Free Republic

U.S. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell warned on Tuesday against trying to rescind some spending from a $1.3 trillion appropriations bill passed into law in March, an idea that has been promoted by House of Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy. “We had an agreement with the Democrats” on the spending bill, McConnell, a Republican, said in an interview with Fox News when asked about reports that President Donald Trump wanted to cut a major portion of the spending.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz believes that the way James Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails was a factor in Donald Trump winning the presidency. “Doing what he did 11 days before the election was inappropriate and definitely violative of longstanding FBI practice,” Wasserman Schultz said, adding that she couldn’t predict the extent of the impact or whether it cost Clinton the election. But, she said, it had a negative impact. “I don’t see how it couldn’t have. I don’t see how that announcement, him coming out again and saying what he said that close to the election,...

SEOUL, South Korea - Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, plans to formally announce his willingness to denuclearize his country when he meets with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea this month, an official from the South said on Tuesday. The statement is expected to be part of a joint declaration that the two leaders will adopt when they meet on April 27, said Mr. Moon’s chief of staff, Im Jong-seok. Negotiators from both Koreas have agreed on a rough framework for the joint declaration, he said. They are still discussing other aspects of the joint statement, such as whether the...

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - The whacky weather we've had lately is what some consider a major sign from Earth. "Our Earth is basically letting us know that something is not right," said Denise Abdul-Rahman. With Earth Day just days away, the Greater Terre Haute NAACP discussed climate change and ways to combat it. Abdul-Rahman is the NAACP Indiana Environmental & Climate Justice Chair. "What is occurring is that as we put out greenhouse gases, or what are called CO2 or carbon pollution, into our atmosphere, it is warming the temperatures," she said, "and those temperatures are melting our glaciers and...

Rising temperatures, drought, and weather disasters can threaten people’s health. Nobody is exempt. But … Perera: “The health of children is disproportionately affected by climate change.” Frederica Perera is director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health. She says children are vulnerable because their immune systems are not mature. And, their rapidly growing bodies are more sensitive to damage from disease and environmental contaminants. In particular, children are more likely than adults to die from diarrheal disease, which is expected to become more common in some areas as the climate warms. And some children are at more risk than...

Mosquitoes—and the viruses that they carry—are pushing up the incidence of malaria globally and causing periodic explosive outbreaks of Rift Valley fever, which first brings on flulike symptoms but can turn into a severe hemorrhagic fever akin to Ebola. Bluetongue virus, a ruminant virus spread by midges that was once confined to tropical areas, has reached as far as Norway. Studies have shown shifts in cholera transmission with recent climate variability. As emerging diseases migrate to new areas, they encounter new species, making outbreaks even more difficult to manage. Unfortunately, writes journalist Lois Parshley in her feature article “Catching Fever,”...

The UK’s climate laws forged a path for others to follow. But as progressive nations commit to zero emissions, it must reclaim its leading role, writes Sweden’s deputy prime minister. What does it mean for a nation to be a “climate leader” in 2018? At the very least, it must mean having a firm plan in place to deliver your nation’s fair share of the Paris agreement. During that stunning fortnight in December 2015, 195 governments freely and willingly committed not only to keep global warming well below 2C, but to aim for the safer level of 1.5C. And they...

MOULTON, Ala. -- A special-needs student had a one-of-a-kind prom date when an NFL player returned to his home county in Alabama to take her to the dance. Don Jones is a 27-year-old defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers who is from Lawrence County. He told WBRC-TV it was a "blessing" to go to the prom Friday night with 18-year-old Lindsey Preston, who has Down syndrome. Jones is a family friend. His mother taught Preston in elementary school. Preston's mom, Kristi Martin, told The Associated Press that Jones danced with all the students and "made everybody feel special." Jones...

With more than 50,000 wind turbines in place across the U.S., wind power now accounts for 8 percent of the nation's energy-generating capacity — and experts predict that figure could rise to 20 percent by 2030. But all that clean, renewable energy comes with a high cost to the nation's wildlife. Researchers estimate that 140,000 to 328,000 birds are killed every year in collisions with the turbines' spinning rotor blades and support towers. The risk to birds is highest at night, when the blades and towers are cloaked in darkness. Now researchers at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, have...

An undocumented mother of four from Laredo was detained Sunday by U.S. Border Patrol agents in San Antonio as she brought her 4-year-old special needs son, a U.S. citizen, into University Hospital for orthopedic surgery on his broken arm. San Antonio attorney Gerardo Menchaca said Monday that the woman, Silvia Macuixele, originally from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, was detained and fingerprinted at a checkpoint north of Laredo on Interstate 35 as she brought her son north by ambulance. Agents then followed the ambulance to San Antonio shortly after 3:30 a.m. Sunday. Menchaca said “an incredibly nice” agent stayed with...

