Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) – Following an investigation by its inspector general, the Department of Energy has issued a new rule advising its workers to refrain from putting highly enriched uranium in their pockets.“After interviewing chemical operators and reviewing revised Y-12 procedures, we confirmed that chemical operators are no longer allowed to place samples in their pockets and must check their pockets before removing their coveralls,” said a report issued by the DOE Office of Inspector General.The report, released in September, described a safety violation that occured last year at the DOE’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn."We received allegations that special...

Upscale Beverly Hills is among four California cities whose water utilities have been fined for not forcing residents to conserve enough water during California's unrelenting four-year drought, officials said on Friday. The wealthy Los Angeles area municipality was fined $61,000 on Thursday, making it the only community not located in a desert to be assessed penalties, the California State Water Resources Board said. "Some urban water suppliers simply have not met the requirements laid before them," said Cris Carrigan, director of the water board's Office of Enforcement. "For these four suppliers, it's been too little too late."

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Education’s Office of the General Council and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a brief Wednesday evening in support of Gavin Grimm, a biological female who “identifies” as a male. Grimm filed a lawsuit in June against the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia for access to the boys’ restroom. “Prohibiting a transgender male student from using boys’ restrooms, when other non-transgender male students face no such restriction, deprives him not only of equal educational opportunity but also ‘of equal status, respect, and dignity,’” the DOE and DOJ attorneys argue in the brief. “Treating...

Oh boy. Thanks to those among us that have a peanut allergy, everyone else has to have a crappy Halloween. That’s what it means to be a sensitive, “responsible” American these days. Here’s the sign asking parents to only hand out carrot sticks, raisins and other boring treats:

A federal judge has ordered Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal to restore state payments to Planned Parenthood, making Louisiana the second state blocked from defunding the group.U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled Thursday that Jindal couldn't cancel the state’s Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood over allegations the group is facing related to its fetal tissue donation program, according to The Associated Press.Planned Parenthood clinics in Louisiana do not perform abortions and do not accept fetal tissue donations.DeGravelles, who was appointed by President Obama last year, had previously delivered a temporary ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood. Jindal, who is running for...

Nothing is sacred. They are moving Germans out of their homes to accommodate the invaders. They are housing the migrants at Buchenwald and Dachau. Now this. Despite the ongoing harassment of and violence against Middle Eastern Christians by Muslim migrants, these very same migrants are being moved into churches which necessitates the removal of the cross, the altar, the pulpit and the seats. Will the church vet the Muslims who took part in the genocide of Christians in the Middle East? Translation of this article in the Handelsblatt.com:

The planners, residents and developers hunched over maps Thursday had plenty of ideas for the daunting task of untangling and improving the massive web of aging highways in and around downtown Dallas. About 50 of them were gathered at the Dallas Regional Chamber for the second of three public input workshops on TxDOT’s CityMAP project. The goal? To provide a blueprint and menu of options for city officials on potential costs, traffic impacts, timeline and designs for Interstate 30, I-345, I-35E and Woodall Rodgers. It would be wonderful if the city could eat the whole apple — all the worthy...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is spending over $100,000 studying disgust, hypothesizing that all bullying behavior begins with feelings of revulsion.Researchers at Columbia University want to see if they can “successfully regulate” disgust emotions in teens in order to stop bullying.“Whether it’s being the victim, being the perpetrator, or having to watch this upsetting cycle of peer rejection and victimization, few adolescents are unaffected by bullying’s harmful impact,” a grant for the project states. “This effect can last long past adolescence, as both being the bully and being the victim are linked to the development of both short- and...

Nathan Greenberg believes he runs a school district, but government bureaucrats look at his Londonderry, N.H., operation and see …. a food processing plant? That’s the strange dilemma the 5,000-student district finds itself in after deciding at the end of the last school year to pull the high school out of the unpopular National School Lunch Program. While the district’s elementary and middle schools remain in the program, which sets portion and nutrition guidelines for students, provides low cost staples and subsidizes meals of low-income pupils, it proved immensely unpopular at the high school. “We saw the [federally-mandated] food going...

Have you ever heard of Shreveport, Louisiana? George Soros has and is evidently concerned enough about the outcome of a District Attorney's race in Caddo Parish to give $256,000 to a PAC in order to effect the outcome of this local election. The question for all of us across the nation is, why? I offer to you the same possibility that I shared at a press conference in my hometown of Shreveport. Billionaire George Soros is a social engineer in an age where America is susceptible to "progressivism," a cancer that has always been heavily funded by billionaires like Soros...

