Free Republic

China's People's Liberation Army - Navy ship "Longushan" is reportedly ablaze just off the coast of China tonight. The vessel is reported to be "China's most advanced warship." No OFFICIAL word on what caused the fire. I am not sure if China has acknowledged the fire yet ... All mention of this is being rapidly scrubbed from China social media networks, and no official information is coming out of Beijing. The vessel bears Hull Number 980 and is described as a Type 071 landing ship. China's fifth Type 071 amphibious transport dock (LPD) Longhushan; with hull number 980) was commissioned...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, R-Ill., announced that the committee led by Democrats will "take a hard look" into "alleged misconduct" by Special Counsel John Durham as he conducts an investigation into the origins into the handling of the Trump-Russia investigation by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In a statement Monday, Durbin referenced a New York Times report that included details about the opening of and actions taken during the investigation led by Durham after he was appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr, which Durbin framed as "abuses of power." "These reports about abuses in Special Counsel Durham’s...

Inter-agency body says it will not block company’s US$700 million corn milling plant in city of Grand Forks.. Residents who object to the project say it is too close to air force base and could be a ‘smokescreen’ for espionage .... A US inter-agency body charged with assessing national security risks involving foreign investments announced on Monday it will not block a Chinese agribusiness subsidiary’s proposed US$700 million corn milling project in North Dakota. After completing a 45-day review, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) concluded that Fufeng USA’s purchase of 150 hectares (370 acres) of...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stopped counting every infection among people fully immunized with the COVID-19 vaccine who later tested positive for the virus. So-called 'breakthrough cases' occur when people contract coronavirus at least 14 days after receiving their final dose of the vaccine. As of April 26, 9,245 Americans out of more than 95 million fell ill with COVID-19 after being vaccinated, about 0.009 percent. However, at the beginning of May, the CDC revealed it will no longer report all breakthroughs and instead only those that lead to hospitalization or death, as first reported by...

TEHRAN, Iran – The website of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is reporting that a general who fought in Syria and Iraq has allegedly accidentally killed himself while cleaning a gun. Gen. Ghodratollah Mansouri allegedly shot himself in the head by accident while cleaning his pistol, according to the Sunday report. The report added that Mansouri was veteran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and a "defender of the shrine," a reference to Iranians who fight against the extremist Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria and Iraq. Since 2014, Mansouri was a regional commander of the Guard's ground forces in the northeastern city...

WEST ORANGE, New Jersey—In October 2002, Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), dogged by an ethics scandal, dropped his bid for re-election just weeks before the vote, saying that he didn’t want to cause further harm to his party and imperil its control of the chamber. He was replaced by former Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who won the race like all New Jersey Senate Democrats have since 1972. Sixteen years later, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who has served in public office since 1986, is facing the toughest reelection campaign of his life, due exclusively to an indictment on federal corruption charges. But...

State lawmakers launching an investigation into how Gov. Phil Murphy's team handled a rape allegation against a former senior official must not use survivors as "spectacles for public consumption," according to a letter signed by 60 of the governor's female supporters who are questioning the motives behind the inquiry. The letter was sent to the 120 members of the state Legislature Monday before they were expected to vote to form a committee examining the response by law enforcement and Murphy senior staffers to the rape allegation against Albert J. Alvarez, a senior campaign staffer later hired as the Schools Development...

Staten Island Rep. Dan Donovan is locked in a surprisingly close race with Democratic challenger Max Rose, according to a poll released Tuesday. Donovan leads Rose by 4 points — 44 to 40 percent, the New York Times Upshot/Siena College survey found. Green Party candidate Henry Gardel gets 1 percent and 15 percent of likely voters remain undecided, the poll said. The 11th congressional district that encompasses Staten Island and southern Brooklyn has been considered a safe Republican seat. Staten Island accounts for about 70 percent of the vote and Brooklyn 30 percent.

Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the IDF head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, wrote a letter to Tedros Adhanom, the head of the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations concerned with international public health, warning that Hamas’ plan to burn a massive amounts of tires on the border with Israel on Friday would be an “ecologic catastrophe.” “The Hamas terrorist organization, which controls the Gaza Strip, has issued an order to burn about 10,000 tires this Friday along the border with Israel,” Mordechai wrote. “The burning of tires in such a huge quantity will...

(CNSNews.com) - "I think this was a terrible error in judgment by the director to release this kind of ambiguous letter," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, told ABC's "This Week." "That kind of an ambiguity bomb this close to election was a terrible lapse in judgment," Schiff said. "The DOJ policies against making a statement about a pending or closed case -- and certainly not doing it in the days leading up to an investigation -- is there for a reason. It's designed to ensure fairness. "It's also designed to ensure that the...

Typical network news report on the election I'm listening to the radio top of the hour news. ABC news. First story is about Trump. Frank Lutz says Trump should be polling better at this time and would be if he'd appealed to disaffected independents. That was the Trump report. Next up was the Hillary report. A new batch of Wikileaks is out about how in 2015 her campaign was discussing how to address the e-mail scandal. The main anchor says, "more from our reporter". They cut to her and I am thinking that the more detailed follow-up by the reporter...

Russia will cover an entire city behind a smoke screen this week as part of a military exercise. The city of Severomorsk — home to about 50,000 people along Russia’s northern arctic coast — is the venue for the unprecedented experiment. The idea is to create a “blanket of smoke” that makes the city and the naval base disappear from radars.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Libyan militant charged in the 2012 Benghazi attacks was in federal law enforcement custody, the U.S. attorney's office said Saturday. Security at the city's federal courthouse was heightened.

ok

President Barack Obama is launching an initiative to combat sexual assault, particularly on college campuses, turning the spotlight on a problem that has devastated millions of Americans yet rarely receives such White House attention. Obama planned to sign a presidential memorandum Wednesday creating a task force to protect students from sexual assault, with a new White House report declaring that no one in America is more at risk of being raped or assaulted than college women. The report, "Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action," says that 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted at college but...

Speaker of the House John Boehner called on President Barack Obama Monday to make a decision on the Syrian conflict, but not without the approval of congress first. "The Syrian regime has blatantly crossed President Obama's red line, the White House has acknowledged, by using chemical weapons on its people," the Ohio Republican wrote in a statement. "The options facing the president are complicated, have far-reaching ramifications, and may require significant resources." "That's why, if he chooses to act, the president must explain his decision publicly, clearly, and resolutely," he added. "The president is commander-in-chief. With that power comes obligations,"...

US President Barack Obama has the authority to launch air strikes against Syria. But he has to notify lawmakers in Congress -- a process which has begun, according to both sides. "The administration is actively consulting with members of Congress, and we will continue to have these conversations in the days ahead," Kerry said Monday in a strongly-worded statement on Syria.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio warned in an op-ed on Thursday that there is “mounting evidence” Obamacare creates more problems than it solves and he called on lawmakers to stop the “disastrous” law from taking effect. “It is time to admit that Obamacare isn't going to work, decide not to waste a single cent more on it, and replace it with market-based reforms that will give people more health insurance choices and options,” Rubio penned on the Fox News website. “It's still not too late. This September may be our last best chance to do anything about this disastrous law.”...

A Texas woman has been arrested in connection with the mailing of three letters containing a form of the poison ricin to President Obama, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, federal authorities said. Shannon Rogers Guess Richardson of New Boston, Texas, originally called the Federal Bureau of Investigation claiming that her husband had sent the letters, officials said. The investigators found that she had sent the letters herself, they said. The woman was arrested in Arkansas on charges that will be filed Friday afternoon, the authorities said.

President Barack Obama and members of his administration are holding a day-long mental health conference Monday at the White House--and they have asked Hollywood to help lend some star power. Actors Bradley Cooper and Glenn Close are among those invited to participate in the meeting, which features a panel on negative attitudes toward mental illness moderated by Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius, a panel on mental health outreach moderated by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and opening remarks from the president and closing remarks from Vice President Joe Biden, Cooper and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Close in 2009 co-founded...