Free Republic

Israel says it first bombed Iran to stop it from being able to produce nuclear weapons and the “existential threat” they would represent. But the conflict may in the long run serve the opposite purpose: illustrating to Tehran and other nuclear-aspirant nations that nuclear weapons are essential in shielding them against attack. Countries such as North Korea already pointed to Libya, whose leader Moammar Gadhafi gave up his nascent weapons program but was toppled anyway in 2011 after a NATO intervention. That’s one of the reasons Pyongyang has developed its own arsenal — which is believed to have San Francisco...

PARIS/JERUSALEM, June 16 (Reuters) - France shut down the main Israeli company stands at the Paris Airshow on Monday for refusing to remove attack weapons from display, sparking a furious response from Israel and inflaming tensions between the traditional allies. Stands including those of Elbit Systems (ESLT.TA), opens new tab, Rafael, IAI and Uvision were blocked off with black partitions before the start of the world's biggest aviation trade fair. Smaller Israeli stands, which didn't have hardware on display, and an Israeli Ministry of Defence stand, remained open. France, a long-time Israeli ally, has gradually hardened its position on the...

Court documents reveal 900 pounds of meth found in a storage unit in Burnsville, Minnesota, prompted a highly scrutinized federal raid on Lake Street in Minneapolis earlier this month. A federal criminal complaint filed Monday said the June 3 raid at Cuatro Milpas was connected to one of eight search warrants executed across the state. Those warrants followed the search of a Burnsville storage unit, which the complaint said yielded 900 pounds of crystal meth "concealed in multiple tubes separately held in large spools of metal." The street value of the meth is at least $22 million, authorities said. Court...

Seventy-seven years ago, a chartered Douglas DC-3 aircraft left Oakland with 28 Mexican nationals being sent back to México. Most were “braceros,” the slang term for Mexican laborers once imported to the United States in a long-ago farm labor program. Some on the plane that day were undocumented residents being deported once their labor was no longer needed. The passengers, two pilots, a flight attendant and an immigration guard never made it home. An engine caught fire after a fuel leak, sending the plane and its human cargo plunging into Los Gatos Canyon near Coalinga on a clear Jan. 28...

A South Carolina man pleaded guilty to federal charges in the death of New Mexico State Police Officer Justin Hare, who was fatally shot by the man after prosecutors said he offered to help him with a flat tire. Jaremy Smith was on the run from South Carolina, where he’s accused of kidnapping and killing a woman, when Hare encountered him with a flat tire on Interstate 40 in Quay County, New Mexico on March 15, 2024, according to prosecutors.

The suspect accused of deliberately setting the fire that destroyed Chico’s historic Bidwell Mansion last month was arraigned in a Butte County courtroom yesterday. Officials alleged in an afternoon press conference that Kevin Carlson, 30, was motivated by “left-wing” and “anti-colonialism” politics in targeting the 156-year-old landmark for arson, scouting it multiple times before the blaze.

Gov. Gavin Newsom had a dire warning for California this week: “Big oil companies are in cahoots with Donald Trump pushing prices even higher during election season.”

Declaring a climate emergency has a chilling effect on politics,” he tells Public. “It suggests there isn’t time for normal, necessary democratic process.” Climate activists may dismiss Hulme as a “climate denier,” but he agrees the planet is warming due to human activities and specifically says we should prepare for more heat waves. Moreover, Hulme’s credentials are undeniably impressive. He is a Professor at the University of Cambridge and founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

The Los Angeles Times, the largest newspaper in California and one of the biggest by circulation in the entire United States, was hit with a heavy round of layoffs Tuesday. The move to terminate more than 110 positions within the company has been widely rumored for several weeks — even prompting a one-day walkout protest from the newsroom last week — but the scale of the layoffs, and when those layoffs would happen, was not widely known until Tuesday morning.

Novavax announced Monday that it has formally submitted a request for the US Food and Drug Administration to authorize its coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in the United States. The request is based on data that includes the results of two large clinical trials that demonstrated an overall efficacy of about 90% and a "reassuring safety profile," according to the company. "We believe our vaccine offers a differentiated option built on a well-understood protein-based vaccine platform that can be an alternative to the portfolio of available vaccines to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic," Stanley Erck, Novavax's president and chief executive...

When is California going to stop playing COVID games? Your columnist devoutly follows the guidance of public health officials. I wear two masks around town, even after having had all three vaccine shots.

Kofi Annan once said, "Often we mistake stability, in terms of security and economic activity, to mean a country is doing well. We forget the third and important pillar: rule of law and respect for human rights." I was reminded of this quote following the recent shocking assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, which is the culmination of escalating violence enabled in part by the departure of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti in October of 2017. Since that time, the gangs in Haiti have grown in size, violence and access to military-grade weapons. The gangs overwhelmed the flagging...

Big government overreach knows no bounds. The latest example of federal regulation that will threaten thousands of jobs and livelihoods of hardworking Americas comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA says that Maine's lobster industry is to blame for the killing of right whales, an endangered species, and has enacted regulations set to take place this September which will harm the already struggling industry. Yet, the evidence says that the proposed regulation will in no way actually help the whales and will instead only burden lobstermen.As reported by the Portland Herald Press, NOAA "has ordered Maine to...