Free Republic

The Pentagon not ready to comment on Iranian video of a drone overflying the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier... Starting on Friday warships from ten nations will patrol the Baltic Sea and North Sea... Outside the White House the national Christmas tree toppling... "We will not be part of a government that allows Hamas to exist" Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir warning... Peru's Attorney General Patricia Benavides formally accusing President Dina Boluarte of responsibility for the deaths of protesters late last year... "When the Minister of Justice insults the deputies of the National Rally, he insults millions...

A 71-year-old investor who bought an old Wyoming coal mine sight-unseen for $2million has learned that it may contain $37 billion worth of 'rare earth' minerals. Randall Atkins, the CEO of Ramaco Rescources, bought the Brook Mine in Sheridan 12 years ago - but it wasn't until years later that researchers checked if the ground contained elements that are used for semiconductors, missiles and solar cells. He was shocked to find out that his mine may contain the largest rare-earth deposit in the United States - and the materials may be worth 18,500 times what he paid for the land....

A Harvard Law School alum has come forward to accuse Biden of plagiarizing an article he wrote more than two decades ago. Roger Severino .. was working .. at the Harvard Journal of Legislation in 2000 when he found multiple instances of copying in an essay Biden] had lifted language straight out of a [federal court] opinion, changed a couple words and called them his own. There were no quote marks and no footnote or anything else attributing the court as the source, ... When asked why he decided to come forward with the claims 23 years after the fact,...

Campbell and Converse counties in northeast Wyoming scrambled Friday in response to a tornado that tore through the North Antelope Rochelle coal mine, reportedly tossing vehicles, flipping trains and destroying a building. The tornado injured eight people after it touched down south of Wright, Wyoming about 6 p.m., Leslie Perkins, Campbell County public information officer, said in a press release four hours after the event. Six of the injured people were transported to Campbell County Health; one was taken to a hospital in Douglas, Wyoming. The remaining person refused services, the statement says, adding that personnel did not classify the...

The Biden administration moved closer to implementing a 20-year ban on mining in a South Dakota forest area due to its proximity to cultural and natural resources. In a joint announcement Friday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service said they would consider a 20-year withdrawal of 20,574 acres located in the Black Hills National Forest near the Pactola Reservoir and Rapid Creek Watershed. The proposed action prohibits new mining claims and the issuance of new federal mineral leases for two years while the agencies review the proposal. "Whether it’s northern Minnesota, southern Arizona, Alaska, or now South...

Comedian George Lopez has taken a public stand in support of drag artists in general and George Santos in particular. The 61-year-old joined “The View” last Thursday and added to the hosts’ discussion about Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signing the “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year. He derided anti-drag prejudice after co-host Ana Navarro shared her support for those performers. “If you’re an enemy of drag, you’re an enemy of mine,” Lopez declared.

A wind farm in Germany is being demolished to make room for a coal mine expansion. German energy giant RWE is tearing down wind turbines to expand a neighboring coal mine in an effort to deal with the country's energy crisis. The area of the wind farm near the small town of Lützerath will be used to expand the Garzweiler open pit mine in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The wind farm features eight wind turbines. One wind turbine was dismantled last week, two more are scheduled to be deconstructed some time next year, and the final five will be...

Clash comes as global demand surges to power batteries for electric cars.. A northern Nevada mine that is the largest-known source of lithium in the United States for electric car batteries is facing resistance from a radical environmental group and some of its American Indian supporters. The mine at Thacker Pass is on Bureau of Land Management property in rural Nevada between two mountain ranges about 25 miles south of the border with Oregon. The fight reflects other political battles between liberals and far-left factions within the Democratic Party, with larger ramifications for the party’s agenda. Lithium is the key...

Turkey’s military has deactivated a mine that had drifted in from the Black Sea, setting off a loud explosion in the process, days after Russia warned several of them had washed away from Ukrainian ports. On Saturday, defence minister Hulusi Akar described the object, first discovered by fishermen in the upper Bosphorus strait, as an old type of mine and said he was in touch with both Russian and Ukrainian authorities about it. Maritime traffic has safely been opened after coordination with the Turkish coastguard and naval forces, the minister added. Earlier on Saturday, the coastguard said two-way ship traffic...

An Estonian-owned cargo ship has been sunk off the coast of Ukraine after hitting a mine. Four crew members are still missing and two are in a life raft at sea following the explosion near Odeasa. Igor Ilves, managing director of Tallinn-based manager Vista Shipping Agency, said the ship likely struck a mine, adding: 'The vessel has finally sunk. Two of the crew are in a raft on the water and four others are missing. I don't know where they are at the moment.' Estonia is a member of NATO and the EU, and while an official reason has yet...

