Free Republic

Albertans were asked for the second evening in a row on Saturday to limit their electricity usage to essential needs only. According to an alert issued by the Alberta Emergency Management Agency to all cell phones shortly before 7 p.m., a high demand for power during the extreme cold placed the province at a "high risk" of rotating power outages. "On top of high demand of our own energy generation, Alberta's grid receives electricity from neighboring provinces. Extreme weather in Saskatchewan and British Columbia is impacting electricity sharing, which is also a contributing factor to tonight's grid alert," Nathan Neudorf,...

Residents in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood are concerned about the recent rise in violent crime. San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston held a virtual town hall on Wednesday to address the issue that has left some residents fearful to leave their homes.

Rotating outages were underway Friday evening after a Stage 3 emergency went into effect due to higher demand for power. Southern California Edison said at the direction of the California Independent System Operator, they were are implementing rotating power outages. According to SCE, the rotating outages typically last about an hour. Just before 7:30 p.m., the City of Anaheim said rolling power outages were underway across the city and would last "no longer than 15 minutes."

PG&E has been directed to begin shutting off power as California ISO has declared a statewide Stage 3 Emergency due to excessive heat driving up electricity use. 200,000 to 250,000 customers will be affected at a time in rotating power outages...

Precautions put in place to slow the rise of coronavirus cases in New Orleans has inadvertently led to a rat problem for the Louisiana city. With restaurants closed save for take-out service, far less food waste is being discarded in the city's alleyways, driving the local rodent population out into the open to search for scraps. New Orleans' famous Mardi Gras celebration brought thousands of tourists to the city, and medical experts believe it might be a big factor in the city's COVID-19 outbreak. Now with Bourbon Street's famous bars all closed and people social distancing, videos show dozens of...

I came back from a flight last night around midnight at Terminal A gate 15 and was surprised by all the homeless sleeping in the area around baggage claim and in the hallways. I guess they take the DART train to the A terminal and sleep the night, and are rounded out in the morning. This situation makes Dallas county and the DFW airport look bad at their ineptness to deal with homelessness. I heard about this situation about 2 weeks ago and called Fox affiliate KDFW channel 4 and they brushed it off. I should have taken video but...

MONTERREY, Nuevo Leon – Multiple cells of independent meth dealers managed to grow in power and size to the point where they began to actively clash with other drug cartels who are trying to control all the drug markets.

Baltimore broke its annual per capita homicide record after reaching 342 killings Friday. With just over 600,000 residents, the city hit a historically high homicide rate of about 57 per 100,000 people after recent relentless gunfire saw eight people shot — three fatally — in one day and nine others — one fatally — another day. The new rate eclipses that of 1993, when the city had a record 353 killings but was much more populous before years of population exodus. By contrast, New York City, with more than 8 million residents, had 306 homicides through Dec. 15. The total...

Concepcion Malinek's tried to help the immigrants, offering them shelter from trouble in Guatemala, her lawyer said. When they got to the Cicero home where a woman had allegedly “enslaved” Guatemalan immigrants for years, the FBI had to break down every door, a prosecutor said. Inside, agents found “deplorable” conditions. Mold. Cockroaches. Mattresses “all over the place.” And sewage backing up in the basement where Concepcion Malinek allegedly forced the immigrants — one as young as 18 months old — to live. Malinek told the immigrants they couldn’t leave until they paid debts to her worth thousands of dollars, prosecutors...

Pakistan: Muslim mob attacks church, Christian homes after four Christians falsely accused of desecrating Qur’an “Approximately 200 Christian families from Farooq-e-Azam have fled their homes and moved to safer areas within Karachi. Local police have regained control of the neighborhood; however, members of the mob are still refusing to allow Christians to open their churches.” Christians in Pakistan are routinely subjected to monstrous human rights abuses, but the international “human rights community” is far too busy looking for incidents of “Islamophobia” to take any notice. “Four Christian Women Falsely Accused of Blasphemy in Pakistan,” International Christian Concern, February 25, 2019:...

Murtaza Ahmadi went viral in 2016 after pictures of him emerged wearing a makeshift Lionel Messi shirt fashioned out of a plastic bag. The Afghan boy’s humble tribute to his Barcelona idol touched the hearts of many, including, it seems, Messi himself. Murtaza would receive a package from the player via UNICEF, which included a real signed shirt, and he later even met his hero in a friendly played in Qatar. But those moments of joy have been replaced by dark times. The seven-year-old has been forced to flee his home after receiving death threats. His family say his fame...

At least eight deaths have been reported in clashes between protesters and police since the protests began on Sunday. Among the dead is a police officer who was shot and burned to death by a gang on Monday. Three people also were wounded, including a 29-year-old French woman and a Haitian-American tourist, who were hurt when a group of armed men opened fired on an airport shuttle when it refused to stop.

A mob of about 100 people in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo doused a detective with gasoline and burned him to death, according to local officials. Snip They severely beat the men and burned the detective after dousing him with fuel. It was unclear if he was on duty or if they knew he was a detective. Snip There have been five killings in the span of about a month in Mexico based on false rumors about child snatchers. In four of those cases, the victims were also burned. SnipIn 2004, a mob on the southern outskirts of Mexico...

An explosion of political assassinations in Mexico has cast a pall over nationwide elections slated for July 1, when voters will choose their next president and fill a slew of down-ballot posts. At least 82 candidates and office holders have been killed since the electoral season kicked off in September, making this the bloodiest presidential race in recent history, according to a tally by Etellekt, a security consultancy based in Mexico City, and Reuters research. Four were slain in the past week alone. They include Juan Carlos Andrade Magana, who was running for re-election as mayor of the hamlet of...