Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- Scientists say that migrating Pacific bluefin tuna off California's coast are carrying radioactive contamination from Japan. According to findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the levels of radioactivity are 10 times higher than the amounts usually found. Scientists sampled 15 tuna caught off San Diego and found that they all contained two radioactive substances -- caesium-134 and caesium-137. The tuna have carried the radioactive contamination 6,000 miles from the waters near Japan's crippled nuclear plant. It was damaged in a devastating magnitude 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami in April 2011. Experts say...

Facebook shares [FB 33.64 -4.5918 (-12.01%) ] plunged more than 13 percent on Monday, falling below the $38 price of the initial public offering, in the social network's second day of trading as a public company. The stock sank without the full support of the company's underwriters, leaving some investors down nearly 25 percent from where they were Friday afternoon. Facebook's debut was beset by problems, so much so that the Nasdaq said on Monday it was changing its IPO procedures.

The Daily Caller has a report about a letter purporting to be sent by a family member of George Zimmerman–the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin–to the head of the Seminole County NAACP, Turner Clayton... Here's a sample: If something happens to George as a result of the race furor stirred up by this mischaracterization of George there will be blood on your hands as well as the rest of the racists that have rushed to judgment. You need to call off the dogs. Period. Publicly and swiftly.

SANFORD, Fla. — The Rev. Al Sharpton, an MSNBC host and liberal political figure, riled up a mostly-black Sanford, Fla., crowd on Thursday night in the wake of the killing of 17-year-old student Trayvon Martin. “Some people said to me in the media — ‘Let me get this straight,’ they said. ‘Reverend, it seems like there’s a lot of people who are angry — are you afraid of violence?’” Sharpton preached to the central Floridian crowd. “I said, ‘No. I’m afraid of the violence you already had.’” “Violence is killing Tray Martin,” Sharpton continued. “Don’t act like we are the...

Four hundred of the nation's most popular lipsticks contained trace levels of lead when tested recently by the federal government, confirming similar results of earlier analyses but on a much wider scale and at higher levels than previously detected. Five L'Oreal and Maybelline lipsticks, owned by L'Oreal USA, ranked among the top 10 most contaminated brands, according to the analysis by the Food and Drug Administration. Two Cover Girl and two NARS lipsticks also landed in top 10 slots, as did one from Stargazer.

Michelle Obama will be making a stop in South Florida Friday as part of her "Let's Move!" initiative to fight childhood obesity. The First Lady will be holding a town hall event at the Homestead YMCA Family Center Friday afternoon. Obama will participate in a panel discussion and answer questions with experts from WebMD and the YMCA about how families can implement healthy changes in their daily lives regarding nutrition and exercise.

Reason’s science correspondent sends a third dispatch from the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban. Durban, South Africa—Yesterday, before an audience of more than 100 environmental ministers gathered at the opening “high level segment” plenary of the Durban Climate Change Conference, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon flatly declared, “We are nearing the ‘point of no return,’ and we must pull back from the abyss." The “abyss” against which the Secretary-General warned is a future average global temperature increase higher than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). What's so terrible about exceeding those two degrees, and where did that figure come from?...

MIAMI -- Within the Miami Marlins organization, a number of full-time employees started off with the franchise working as interns. The organization now is offering more career opportunities as the Marlins are prepare to conduct a job fair on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium. The job fair will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET each day at the auditorium, located at 2901 West Flagler Street in Miami.

Discovery has ordered a documentary on the life of the late Steve Jobs, with the Mythbusters duo on board to host. The network is teaming with NBC’s Peacock Productions for iGenius: How Steve Jobs Changed the World, a one-hour special. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who celebrate the spirit of innovation on Discovery’s hit Mythbusters, will host the show.“Someone once said that to follow the path that others have laid before you is a very reasonable course of action, therefore all progress is made by unreasonable men,” Savage said. “Steve Jobs was an unreasonable man. He didn’t simply give...

There was almost palpable disappointment among the TV big guns rolled out for the occasion when Irene was downgraded to a mere 'tropical storm". In New York city, CNN's Anderson Cooper, more usually seen in a tight t-shirt in a famine or war zone, was clad in what one wag dubbed "disaster casual". His face fell and he was briefly silent when a weatherwoman told him that the rain was not going to get any worse. "Wow, because this isn't so bad," he said. "It's an annoying rain but it isn't even a sideways rain."

It was raining in Manhattan on Sunday morning, and the dogged correspondents in their brightly colored windbreakers were getting wet. But the apocalypse that cable television had been trumpeting had failed to materialize. And at 9 a.m., you could almost hear the air come out of the media’s hot-air balloon of constant coverage when Hurricane Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm. Click here to find out more! Not everyone was willing to accept this turn of events. When the Weather Channel’s Brian Norcross told MSNBC that forecasters had been expecting the first hurricane to make landfall in New York...

Okay, we all know Hurricane Irene was hyped to the gills. WHY? Was it slow news? Was it media infatuation with Obama at the helm of FEMA?

It's a hurricane, not Armageddon. Good grief. A Category 1 storm, you'd think "Irene" was the worst storm America has ever endured.

Experience this street-level view looking south toward the heart of Times Square...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama offered moral support Saturday to federal emergency management workers hunkered down for Hurricane Irene's weekend march up the East Coast and 14,000 active-duty and National Guard troops were put on standby for post-storm relief work. "Everybody here, you guys are doing a great job," Obama told dozens of workers on a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's command center. Fully activated and operating around the clock, the center helps coordinate the federal response to natural disasters.

"Let us all remember who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the Tea Party -- the Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that's to make President Obama a one-term president," Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) said at a Miami town hall with constituents. Rep. Frederica Wilson blamed "racism" for the high black unemployment rate on MSNBC yesterday.

Tuned in to get the latest on Hurricane Irene, as we east coast folk need to watch it carefully. Almost hurled when the first thing I saw was big graphic "Obama is being briefed on Hurricane Irene". Good God, folks, does the Hussein worship extend to the FREAKING WEATHER CHANNEL?! I don't CARE if Hussein is being told about the hurricane. He can't do a damn thing--he promised to lower the damn sea levels. I get SO SICK and TIRED of logging onto a computer or turning on a tv and seeing an ad or "news" about the biggest CIPHER...

Jim Walker, a veteran local television anchor with more than 25 years of experience on air, was cut loose at the beginning of August after just a year at WBBH, the NBC affiliate for Fort Myers. And just like his former colleague Craig Wolf, who was fired from the station in March, Walker is not going quietly. Walker took to his Facebook page to express his distaste with the station’s decision, noting that he would not disclose the details of his confidential separation agreement. According to The Fort Myers News-Press, Walker wrote that the broadcasts he helms — 6 p.m.,...

Yesterday, I got a chance to view the advance screening of Stephen K. Bannon's new movie about Sarah Palin at the AMC theater in Highlands Ranch. Of course, this is the umpteenth review of the movie, so even die hard Undefeated-review-readers are likely to tire of reading yet another one. And the "I-won't-review-the-movie-because-others-have-done-so-ad-nauseam-so-here-are-my-unique-thoughts" meme is wearing out too. But gosh dang it, this movie is worthy of being reviewed and I'm not going to give up my chance to do it just because a handful of big wig conservatives and snotty first-in-the-nation Iowans (I kid, half my family is from...

(Reuters) - Radiation exceeding health limits for infants was found in a Tokyo city water purifier and authorities are advising that the water not be given to babies, a Tokyo Metropolitan Government official said, confirming an earlier report by NHK public TV.