Free Republic

The East Bay Regional Park District board on Tuesday approved spending $1 million in the first phase of creating a 300-space parking lot at the trail head to the uber-popular Mission Peak in Fremont. The vote passed 7-0. The next step is to allocate another $5.5 million to finish the project, which also would include bathrooms, picnic tables and landscaping improvements, hopefully to be completed by 2020, according to Bob Nisbet, assistant general park district manger. Park staff is recommending a $6.5-million project, would they hope would help alleviate the parking space issue and upgrade the park. In the past,...

“You can put Trump in the White House, but you need to prepare for a revolt because I’m going nuts,” says Henry, as he waits for his English breakfast – a deconstructed version including black pudding – to arrive. “It’s going to be Escape From New York in here and you might as well call me Kurt Russell because I’m going to be f****** people up. It’s going to be Mad Max.” The definitive guide to fall TV Read more From the coldly seething anger to the apocalyptic references, Henry’s takedown of the Republican presidential candidate and his possibly cataclysmic...

An all girl gang lured a girl identified only as Michelle, for fear of retribution, into an alley and allegedly asked her to join them in beating up another girl. When Michelle refused, the gang thought she was setting them up and knocked her to the ground and beat on her, kicking her and filming the beatdown, which they later uploaded onto Snapchat.

Black men may have a legitimate reason to flee Boston police during investigatory or “Terry” stops, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday. The court found that systemic racism in the Boston Police Department may be considered in conjunction with a suspect’s decision to flee from police during a stop. A Terry stop, named for the U.S. Supreme Court case which sanctioned the practice, refers to a brief detention and search of an individual due to reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct. In this case, a black male named Jimmy Warren was arrested in 2011

FARMINGTON, Minn.—A man shooting at squirrels with a pellet gun on his property caused confusion Monday morning in Farmington as authorities requested some of the city's schools to go into lockdown after a gunfire report. "The initial call was that there was a man outside with a rifle shooting off rounds," said Sgt. Bob Sauter of the Farmington Police Department. Authorities treated the report with an active shooter response. The caller was ambiguous on the exact location, guessing the 400 block of Oak Street, and the department, having had some previous responses in that area, weren't taking any chances, Sauter...

There's increasing evidence to show that trees are able to communicate with each other. More than that, trees can learn. The main reason humans cannot perceive how clever and complex they are is because we exist in such short time scales by comparison. There's a tree in Sweden for instance, a spruce, that is more than 9,500 years old. That's 115 times longer than the average human lifespan.

A few of our memories, pets. The last pictorial, my wife, swinging on that back yard swing with the rooster R. I. Red, at her right side.

NORWALK, OH (WOIO) - A bizarre case out of Huron County has detectives looking for the person who belonged to a heart discovered in a field on Milan Avenue in Norwalk. All the Norwalk police department has right now is a heart in a Ziploc bag. They're hoping to determine if it's human, and where it came from. "This is pretty unusual. We have no idea where it came from," said Sgt. Jim Fulton, with Norwalk Police Department. In late August, a North Central EMS crew idling at the Friendship Store on Milan Avenue came across the heart. Fulton said...

This video, a little over 3 ½ minutes in length shows a few of our memories, autumn river, family, pets and a R.I. Red crowing rooster, (Yard Bird), wildlife and there sounds.

TAMPA, Fla. - Police say a Florida man asking if a bulletproof vest "still worked" was fatally shot by his cousin. A Tampa police report says Joaquin Mendez, 23, put on the vest late Saturday and "wondered aloud whether it still worked." Police say his cousin, Alexandro Garibaldi, 24, pulled out a gun and responded, "Let's see." Officers found Mendez outside the house with a gunshot wound in his chest. Mendez died at a hospital.

Under the radar, near a campfire, a counter-cultural force is rising. Only three years old, Trail Life USA, the Christian answer to the politically correct Boy Scouts of America, is operating 700 troops in 48 states, with nearly 30,000 troop members. It’s still small compared to the BSA, which began in 1910 and claims more than two million members. But Trail Life could be on the verge of far more growth as the culture descends into madness and parents seek a haven for their impressionable sons.

