Free Republic

Germany under intense pressure to scuttle the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to bring natural gas from Russia underwater to Germany. That's the assessment of Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. The United States behind that pressure. On Friday a White House official told the media that nine thousand US troops were going to be withdrawn from Germany..... A Russian disc jockey arrested in Berlin at the request of the United States...... A Florida judge who has refused to release grand jury records related to the late Jeffrey Epstein has close ties to politicians involved in the investigation of Epstein 15...

Interstate 10 is now three lanes both ways between Tucson and Casa Grande, but your commute probably won’t get faster. The Arizona Department of Transportation projects I-10 could be bumper-to-bumper all the way to Casa Grande during rush hour by 2035. The route currently carries around 60,000 vehicles daily, and that could quadruple depending on the region’s growth, according to an ADOT spokesperson. John Moffatt, director of economic development for Pima County, said those backups won’t just be bad for commuters. He said they will hurt trade with Mexico. “Trucks are like water. They find the path of least resistance...

Republican Mark Finchem and Democrat Tom O’Halleran agree on at least one thing regarding Interstate 11. Both expect to be deceased before the proposed roadway becomes a reality. Finchem, a District 11 state representative spoke to Hidden Valley residents last week in a gathering attended by Blanca Varela, a representative from Congressman O’Halleran’s office, at Mountain View Community Church. The proposed interstate is a long-range goal of Arizona Department of Transportation and is expected to pass through Hidden Valley south of Maricopa. While Finchem has been outspoken against I-11, O’Halleran has remained neutral. Varela said the congressman had expressed to...

Imagine a dust storm, driven by monsoon downbursts, building near the Maricopa-Pinal county line. There are thousands of Interstate 10 motorists and hundreds of thousands of Phoenix exurb residents who would probably want to know about such a storm before the stinging, blinding wall of sand arrives. But does all of metro Phoenix need to get the alert? Likely not, but the National Weather Service’s Ken Waters told the dozens of attendees at the annual dust-storm workshop in Coolidge last week that that’s exactly what would happen with the existing cellphone warning system in place for dust events. “If I’m...