Free Republic

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three major hurricanes will strike the United States this year, with the storm-battered Gulf Coast most at risk in June and July, forecaster AccuWeather predicted Monday. The outlook comes after a record-setting hurricane season in 2005 that devastated New Orleans and other coastal cities along the Gulf, and dealt a heavy blow to the U.S. oil industry that sent energy prices to record highs. "The 2006 storm season will be a creeping threat," said AccuWeather Chief Forecaster Joe Bastardi. He projected that five hurricanes, three of them with winds over 110 miles per hour, would hit...

WASHINGTON, April 21, 2006 – U.S. soldiers from Task Force Band of Brothers scored successes in two operations this week. Soldiers from the task force caught seven suspected insurgents in the act of emplacing explosives yesterday. Soldiers on patrol with Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, observed the suspects digging. As the patrol approached, the suspects tried to flee in two vehicles. The soldiers stopped, searched and detained all the suspects. In one vehicle, a blue truck, soldiers discovered more than 120 mortar rounds, fuses and four missiles. At the site where the...

BAGHDAD, April 6, 2006 – U.S. officials announced today that Iraqi forces captured a terrorist leader in Iraq early last month. Iraqi forces captured and arrested Iraqi terrorist leader Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, also known as Abu Ayman, in the Mahmudiyah neighborhood of southern Baghdad March 7. Investigators held notice of this capture until now to wait for the results of DNA testing, which confirmed the identity of the man in custody. "Ayman's capture was the result of a determined manhunt conducted by Iraqi intelligence professionals and several intelligence agencies within the coalition," U.S. officials said in a release. Until...

A video grab from CNN shows reporter Wolf Blitzer reporting on Israel's largest shipping line endorsing the takeover of six major U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World March 2, 2006. Dubai Ports World $6.85 billion acquisition of Britain's P&O will close on Friday or Monday, despite an additional 45-day review by the U.S. Government in response to security concerns, a U.S Treasury Department official said on Thursday.

FORT HUACHUCA — This year and next will be the toughest for the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, the service’s top enlisted soldier said Friday. Equating too many things coming together at once to the movie “The Perfect Storm,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth O. Preston said the Army is in the midst of a major transformation of creating more brigade combat teams, movement of forces from overseas locations, base closures and realignments, recruiting more soldiers and continuing to fight terrorism. What cannot be lost is protecting the nation, he told nearly 700 noncommissioned soldiers and officers during a...

Baqubah General Hospital underwent major surgery by Claude D. McKinney Gulf Region North U.S. Army Corps of Engineers The 331-bed Baqubah General Hospital can accommodate 400-500 patients daily is one of two hospitals in Baqubah. In the total Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Program, there are 30 Hospital projects planned nationwide, with 16 currently ongoing, and 13 completed. (GRD photo) Baqubah, Iraq—After a year under construction, the Baqubah General Hospital is finished … with a new incinerator and reverse osmosis water treatment system; plumbing and sewer system upgrade; architectural renovation; emergency backup generator and repair of existing elevators. The completed...

John Whyte commanded three companies, including a rifle company in Iraq. John was killed in an accident after returning from combat, when a car struck him while he was standing on the side of a Kansas City highway. There is a proverb that reads, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." Those who knew John might change it to read, "As iron sharpens iron, so John Whyte sharpens those around him." He was on a self-imposed mission to be the most effective leader that he could be, and even better, he was on a self-imposed mission to help...

Week of Nov. 5, 2005; Vol. 168, No. 19 , p. 294 Volcanic Suppression: Major eruptions can reduce sea level Sid Perkins Large volcanic eruptions can temporarily cool Earth's climate and, a team of scientists now suggests, lower sea level worldwide. BLOWING ITS TOP. Ocean cooling following the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines caused sea level worldwide to temporarily drop about 5 millimeters. D. Harlow/U.S. Geological Survey The tiny particles of broken rock and droplets of condensed gases that a volcano ejects high into the atmosphere reflect sunlight into space. So, after an eruption, there's less...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused Monday to disturb New York's system of taxing the income of telecommuters who live elsewhere but are employed by companies in the Empire state. Justices passed up a chance to hear the appeal of a Tennessee computer programmer who claimed that New York's tax law is unconstitutional. Thomas Huckaby had been ordered to pay New York income tax for his full salary, not just the time he spent at the New York offices of the union for which he worked. He lived 900 miles away in Nashville.

A major dust storm has just broken out on Mars and the event will be visible this weekend with good-sized backyard telescopes. The timing is incredible. Amateur skywatchers around the world are planning to gaze at Mars Saturday night because it will be closer to Earth than anytime until the year 2018. The dust storm was no more than a small bright dot Thursday yet it was large and obvious Friday, as seen in images taken by Clay Sherrod at the Arkansas Sky Observatories. NASA took note and is monitoring signals from its Mars rovers, one of which has detected...

