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President Obama on Friday turned prepper, with a proclamation regarding National Preparedness Month that warned emergencies, “from hurricanes and wildfires to cyber and terrorist attacks, can strike anywhere at any time.” In his proclamation, he said each household should have its own plan. “Before emergencies occur, we must make sure we are ready to respond, and it is every American’s responsibility to be prepared. There are simple but important steps we can all take to ensure we know what to do and have what we need in the event of a crisis. National Preparedness Month is an opportunity to talk...

August 18, 2014Myles UdlandThere's a (increased) chance a huge volcano in Iceland could blow.Lorcan Roche Kelly at Agenda Research tipped us off to the news that the Icelandic government on Monday changed the status of Bardarbunga, a volcano in Iceland located under Europe's largest glacier, to "orange," meaning there is a heightened risk of eruption and ash cloud. A report from Reuters on Monday noted that this is the second-highest risk level on the government's five-level risk scale. "Presently there are no signs of eruption, but it cannot be excluded that the current activity will result in an explosive subglacial...

The state employees were disciplined for lying to get money through the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, an extension of food stamps available to poor residents who lost food or income in September 2011 after Hurricane Irene hit here as a tropical storm. While Larson said the law merits revisiting, other members of the state's congressional delegation weren't so forthcoming about their views on the state measure or the similar federal law that have left taxpayers in the dark about the conduct and punishment of state employees -- many of whom were fired but rehired after they appealed. U.S. Sens....

It broke Ruth Freeborn’s heart to give up her U.S. citizenship that fateful day last year. Unfortunately for the Oklahoma native, though, it was either that, or her family. Ruth’s Canadian husband of 33 years, who earns all of the middle-class family’s income, “simply could not go along with this situation,” she explained. “To find myself suddenly not able to live, bank, save or to keep peace in my marriage while being American at the same time was shocking at first and deeply disturbing to me.” Ruth wrote “what must have been” hundreds of letters to U.S. senators and officials,...

In 2011, the situation in Iraq was so good that the Obama administration was actually trying to take credit for it, with Vice President Joe Biden declaring that Iraq “could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” Now in 2014, as Iraq descends into chaos, Democrats are trying to blame the fiasco on — you guessed it — George W. Bush. “I don’t think this is our responsibility,” said Nancy Pelosi, declaring that the unfolding disaster in Iraq “represents the failed policies that took us down this path 10 years ago.” Sorry, but this is a mess of...

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SEOUL, May 18 (Yonhap) -- An apartment building under construction in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang has collapsed, causing an unspecified number of casualties, the state media reported Sunday. The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the accident occurred in the Pyongchon District on May 13 as "the construction of an apartment house was not done properly, and officials supervised and controlled it in an irresponsible manner." The KCNA reported that a "state emergency mechanism" was formed to rescue survivors and treat the wounded, and senior officials met with bereaved families and citizens in the district to express...

Health Reform: President Obama is right about ObamaCare — "This thing is working." It's working just like critics said it would, and nothing like its supporters promised. High and rising premiums. Runaway costs. Rampant waste. Workers shoved into government-run exchanges. That's what critics said would happen should ObamaCare remain the law of the land. And on every point, these critics were viciously attacked by the White House and its amen chorus in the press. But on each, the critics are being proved right while the law's backers try to change the subject. Warnings of ObamaCare rate shocks were a big...

SEOUL—South Korea said almost 300 people remain missing after a passenger ferry sank early Wednesday near the country's southwest coast. Rescue services raced to find survivors from the ship, which quickly rolled over and may have trapped passengers inside. Two bodies have been recovered from the site. Officials said the cause of the disaster hadn't been determined.

On Sunday, the worst earthquake in about 30 years rattled the Yellowstone supervolcano. Overall, there have been at least 25 significant earthquakes at Yellowstone National Park since Thursday, but it is the 4.8 earthquake that has many observers extremely worried. Could such a large earthquake be a sign that the Yellowstone supervolcano is starting to roar to life after all this time? And if it does erupt, what would that mean for the rest of the country? As you will see below, a full-blown eruption at Yellowstone would be absolutely catastrophic. It is estimated that such an eruption could dump...

(CNN) -- A devastating landslide in Washington state killed three people Saturday and sent rescuers desperately digging for people crying for help underneath debris, authorities in Washington state said. The landslide cut off a small town and a river and prompted an evacuation notice for fear of a potentially "catastrophic flood event," authorities said. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said, in addition to those dead, seven adults and a 6-month-old boy were rescued and sent to local hospitals. Harborview Medical Center in Seattle reported that five patients had been airlifted there and were in its care. Three of those --...

Rescue crews searched into the night for survivors from a massive mudslide in Washington state that killed at least three people, after hearing voices from the debris field pleading for help. The slide of mud, trees and rocks happened about 11 a.m. Saturday morning. Several people - including an infant - were critically injured and at least six houses were destroyed. Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots said at a news briefing late Saturday that searchers weren't giving up on finding more people. "We have people who are yelling for our help, and we are going to take...

A few days ago, America experienced the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At the end of September, the world observed the 75th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, whereby Britain and France surrendered Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Hitler's Germany. Nazi Germany annexed most of the rest of Czechoslovakia within months, and invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, thus beginning the Second World War. What do Pearl Harbor, the Munich Pact, and Germany's invasion of Poland have in common? The common thread running through these events is that western democracies' military weakness tempted aggressors to strike. Add to this...

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Republicans are launching investigations into three state-run ObamaCare exchanges that are failing disastrously. Lawmakers are setting their sites on exchanges in Oregon, Maryland and Massachusetts where Democratic governors embraced the healthcare law, and are demanding to know why their expensive online portals remain useless more than four months after launch. On Wednesday, four Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting a review of the $304 million in federal grants that Oregon received to build its broken website. “The catastrophic breakdown of Cover Oregon is unacceptable, and taxpayers deserve accountability,”...

President Obama is scrambling to put Band-Aids on the health care law instead of admitting that it is DOA. He pushed Obamacare through Congress with the promise that it would help the 30 million uninsured Americans and not hurt the rest of us. Five years later, the government intrusion has disrupted the coverage of the more than 300 million Americans who were content with their insurance, and it is already dragging down the economy. Mr. Obama is trying to hide the problems. That’s why the White House announced Monday it would again push back the deadline for the mandate to...

One of Microsoft's strongest supporters took a good, hard look at the soon-to-be released next version of Windows 8, which could arrive in April, and threw his hands up in frustration. The new version is called Windows 8 Update 1, and it includes a number of small changes, mostly minor tweaks. These tweaks try to fix some of the complaints people still had about Windows 8. But blogger Paul Thurrott of the influential Windows blog “Supersite for Windows” says they really just make Windows 8 more difficult to use, especially on a tablet. He took Microsoft to task, writing: Windows...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Ernest Maiden was dumbfounded to learn that he falls through the cracks of the health-care law because in a typical week he earns about $200 from the Happiness and Hair Beauty and Barber Salon. Like millions of other Americans caught in a mismatch of state and federal rules, the 57-year-old hair stylist doesn't make enough money to qualify for federal subsidies to buy health insurance. If he earned another $1,300 a year, the government would pay the full cost. Instead, coverage would cost about what he earns. "It's a Catch-22," said Mr. Maiden, an uninsured diabetic. Without help, he...