A 47-feet-long blue whale, the largest mammal in the world, was rescued after it was beached near village Madban, close to Jaitapur nuclear power plant in Ratnagiri district on Sunday morning. Estimated to weigh around 20 tonnes, the whale was beached for over two days. Local fishermen spotted the mammal on Saturday evening and informed forest officers. On Sunday morning, two boats with 50 personnel carried out the rescue operation over eight hours by pulling the mammal into the sea with the help of ropes during high tide. “Four forest officials led the rescue operation along with local NGOs and...

NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden profiled some of my work in procreative ethics with an article entitled, “Should we be having kids in the age of climate change?,” which summarized my published views that we ought to consider adopting a “small family ethic” and even pursuing fertility reduction efforts in response to the threat from climate change. ... Perhaps many of us in rich countries (the “us” who might be reading this) will be largely protected from these early harms; but that doesn’t make them less real to the vulnerable citizens of, say, Bangladesh, Kiribati or the Maldives. In fact, it...

Off-roaders come in all shapes and sizes these days, ranging from a tiny Suzuki Jimny to a Hummer. Somewhere in between is the mighty Viking 29031.The Viking 29031 is built by a company called Aton Impulse for Russia, a country where it can get so cold your eyelids freeze. So you can understand why it has absolutely massive chunky tyres, rugged looks and a ridiculous amount of ground clearance. Not only that, this Viking warrior has self-inflating tyres and space for up to 850kg of cargo or seven people, making it usable as a rescue or law enforcement vehicle. Did...

ARLINGTON (CBSDFW.COM) – A dozen neighborhood cats have recently died or disappeared in downtown Arlington, and many business owners are turning to police for help because they suspect foul play. “These cats of Main Street had a home,” said Sarah Hughes, who works nearby. A long row of white crosses covers two streets along Main Street in Arlington. Each cross represents a feral cat that has either gone missing or has been found dead in recent weeks. Hughes stopped next to a cross with the word “missing” crossed out. It has been replaced with “R.I.P.” “This was one of our...

Starting September 16, the Towson Town Center in Maryland will require a curfew for anyone 17 years old and younger, a measure the NAACP and other organizations call discriminatory. “I think that they need to take a look at how to handle this in a different kind of way, other than just to say they are going to stand at the door and bar people. It’s illegal to do that,” said Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the NAACP Baltimore branch. The mall’s general manager said the age policy was not spurred by any particular incident, and is meant to improve shoppers’...

Everyone knows you have to watch out for sharks on Australian beaches – but what about dinosaurs? A 130-million year old dinosaur footprint has been found among the seaweed and surf on popular Cable Beach near the town of Broome, Western Australia. Bindi Lee Porth said she was collecting seashells when she felt an indent in the sand. Clearing it away, she found a number of massive, preserved footprints.

Dubai Municipality has, for the first time in the Middle East, launched a robot as a rescuer on public beaches for the security and safety of beach-goers in the emirate. Alya Al Harmoudi, Director of the Environment Department at DM, said: "The move is also in response to Dubai government directives to keep up with the latest technologies and innovations in this area as well as to ensure that all the necessary requirements and precautions are in place to enhance the rescue operations on the public beaches of Dubai." The robot, which can reach a speed of 35 Kph, or...

"We saw them out on the ledge as we were shooting other photos and that "Eureka!" moment just unfolded," says photographerThis wedding snapshot just might put every other couples' big day photos to shame. Photographer Mike Karas of Hawaii was simply enjoying the sunset when he says he happened to be in the right place at the right time. As a newlywed couple emerged from the shadows, Karas snapped a once-in-a-lifetime photo of the unidentified duo as they embraced on top of a cliff in Yosemite with the golden sun setting behind them. The unforgettable moment turned out to be...

When the iconic sandstone formation known as "the duckbill" collapsed, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department wasn't suspicious. Erosion happens. Rocks fall. The stretch of cliff where the formation was located, in Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area, was so unstable it was fenced off to keep visitors away. There seemed to be no mystery: The 7- by 10-foot pedestal on the coast probably collapsed on its own. Then a man named David Kalas said it wasn't time and weather that brought down the rock. It was vandals. And he had video. Kalas told The Oregonian that when he saw a...