TOLEDO, Ohio - A coin dealer and major GOP donor at the center of a scandal in Ohio state government was charged Thursday with illegally funneling $45,400 in contributions to President Bush's re-election bid. Tom Noe was accused in a federal indictment of giving money directly or indirectly to 24 friends and associates, who then made the campaign contributions in their own names. In that way, he skirted the $2,000 limit on individual contributions, prosecutors said. "It's one of the most blatant and excessive finance schemes we have encountered," said Noel Hillman, section chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Deadly epidemics. Ruined crops. The extinction of some of Africa's wildlife. The potential consequences of global warming could be devastating for the world's poorest continent, yet its nations are among the least equipped to cope. "It is our vulnerability that sets us apart from developed nations," said Luanne Otter, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand during a climate change conference this week in South Africa. Surface temperatures rose about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the 20th century — the largest increase in 1,000 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It said 1998...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The California Teachers Association, among the most vocal opponents of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election initiatives, contributed $21 million this week to groups campaigning against the governor. The high-dollar distribution comes just as the fall campaign is set to begin in earnest, with both sides targeting the Labor Day weekend as the unofficial kickoff. Schwarzenegger helped raise and spend nearly $20 million during the first half of the year to qualify and promote his ballot measures and has raised about $6 million since July. Marty Wilson, the governor's fundraising manager, said he expects Schwarzenegger will reach the...

Archaeologists make major discovery... underwater When most people think about Mayan archaeology they imagine excavations in royal tombs or trenches cut into tree covered mounds. Few of us would expect that a significant find could be made underwater... particularly in a swamp. But Belizean archaeology is a many-faceted field, as the presentations at this year's Archaeology Symposium, now underway in San Ignacio, amply reveal. Among the updates to last year's reports is a startling discovery made by a team from Louisiana State University. It is a find unlike any in all of the Meso-American world, and it was made right...

Major excavation at Roman forts The forts have been discovered at Dinefwr Park Three weeks of digging to excavate what could be the largest Roman garrison fort in Wales start on Monday. The site, which dates from the first century AD, was first found at Dinefwr Park, near Llandeilo, in 2003. Experts said the south Wales discovery could rewrite our understanding of the Roman conquest in the area. Recent surveys confirmed the site, which is invisible from the surface, is much larger than first thought and is made up of two overlapping forts. Emma Plunkett Dillon, archaeologist for the National...

Major Bronze Age haul unearthed More than 140 pieces have been recovered from the garden A large haul of Bronze Age artefacts has been uncovered by a gardener. The 145 items, dating from about 800BC, were found by Simon Francis as he landscaped the grounds of a house in Cringleford, near Norwich. Norfolk County Council archaeologists say the haul is one of the largest and most significant they have known. Curator of archaeology Alan West said: "The items are in good condition and the more items we find the better knowledge we can develop of the era." It is very...

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) - Government testing for possible signs of a nuclear bomb lost off the Georgia coast in 1958 found no significant radiation, the Air Force said in a letter to a Georgia newspaper. Last September, government scientists took radiation readings and soil samples in waters near Tybee Island after a retired Air Force pilot who has searched privately for the bomb reported finding possible radioactive clues. The government has not released a final report, but a letter by Air Force Col. James DeFrank, written in response to a story by The Associated Press, said government tests did not...

Hillary Clinton slams GTA GamesIndustry.biz New York senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton has launched an attack on violent videogames, singling out Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto titles as a "major threat" to morality. Clinton, who is reportedly planning to seek the Democratic presidential nomination for the 2008 election, has aligned herself with hardline right-wing Republican senators in order to pressure Congress into researching the impact of electronic media on children. "Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them," she said in a statement on the issue. "This is a silent...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A major shift in the century-old policy for suppressing the wildfire danger in Southern California's national forests could be coming this summer. Unchecked growth has left the region's woodlands dangerously overgrown and the new plans will be part legacy of 2003's deadly firestorms, part science and part popular opinion. U.S. Forest Service planners have worked three years on the new management guidelines and they are now poring over nearly 11,000 separate concerns contained in more than 3,000 letters and e-mails sent in response to an initial draft released last year. Plans for the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Los...

Since leaving office, I have not sought publicity. Even when provoked I have usually kept my counsel. Yet the changing character of the way politics is conducted is an issue on which it would be wrong to remain silent. The turnout at the last election was pitiful and is likely to be even more so at the next one – probably below that in Iraq, where voters ran the gauntlet of bomb and bullet. In one of the world's most secure democracies, how can such disillusion have set in?One cause is the way politics is conducted. It is a robust...