TAOS, New Mexico - The U.S. city of Albuquerque passed measures on Monday that make it harder for federal officials to deport illegal immigrants, a week after a federal judge blocked a Trump administration effort to withhold funding from cities that took such steps. Albuquerque’s majority-Democratic council voted 6-3 in favor of a measure to prevent federal immigration officials from entering city-operated areas, including a prisoner transport center, without a warrant. In a televised meeting, the council also barred city workers, including police, from collecting information on peoples’ immigration status and prohibited local tax dollars from being spent on federal...

After reading Mary Beth Pfeiffer's engrossing new book, Lyme, you will probably want to kill any tick you can find, donate to Lyme research, and find out if you are at risk for tick-borne diseases. Spoiler alert: Your risk is likely increasing. Ticks, some of whom carry the pathogenic bacteria that causes Lyme, can now survive in environments where they would have frozen to death 30 years ago. The good news is that there's a lot of new research coming out about stopping and treating tick-borne illnesses, and a good new book that connects the dots between climate change, ticks,...

Washington – Global warming is screwing up nature’s intricately timed dinner hour, often making hungry critters and those on the menu show up at much different times, a new study shows. Timing is everything in nature. Bees have to be around and flowers have to bloom at the same time for pollination to work, and hawks need to migrate at the same time as their prey. In many cases, global warming is interfering with that timing, scientists said. A first-of-its-kind global mega analysis on the biological timing of 88 species that rely on another life form shows that on average...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the law when it approved a $43,000 soundproof phone booth last year for the office of embattled Administrator Scott Pruitt, a congressional watchdog unit said on Monday. The Government Accountability Office said the EPA violated the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act. The law prohibits an agency from obligating more than $5,000 in federal funds to furnish, redecorate or make improvements in the office of a presidential appointee without first notifying appropriations committees in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The EPA also violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from...

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke took an unnecessary charter flight in June that cost taxpayers over $12,000, the Interior Department’s internal watchdog said on Monday - travel linked to his visit to a professional hockey team in Nevada. The report from the department’s Office of Inspector General came amid mounting pressure on Trump Cabinet officials over their ethics and spending habits while in office. “We determined that Zinke’s use of chartered flights in fiscal year (FY) 2017 generally followed relevant law, policy, rules, and regulations,” the report said.

Was former President Obama the “scandal free,” top 10 greatest president he claimed to be as he exited the White House? To his aides and most in the media, the answer has been a hearty “yes.” The View’s Joy Behar said, “President Obama, for eight years, was completely scandal-free.” NBC’s Tom Brokaw said, “He’s been scandal free, frankly, in the White House. We haven’t had that what for a while.” But now, to counter that legacy campaign, biographer Matt Margolis has penned a book detailing some 29 “scandals” under Obama in, “The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama.” It reviews some...

When it comes to James B. Comey’s book-tour crusade against President Trump, the question for hard-core Hillary Clinton fans boils down to this: Curse Mr. Comey, or cheer him? Curse him, mostly. They may be card-carrying members of “the Resistance,” who oppose everything that the president stands for, but Mrs. Clinton’s former aides and advisers are still too angry at Mr. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, to see past what they view as his egregious actions that handed the White House to Mr. Trump. In interviews, Twitter posts, television appearances and private grumblings, Team Hillary is using Mr. Comey’s tell-all...

An unnamed client of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's longtime personal attorney, is Fox News host Sean Hannity. The revelation came after U.S. District Court judge Kimba Wood ordered Cohen to disclose the name in a court hearing on Monday. In an earlier court filing Monday morning, lawyers for Cohen refused to identify the recent client — one of three people Cohen represented between 2017 and 2018. The lawyers also refused to identify the names of other past clients. Lawyers for Cohen — whose business records were seized by FBI agents April 9 — said the then-unnamed client had told...

Quebec warned the federal government on Monday that it has reached the limit of its capacity process undocumented asylum seekers entering Canada through Quebec and will enforce that limit in its temporary shelters beginning April 24. Quebec has 1,850 spaces in its four temporary shelters in Montreal, and 75 per cent of those spaces are already occupied. Quebec Immigration Minister David Heurtel said Monday that capacity will not be allowed to pass 85 per cent in order to maintain space and resources to accommodate those asylum seekers who used regular channels to enter the country. The number of undocumented asylum...

Immigration agents knocking at the door? Now, there’s an app for that, too. United We Dream, the largest national immigrant youth-led organization, has officially launched a smartphone application that added yet another tool to protect immigrants living in the U.S. illegally by utilizing high tech and online social communications. The app, called Notifica, allows immigrants here illegally to activate a plan if they come in contact with immigration law enforcement authorities or find themselves at risk of being detained. Users can prepare a set of automatic messages to alert — with one click — family members, lawyers and others if...