China's move to construct five tunnels to open up a new section of the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) last month has signalled Beijing’s intent to go forward with ambitious projects despite India’s increasingly vocal concerns and rising security concerns in the restive disputed region. In a major project that will ensure year-round land connectivity linking China and Pakistan through PoK, the China Road and Bridge Corporation has constructed five seven km-long tunnels on the Karakoram Highway. Earlier, this particular section had been cut off on account of a barrier lake formed at Attabad, which had blocked access since...

<p>Flaws in nuts that hold up lights throughout the Big Dig’s tunnels may be the result of workers overtightening the fasteners when they were first installed, a top highway official said Thursday.</p> <p>Highway officials revealed this week that an inspector had discovered a cracked nut on a light fixture in the Ted Williams Tunnel in September. After further inspection of the Williams Tunnel and the Interstate 90 Connector and Interstate 93 tunnels, officials said they believe hundreds of fasteners throughout the Big Dig tunnels are flawed and must be replaced.</p>

(CNN)A woman suspected of drunken driving crashed a car into a crowd of spectators at Oklahoma State University's homecoming parade, killing four people -- including a 2-year-old -- authorities in Stillwater said Saturday. Three adults were pronounced dead at the scene, while the fourth victim, the young boy, died from his injuries at OU Medical Center Children's Hospital, according to a Stillwater police statement. Spokesman Capt. Kyle Gibbs said Saturday night that 44 people had been injured, an uptick from previous reports. Four children and three adults were hospitalized at OU Medical Center, according to hospital spokeswoman Vallery Brown. While...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent over $1.1 million studying the “freshman 15,” trying to determine whether friends influence their college peers to eat more.Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) highlighted the project as an example of wasteful spending, calling out the agency for studying a myth invented by Seventeen magazine.“The ‘freshman 15’ is an old legend around college campuses; the idea that new college students, away from home and confronted with a campus food service smorgasbord tend to put on a few extra pounds,” Paul’s latest edition of “The Waste Report” reads. “Well the National Institutes for Health...

Healthcare industry groups are launching a preemptive strike against soon-to-drop federal guidelines meant to tamp down on the prescription of powerful painkillers. The forthcoming guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are meant to combat the abuse of drugs like Hyrdocodone, Oxycontin and Percocet, which many medical experts believe are dangerously overprescribed. Prescriptions for the drugs, known as opioids, increased by 300 percent from 1999 to 2013, according to the CDC, which cites statistics showing 16,000 people died from overdoses during that time. As currently drafted, the guidelines recommend physicians use opioids as a last resort after non-pharmacologic...

TAMPA, FL (WFLA) – Driving on Florida toll roads is part of doing business for trucker Bill VanEpps. “Tolls are a huge expense, and it adds up to a lot of money at the end of the year,” Bill said. He noticed a lot of mistakes with his EPass account so he switched to SunPass in January. “I’ve discovered weekly mistakes,” Bill added. Between January and September, Bill found 42 mistakes by the SunPass electronic tolling system. “My rig is a five axle rig. I’ve been charged for as many as 7 at one time. I’ve been charged for as...

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders Tuesday night during the first round of Democratic debates said the mentally ill in this country need more support. The comment came in response to a question asked about mass shootings like the one that claimed 10 lives – including the shooter – and injured nine others earlier this month at a community college in Oregon.While Sanders didn’t lay out any specific plans, he did say that health insurance should be provided to all Americans regardless of income.One Yale researcher, who himself struggled with the urge to kill, created a resource for would-be killers going through...

There’s a Way to Stop Mass Shootings, and You Won’t Like It.That’s right. You’re not going to like it because it’s going to require you to do something personally, as opposed to shouting for the government, or anyone to “do something!”You ready? Here it is:“Notice those around you who seem isolated, and engage them.”If every one of us did this we’d have a culture that was deeply committed to ensuring no one was left lonely. And make no mistake, as I’ve written before loneliness is what causes these shooters to lash out. People with solid connections to other people don’t indiscriminately...

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said the committee disinvited her from the first Democratic presidential debate after she publicly called for more face-offs. Ms. Gabbard said her staff received the message last Tuesday from the chief of staff to Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chairwoman, a day after she appeared on MSNBC demanding more than the current six sanctioned debates, The New York Times reported.

Submitted by the Illinois Tollway. The Illinois Tollway Board of Directors today announced it has created a new committee to guide the development of policies and programs that will continue to encourage and support the agency’s inclusion efforts in contracting, procurement of goods and services and workforce diversity. The Diversity and Inclusion Committee will work to expand and increase the effectiveness of current Tollway efforts to offer small and veteran-owned firms and disadvantaged, minority- and women-owned businesses opportunities to compete for agency contracts and encourage all firms the agency does business with to hire more diverse workforces. “Establishing this new...