Free Republic

A proposed Chinese wind farm in Texas poses national security concerns, warned China-watcher and hedge fund manager Kyle Bass. The Blue Hills Wind development in southwest Texas’s Val Verde County has attracted heightened scrutiny in recent months, with lawmakers and experts signaling concern that the Chinese project could be used as a cover for espionage and to disrupt the state’s power grid. The proposed wind farm site is about 30 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border and near the Laughlin Air Force Base, the U.S. Air Force’s largest pilot training facility. The land for the wind farm is owned by a...

WASHINGTON—A proposed wind farm project in West Texas has become a potential national security issue due to its Chinese owner who has ties to the communist regime in Beijing and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), experts say. A Chinese-owned company called GH America Investment Group since 2015 bought 130,000 acres of land—an area the size of Tulsa, Oklahoma—in Val Verde County, Texas. The man behind the investment firm is Sun Guangxin, a businessman from Xinjiang, China, who is described as a “carpetbagger” by Chinese media with strong ties to the communist regime, The Epoch Times previously has reported. Sun, a...

After breaking his collar-bone as the result of a crash caused by an inadvertent touch of a team-mate's wheel, crocked Tour favourite Alejandro Valverde is now looking ahead to the Vuelta. After having his broken collar-bone fastened in a Maastricht hospital on Tuesday, Alejandro Valverde is set to return to Spain today and is likely to have an operation on the broken bone, which will keep him off the bike for two weeks. Unlike Erik Dekker, Fred Rodriguez and Sandy Casar, who were all crash victims of careless fans yesterday, Valverde went down when his front wheel touched the rear...

First of two parts Earlier this month, Val Verde County Sheriff A. D’Wayne Jernigan testified about border violence and other incidents of concern to U.S. senators examining strategies to end violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Jernigan’s testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security March 1 was a deliberate counter to what he termed “the rosy picture” of border security being painted by the heads of various federal agencies, he said in an interview Saturday. “I did express to them that this county (Val Verde County) has not suffered the level of violence that other counties...

Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office deputies and a U.S. Border Patrol agent have arrested a man and a boy after the two were found burglarizing a residence near the Mexico border. In custody are a 15-year-old male juvenile who told officers he lived in Ciudad Acuña, Coah., Mexico, and Mario Leyva, 35, who said he lived in San Jose, Coah., Mexico, according to Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Terry Simons. “They had both crossed the river into the United States to steal that night,” Simons said Thursday in an interview about the incident. Simons said the sheriff’s office...

A county-wide manhunt is on for a Zaragoza, Coah., Mexico man who sheriff’s office investigators say has helped break into homes and buildings on as many as six area ranches in the past week. Val Verde County Sheriff A. D’Wayne Jernigan and Lt. Larry Pope, who heads the sheriff’s office criminal investigations division, Wednesday issued a modern-day “wanted poster” bearing a photograph of Leonardo Miguel Arriaga-Alverez, 17. Jernigan said sheriff’s office deputies were dispatched Sunday to the residence of Santiago Cruz, who lives and works on the Lowry Ranch, located north of Del Rio on U.S. Highway 277. According to...