-Atlantic grid. The department’s order to the grid operator, PJM Interconnection, regarding the Eddystone power plant just south of Philadelphia on the Delaware River, is the department’s second use of federal power under President Donald Trump to require a power plant to keep operating on the mainland United States. Constellation Energy had planned to shut down Eddystone’s units 3 and 4 on...

Video The IDF announced that troops of the 7th Brigade, under the command of the 98th Division currently operating in the Khan Yunis area as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots, eliminated dozens of terrorists and dismantled approximately 100 terrorist infrastructure targets in joint operations involving the brigade's fire coordination unit, the Israeli Air Force, and the Intelligence Directorate. The troops identified three terrorists transporting explosives, intending to rig the area with explosives. The troops quickly directed an Israeli Air Force aircraft, which struck and eliminated the terrorists. .....

Sales of electric vehicles are on the rise in the United States, but the road ahead for charging infrastructure looks a whole lot bumpier. Despite growing interest in EVs, the pace of building high-speed chargers isn’t just lagging, it’s actively falling behind. Add in looming policy shifts under the Trump administration, and the gap between supply and demand could widen even further. It’s understood that the number of high-speed EV chargers being installed across the US dropped more than 21% through the first quarter compared to last year. With this in mind, BloombergNEF has cut its expectations for EV installations...

All major mobile networks went down in Spain on Tuesday, just four weeks after the country was hit by a national power outage. Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, Digimobil and O2 were all reported to have been affected by outages hitting professional services, including health centres. Complaints soared as landline, internet and emergency contact services were knocked offline early this morning. Madrid, Andalucía, Galicia, the Basque Country, Aragon, Navarra, Extremadura and the Valencian Community were all reportedly affected. Networks contracted with Telefónica appeared to have been hit, but outages did not appear to be affecting individuals' network access. The company told MailOnline...

The Trump administration’s Department of Transportation revealed that it inherited an “unprecedented backlog of grants” left by the Biden administration. In late March, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration reported that Secretary Sean Duffy had finalized a $221 million federal grant to rebuild Rhode Island’s Washington Bridge — its westbound side has been closed since December 2023 following a “critical failure.” The funding for the project was initially announced in the fall of 2024, but the Biden administration “failed to sign the agreement.” The DOT’s announcement noted that "the Trump administration inherited roughly 3,200 unobligated grants that had been promoted by...

New York -- When a suspicious video of ballots being ripped up in Pennsylvania gained attention on social media last October, federal agencies responded quickly and called it out as Russian disinformation. On Election Day in November, bomb threats to polling places in numerous states caused relatively few disruptions to voting. It’s one of the many scenarios covered by the nation’s cybersecurity agency in its outreach to state and local officials.The Trump administration’s downsizing and disbanding of federal agencies has hit efforts that improve election security and monitor foreign influence. That could create gaps for America’s enemies to exploit the...

A major fire broke out Thursday at one of the world's largest battery storage plants.The facility, in Moss Landing, northern California, stores energy for general use as part of the state grid, and is a significant part of California's efforts to use cleaner energy.It caught fire Thursday afternoon, officials in Monterey County said, prompting evacuation orders for more than 2,000 people.A Monterey County Sheriff's Office spokesperson told the local news channel KSBW 8 that 40% of the battery plant had burned.A law enforcement spokesperson told CNN that concerns around chemical spills and hazardous material burning had prompted broad evacuation orders....snip...Monterey...

MOSS LANDING, Calif. — A fire has been confirmed at the Vistra Power Plant in Moss Landing on Thursday which is forcing evacuations and closing roads in the area. The fire was reported shortly after 3 p.m. The building was evacuated when the fire started. The county of Monterey sent the following message to residents in the area: "North County Fire Department is currently responding to a fire at Moss Landing Power Plant. Out of an abundance of caution, the fire department urges residents in Zones MRY-B047 and MRY-B053 to close windows and doors and shut off air systems until...

MOSS LANDING, Calif. — A fire has been confirmed at the Vistra Power Plant in Moss Landing on Thursday which is forcing evacuations and closing roads in the area.

Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during an interview on Sunday, a week before he steps down, that China has penetrated America’s water treatment plants, electric grid, and other critical civilian infrastructure, and is lying “in wait” for an opportunity to cyberattack at a time and place of its choosing. Asked on CBS’s 60 Minutes about Chinese penetration of U.S. cyber and infrastructure, Wray said China’s cyber program is the largest in the world and has stolen more of Americans’ personal and corporate data than every nation combined. Then, he added: But even beyond the cyber theft. There’s another part...

For more than a decade, the media, Democrats, and Hollywood have told us that Western civilization in general and the United States in particular are white supremacist, genocidal, and unsustainable. The founding of America occurred not in 1776 but rather in 1619 with the beginning of slavery, whose effects are felt more strongly than ever. The original colonies and the expansion of the Western frontier depended on the extermination of indigenous people and theft of their lands. And our crimes against nature have resulted in apocalyptic climate change, which requires radical changes to the way we live our lives. The...

Signs that we were once a truly great nation are all around us. Previous generations of Americans handed us the keys to the most magnificent domestic infrastructure that the world had ever seen, but now it is literally falling apart all around us. Thousands of bridges are structurally deficient and there have already been some very high profile collapses. Hundreds of thousands of miles of highways and roads in the United States are in very poor shape. Aging sewer systems are leaking raw sewage all over the place, and children are being slowly poisoned by lead pipes that desperately need...

The Biden White House made a stunning admission that Chinese hackers have the ability to cripple the American power grid and ports, and it is reportedly not just run-of-the-mill intrusions but increasingly sophisticated actors with unparalleled skills. Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, had known about the Chinese hackers' ability to knock out critical infrastructure for more than a year, sources told The Wall Street Journal. In the fall of 2023 he had warned telecommunications and technology executives in a secret White House meeting, seeking Big Tech's help in protecting American lives and infrastructure from hacks. Since then there have been...

SoftBank will invest at least $100 billion into US tech projects over the next four years, CEO Masayoshi Son and President-elect Donald Trump jointly revealed during a press conference at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday. Trump, who gained major support from the tech industry ahead of the 2024 election, said the massive commitment from SoftBank would create 100,000 jobs for the US economy. The investments are expected to be focused on artificial intelligence projects and the related infrastructure required to power them. “This historic investment is a monumental demonstration confidence in America’s future, and it will help ensure...

Thanks to The United States’ combination of lackluster train infrastructure and miserable flying experience, there often simply aren’t great choices to get places. Is the Greyhound bus our savior? No, absolutely not. Yet, despite the Greyhound’s reputation as as a last resort option, I’ve taken it several times (not as a last resort!) over the last few years.

Texas has spent years tweaking its electric grid, but it’s still not fixed. How do we know this? ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, projects an 80% likelihood of rolling blackouts if a storm the magnitude of Winter Storm Uri hits the state this winter. Prior to Uri in February 2021, the probability of rolling blackouts was only 5%. A weaker storm—equivalent to 2022’s Winter Storm Elliott—has a 50% probability of triggering rolling blackouts. And there is no assurance that rolling blackouts can be executed, risking a widescale grid failure. So, by ERCOT’s own projections, the grid is more...

The rapid growth of data centers to support AI is significantly increasing global electricity demand.This surge in demand threatens to outpace the development of renewable energy sources.International regulations are needed to ensure tech companies use clean energy and minimize their impact on climate goals.The global electricity demand is expected to grow exponentially in the coming decades, largely due to an increased demand from tech companies for new data centers to support the rollout of high-energy-consuming advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI). As governments worldwide introduce new climate policies and pump billions into alternative energy sources and clean tech, these...