Free Republic

Legal experts questioned the president’s response to unrest in Los Angeles, saying the military personnel involved will face strict limitations under the law.President Donald Trump’s order to deploy 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles is unprecedented, relying on an unorthodox use of a law aimed at quelling serious domestic unrest or an attack on the United States by a foreign power, some legal experts said Sunday.Trump invoked a section of the Armed Forces Act that allows the president to bypass a governor’s authority over the National Guard and call those troops into federal service when he considers it...

Maryland’s iconic Smith Island faces one of the nation’s most dire forecasts for rising seas, but real estate is booming. ... More homes have sold on Smith Island in the last three years than in the previous 11 combined, according to sales data. Locals see a story of hope. Their efforts to rescue a 400-year-old way of life tied to tide and season are beginning to bear fruit. Many question the doomsday predictions for the island or hope they can find a way to ride out rising waters. Environmentalists see a dangerous kind of denialism. They say Smith Island’s long-term...

The worst of Hurricane Michael’s remnants were supposed to track south of tiny Charlotte County in southern Virginia, but a desperate 911 call Thursday night told a different story: A car had been washed away in a torrential flash flood. When sheriff’s deputies raced to the scene on Mount Harmony Road after 11 p.m., county administrator Daniel Witt said they heard the screams of a 17-year-old boy clinging to a guardrail. The sheriff’s deputies and some bystanders linked arms and waded into the raging water, before tossing the teen a rope. He was pulled to safety, but his father and...