Free Republic

New York - Gas prices are on the rise nationwide, but one filling station in Florida has earned the dubious distinction of having the highest prices in the country. Suncoast Energys, located near the Orlando International Airport, was charging $5.69 a gallon for regular gasoline on Friday. That's the highest of any gas retailer in the nation, according to price tracker gasbuddy.com. By contrast, the average price in the city of Orlando is $3.78 a gallon, a few pennies below the state and national averages. Patrick DeHann,

As a thank-you to its most famous customer, Amtrak is renaming the train station in Wilmington, Del., after stimulus “sheriff” Vice President Joseph R. Biden - after the project received $20 million in stimulus money and came in $5.7 million over the initial announced budget. Spokesmen for Mr. Biden, who said he personally fought for stimulus money for Amtrak, didn’t respond to messages Wednesday or Thursday.

An unfortunate chyron writer for WLKY in Louisville, Kentucky, either needs to watch their typos or their hatred of East Coast "elites" after letting this graphic get on the air during last night's AFC Championship wrap up. We're pretty sure the football Jets do not hail from the town of "Jew York." Twitter user @elezar snapped this photo of his television and gave everyone on the internet a good laugh.

Is another Andrew Breitbart Web site production about to be unmasked as bogus? Breitbart's Big Journalism site is making an incendiary accusation: That reporters at the Anchorage CBS affiliate KTVA were caught conspiring to damage Tea Party Senate candidate Joe Miller. Big Journalism posted a snippet of audio allegedly showing this: It features KTVA reporters talking among themselves while -- unbeknownst to them -- they were accidentally being recorded on the voicemail of Miller's campaign manager. But it's unclear from the recording precisely what, if anything, was being plotted.

"Following days of increased activity, the Russian numbers station UVB-76 has sent out a new voice transmission. The transmission, sent out on August 23, 2010 at 9:35AM PST, recited the following in Russian: 'UVB-76, UVB-76 — 93 882 naimina 74 14 35 74 — 9 3 8 8 2 nikolai, anna, ivan, michail, ivan, nikolai, anna, 7, 4, 1, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4' The station, believed to be a part of the former Soviet Union's dead man's switch system, has been continually broadcasting for over twenty years, and its purpose has never been fully explained."

Spain has opened the world's largest solar power station, meaning that it overtakes the US as the biggest solar generator in the world. The nation's total solar power production is now equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station. Spain is a world leader in renewable energies and has long been a producer of hydro-electricity (only China and the US have built more dams). It also has a highly developed wind power sector which, like solar power, has received generous government subsidies. The new La Florida solar plant takes Spain's solar output to 432MW, which compares with the US...

TORRANCE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Honda today began operation of a next generation solar hydrogen station prototype at the Los Angeles Center of Honda R&D Americas, Inc., intended for ultimate use as a home refueling appliance capable of an overnight refill of fuel cell electric vehicles. Designed as a single, integrated unit to fit in the user's garage, Honda's next generation Solar Hydrogen Station reduces the size of the system, while producing enough hydrogen (0.5kg) via an 8-hour overnight fill for daily commuting (10,000 miles per year) for a fuel cell electric vehicle. The previous solar hydrogen station system required both an electrolyzer...

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE — Two storms appeared to be on course Friday to hit Southern California next week with potentially heavy rainfall that could unleash floods of mud and debris-laden water from wildfire burn areas into adjacent communities. The National Weather Service said the exact tracks of the storms and rainfall amounts were still uncertain, but it was likely that rain would fall over the region on Monday and possibly through the week until Friday. There was a possibility showers could arrive as early as Sunday night, the NWS said. A major area of concern is the string of Los...

Earlier this week, Huntington Mayor Steve Updike held a press conference relaying information of coming citywide layoffs. The only position, at that date, to be announced in the layoff was the Mayor's secretary. He went on to say that six more layoffs were expected this week. Yesterday it was announce that......

The monster Station Fire burning north of Los Angeles was human-caused, a U.S. Forest Service official said Wednesday. Meanwhile, fire crews prepared for potential setbacks because of returning drier conditions, MSNBC.com reported. Investigators don't know specifically how the Station Fire was started but have enough information to determine it was caused by a person, the Forest Service's deputy incident commander Carlton Joseph said during a news conference. Investigators were determining whether the fire was accidental or arson and identified the point of origin as mile marker 29 on Angeles Crest Highway. Firefighters caught a weather break Tuesday when moister, cooler...

NURISTAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Aug. 10, 2009 – NATO’s International Security Assistance Force is giving voice to residents of this remote area through a radio station run by one of their own. Shaib Dad Hamdard works as a radio disc jockey in his native Nuristan province, Afghanistan, Aug. 3, 2009. The station, funded by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, offers the people of the remote mountain area a variety of news and entertainment programs. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Matthew C. Moeller  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. When Shaib Dad Hamdard was growing up here near the Pakistan border, he...

<p>Vice President Joe Biden, who infamously advised Americans against entering confined transportation spaces during the current swine flu outbreak, will enter the Wilmington Amtrak train station in Delaware this morning.</p> <p>For all 36 years of his long Senate career, Biden used the Wilmington station daily on his commute to and from the Capitol. Which means that Biden was riding the rails as a U.S. senator way back when the current president was on an elementary school playground.</p>

On September 27th, a Chinese Shenzhou space capsule came within 45 kilometers of the International Space Station, and two of the three crewmen made the first Chinese space walk (going outside the spacecraft in their space suits.) Later, a small, 88 pound microsatellite (the BX-1) was released from the Shenzhou. This was supposed to be a science experiment, but the fact that the Shenzhou came so close to the International Space Station, and then released a smaller, maneuverable (via small gas jets) BX-1, indicated another satellite destruction drill. The BX-1 could easily have been directed at the nearby space station,...

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080722/NEWS/807220363/1001/news Link only per posting rules

LONDON - Britain is rethinking its decision to stay out of the manned space race, the country's science minister said Thursday as the government outlined plans to build an international space research facility. Science Minister Ian Pearson said it was time to reconsider Britain's 1986 decision not to invest in a manned space flight program, predicting the world is going to witness "a new international wave of new space exploration in the next 10 to 20 years.'' "What we want to do is review the situation to make sure the U.K. does not get left behind,'' he told British Broadcasting...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — Soldiers and leaders of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team attended the opening ceremony of a radio station in Wehida, Iraq, last week. Maj. Nathan Haas, 3rd HBCT information operations officer, said the idea for the station came from 3rd HBCT Commander, Col. Wayne W. Grigsby, Jr., last December. Haas contacted Ahmed Sabir, station manager for Peace 106, a radio station out of FOB Rustamiyah, near Baghdad, to put the project in motion. Haas said Sabir was the perfect candidate for the job. Sabir has trained Iraqis in radio station operations, speaks English fluently and...

KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Jan. 17, 2008 – Surrounded by snow-covered mountains, the medical personnel of Task Force Saber work side-by-side to provide a first-class, life-saving aid station on Forward Operating Base Naray located in northeastern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border. U.S. Army Spc. Melissa A. Hoffman, from Avondale, Ariz., assigned to Charlie Company, 173rd Brigade Support Battalion, prepares an Afghan mother to draw blood for testing Jan. 3, 2008, at FOB Naray Aid Station in northeastern Afghanistan. The aid station has seen more than 5,400 locals since Task Force Saber took over in May 2007. (U.S. Army photo by...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A giant leap is about to be made for womankind. When space shuttle Discovery blasts off Tuesday, a woman will be sitting in the commander’s seat. And up at the international space station, a female skipper will be waiting to greet her. It will be the first time in the 50-year history of spaceflight that two women are in charge of two spacecraft at the same timeThis is no public relations gimmick cooked up by NASA. It’s coincidence, which pleases shuttle commander Pamela Melroy and station commander Peggy Whitson.

Workers wash new platforms and sidewalks replaced as part of the Basrah railway station project. The $480,000 project was recently turned over to the Iraqi Ministry of Transportation. The port of Umm Qasr appears in the background. USACE photo by A. Al Bahrani. BASRAH — The rehabilitation of the Basrah railroad station, one of the main transportation projects of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the south of Iraq, marks an important achievement in developing the basic transportation services and strategic infrastructure for the Iraqi people.“The Basrah Railroad station was recently completed and turned over to the Iraqi Ministry...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — Amid various media reports of water shortages in Baghdad, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team (Heavy) continues to help the residents of the Mada’in Qada find short- and long-term solutions to insurgent-created water distribution problems. Soldiers from the Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team (Heavy), performed an assessment of the Al Bawi pump station, outside of Salman Pak, Sept. 4. Holland, Ohio, native Lt. Col. Todd R. Ratliff, 42, the BSTB commander, inspected the building, the pumps and the generators at the facility. “This was an assessment to verify information we were getting from...