RENO, Nev. (AP) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed designating critical habitat for a Nevada wildflower it plans to list as endangered amid a conflict over a mine to produce lithium batteries for electric vehicles critical to the Biden administration’s plans to combat climate change. The agency on Wednesday proposed designating critical habitat for Tiehm’s buckwheat on a high-desert ridge near the California line halfway between Reno and Las Vegas. It’s the only place in the world the delicate, 6-inch-tall (15-centimeter) wildflower with yellow blooms is known to exist. It’s also the site where Ioneer USA Corp....

The coal plant is closing, along with the mine that feeds it and has nearly 115 more employees, and all the workers will lose their jobs over the next decade ... The same scenario is playing out in other small towns across the U.S. After decades of relying on coal for their workforce, tax base and way of life, the towns face uncertain futures as new state and national legislation forces the retirement of fossil fuels ... The impact spreads beyond the plants workers and is felt by the rest of the community, too. In Craig, much of the infrastructure...

A lawsuit filed this week in Washington, D.C., alleges that some of the world's largest technology firms knowingly engaged in the usage of child labor in Africa's cobalt mines. The suit was filed by nongovernmental organization International Rights Advocates and mentions Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, USA Today reports. Cobalt is an essential part of rechargeable lithium batteries that power many of the electronic devices that the listed companies sell. According to the suit, two mining companies — British company Glencore and Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — supplied cobalt to all of the...

On the surface, Kyrgyzstan is one of the world’s poorest nations, but just beneath the ground it holds almost unimaginable wealth. Carved high into the side of the Tien Shan mountain range, the Kumtor gold mine was built to extract that wealth, making the Central Asian nation, and the Canadian firm behind the project, rich in the process. Instead, the vast mine, one of the world’s largest, has become the center of a long-running political row. In May, just weeks after being inaugurated as the country’s president following violent riots last October, Sadyr Japyrov ordered officials to roll in and...

Colin Freeman Sat, April 3, 2021, 5:47 AM Picture taken on March 30, 2021 shows a view of Nuuk, Greenland - EMIL HELMS /AFP Picture taken on March 30, 2021 shows a view of Nuuk, Greenland - EMIL HELMS /AFP AS elections go, it sounds rather minor-league: a contest with just 40,000 voters, triggered by a planning row in one of the most remote, inhospitable corners of the planet. On Tuesday, though, diplomats from Washington to Beijing will be watching carefully as Greenland holds snap parliamentary polls. With a total of population of just 56,000, its electorate is smaller than...

BY JAMES TARANTO Friday, April 30, 2004 4:11 p.m. EDT Joe Says It Was So Remember Joe Wilson, the loudmouthed former ambassador who stirred up a kerfuffle last year by claiming that BUSH LIED!!!! when he purportedly said Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Niger? Now Wilson has a book out, and it seems he's changing his story. The Washington Post reports: It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade--an overture...

Down, down, down. In three minutes, the skip drops nearly 1,700 feet below Cleveland. Then the giant metal door swings open, and you’re deposited in an other-world, with walls, ceiling and floor made of salt. Dirty brown salt at the Cargill mine’s entrance, where the rock has absorbed diesel fumes and dust for more than 60 years. Pristine white, with glimmering flecks, at the mine’s far reaches, 3 miles north, under Lake Erie. “I look out at the water, and it’s like, man, we’re under that!” said Cargill employee Cachet Hilton, 45. Every day, the 5-mile wide mine gets a...

The Trump administration has rejected a permit for the controversial Pebble Mine in Alaska, likely dealing the project’s final blow even before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Customs officers at Miami International Airport were sitting pretty after discovering nearly $500,000 hidden inside a chair being smuggled out of the US, officials said. The US Customs and Border Protection officers seized the $491,280 in the chair, which sat along with other furniture in a recent shipment bound for the Dominican Republic, the agency said in a statement. Authorities selected the crate for examination during outbound enforcement operations, officials said. “Criminal organizations will attempt to export large sums of cash to launder their ill-gotten gains,” said Robert Del Toro, the CBP’s acting port director. “This is a significant seizure...

The accident in the makeshift mine occurred on Friday about 3pm local time (13:00 GMT) following heavy rains in the town of Kamituga in South Kivu province. The mine was not located on the Kamituga gold concession owned by the Canadian miner Banro Corporation, the company's chief executive said. Thousands of informal miners operate in and around mines in DRC, which produces more than half of the world's cobalt, a key component in electric car batteries. Mining accidents are common, with dozens of deaths every year in mines where often ill-equipped diggers burrow deep underground in search for ore. Last...