Free Republic

They’re running up the bill. Bronx residents in state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s district decried spiking utility bills Monday — as the state Legislature pushes back on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s cost-saving bid to delay New York’s controversial climate law mandates. The complaints come as lawmakers, led by Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, are poised to split with Hochul over her push to delay the climate law, as well as to reform car insurance — two major sticking points in state budget talks. “Anything that you pay less is better for everybody,” said Francisco Perez, 36, a Baychester resident...

The price of coffee is increasing faster than any other household grocery, and it’s not just tariffs driving the surge — bad weather, war and a frenzy of market traders are also to blame for the rise. Coffee prices have spiked by a stunning 18.4% in the last year, according to federal data from February. Most other household spending items — from groceries to cars to haircuts — don’t close to that increase rate, figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show. Those increases have affected both producers and consumers, and reflect a trend that has been running wild since...

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin - The blizzard that slammed parts of the U.S. has officially broken a record in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The recent snowfall marks the biggest snowstorm in 136 years, with 26.1 inches recorded in the city as of 1 p.m. on Monday. On Sunday, the area recorded 17.1 inches and an additional 9 inches of snow fell today. With over 17 inches of snow falling, a new record was set as the third-snowiest day on record in Green Bay - the highest snowfall in one day since 1889. The biggest snowstorm the area has ever seen happened on...

At least 2,000 flights were canceled Sunday as winter blizzards continue to batter the Upper Midwest, turning at least one normally bustling airport into a virtual ghost town. According to the latest data from FlightAware, U.S. flight cancellations Sunday accounted for roughly 78% of all canceled flights worldwide, with at least 2,216 flights grounded out of roughly 2,842 global cancellations. Meanwhile, an additional 6,826 delays have reportedly rippled across the national air network, further straining travel schedules across the world. Many airlines have since issued guidelines allowing passengers to change their flights without major fees, providing flexibility for travelers affected...

The designers behind Hollywood’s grandest stage pulled back the curtain on their green-themed inspiration for the Oscars dais. The stage for the 98th Academy Awards show resembles a garden courtyard, with overhanging tree branches and other floral touches meant to provide a feeling of zen. “There is an unsettled nature around the climate right now, and there’s just something very calming about being surrounded by architecture, but having this space for trees to grow,” Oscars production designer Alana Billingsley told Vanity Fair of the stage’s theme. The stage for the 98th Academy Awards show resembles a garden courtyard, with overhanging...

The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and Firebird Motorsports Park officials announced time changes for the upcoming FMP NHRA Arizona Nationals presented by NGK Spark Plugs, which takes place March 20-22. Taking an abundance of caution for the expected heat in the weekend forecast, racing in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series will shift to earlier in the morning on each day, setting up a Coffee and Nitro weekend at the Duel in the Desert. Friday qualifying will begin at 9:30 a.m. local time on Friday with Pro Stock, followed by Funny Car and Top Fuel. The second session...

Gov. Hochul has spent much of her 4 ¹/₂ years in office facing a time bomb left by her predecessor: drastic, legally binding greenhouse gas reduction targets that the state has no practical means of meeting. The 2019 Climate Act requires New York to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about one-quarter from that year’s levels by 2030. The state has made little progress toward this goal, in part because officials shuttered New York’s largest nuclear power plant in 2021. The law remains on the books, and its defenders balk at revision. If Hochul can’t persuade them to change it, Albany’s...

ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) — Fisherman Helgi Áargil no longer knows what to expect on Greenland ‘s fjords, where he spends up to five days at a time on his boat with his dog, Molly, and the ever-changing northern lights in the sky as company. Last year, his boat got stuck in ice that broke off the nearby glacier. This year, it’s been very wet instead. His income is just as unpredictable. An outing could bring him around 100,000 Danish kroner (about $15,700), or nothing at all. The Arctic’s rapidly changing climate is bringing more questions for Greenland, the semiautonomous territory...

Critics, including us, have been warning that New Yorkers’ energy costs are about to soar even higher, thanks to the state’s insane 2019 climate law. Now, a state agency itself is confirming those warnings — and has even put a price tag on the pain: a whopping $4,100 a year extra per household by 2031. That’s just for electricity, reports the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency; the bill for gas for home heating, as well as gasoline costs, are also set to shoot up. At the pump a gallon of gas is expected to go up an...

At least 11 people have been killed after a Bolivian air force cargo plane crashed in the western city of El Alto, according to media reports quoting firefighters. The incident happened at 18:15 local time (22:15 GMT) on Friday as the plane was arriving at El Alto's airport from the city of Santa Cruz, aviation officials said. It reportedly skidded off the runway and hit nearby vehicles. The defence ministry later confirmed its C-130 Hercules was involved and that it had been transporting banknotes to the Central Bank of Bolivia. It did not say how many people were on board,...

Despite being far away from civilization, a melting Antarctic’s “disastrous” consequences will ripple across the world, researchers warn. Scientists have highlighted just how high the stakes are as human-made climate change continues to rapidly warm Antarctica. A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, models the best- and worst-case scenarios for global warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the mainland. Researchers warn that the continent’s future “depends on the choices we make today”, arguing that cutting emissions could avoid the most “important and detrimental” impacts of the climate crisis. […] Under the highest emissions...

The furious NYPD on Tuesday released photos of a pair of miscreants it says are wanted for pounding two on-duty cops with snow and ice as the officers responded to a snowball-slinging mob in a Manhattan park. The department is investigating whether there are more suspects in Washington Square Park attack, as well, law-enforcement sources said. One of the suspects in the photos released Tuesday is shown hauling a massive snowball the size of a boulder over his head. The other alleged cop-attacker can be seen packing a smaller handful of snow while standing face-to-face with a uniformed officer. The...

You can now get paid $30 an hour to shovel snow in New York City. New York City is urgently hiring emergency snow shovelers to help remove snow and ice from public areas, including bus stops, crosswalks, fire hydrants, and step streets.

S’no thank you. The Mamdani administration failed for hours to attract any emergency shovelers at one Queens garage Sunday — while planning to try to dig out New Yorkers with a fourth of the force the city used for its last mega-storm. Despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s widespread attempted promotion of the city’s public-fueled emergency shoveling program, a sign-up sheet at the Maspeth Sanitation garages was empty, city workers told The Post during a visit late Sunday morning. “I haven’t seen anybody sign up yet today. No, no one,” the employee said. There were also no signs of shovelers lining up...

Millions of acres of farmland across the country are privately owned, but a small share of it is foreign-owned land sitting idle in many areas. That’s according to new U.S. Department of Agriculture data which shows just how much of the nation’s agricultural land is owned by other countries. The USDA‘s online portal reveals that more than 45 million acres of land are owned by foreign countries, with an original purchase value of over $38 billion. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, has the most agricultural acreage in the United States, at 15.35 million acres. John Hewlett, a farm and...

Rescuers are currently weighing the idea of setting off explosives in order to trigger additional avalanches on the mountain where at least eight skiers were killed. The Nevada County Sheriff’s Office has been unable to recover the bodies of the dead skiers since the horrific avalanche Tuesday. In order to make conditions safer for rescuers, officials will now take to the air to decide whether or not they can manually trigger avalanches with explosives. “The objective of the aerial surveys is to visually assess the conditions of the avalanche scene and snowpack as well as to make determinations if controlled...

The city of Malibu slapped Los Angeles and the state of California with a lawsuit over the devastating Palisades fire — saying officials didn’t do enough to stop the deadly blaze that “hollowed out” the oceanside community. Malibu said the city’s “entire character changed” when the wildfire swept through and that it is “still reeling from the destruction it left in its wake,” according to the suit. The 66-page complaint seeks to “recover significant financial losses” resulting from the devastating fire. “This decision was not made lightly,” Malibu Mayor Bruce Silverstein said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The City...

The full extent of the Palisades Fire report cover-up has been revealed. The California Post has obtained the first draft of the Palisades After-Action Fire Report — before it was quietly altered and released to the public. Newly uncovered edits show sweeping changes to the 92-page document that was meant to deliver a warts-and-all account of the disaster, putting more pressure on Mayor Karen Bass to explain whether her office played a role in softening the language to blunt criticism of the city’s response to a fire that killed at least 31 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. Mayor...

Weather agencies and climate scientists have pointed to the possibility of an El Niño forming in the Pacific Ocean later this year – a phenomenon that could push global temperatures to all-time record highs in 2027. Both the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology have said some climate models are forecasting an El Niño but both cautioned those results came with uncertainties. Experts told the Guardian it was too early to be confident, but there were signals in the spread of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific that suggested an El Niño could...

A North Carolina veterinary technician has been charged and fired from her job after she rescued a dog that was abandoned in the cold winter weather — but failed to hand the pooch over to animal control. Dason Garner has been left “completely broken” as she faces charges for keeping a stray animal, failure to surrender and interfering with law enforcement over her deed, according to WRAL. Garner says she was punished for her act of compassion in rescuing the pooch from the brutal conditions after a harsh snowstorm barreled across Wilson, NC, over the weekend.