Free Republic

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with their Syrian Arab Coalition fighters, launched a multi-pronged offensive behind enemy lines on Wednesday to liberate the Tabqah Dam in Syria from ISIS. Apache helicopters, U.S. Marine artillery and special operation troops were part of this operation to drop SDF fighters near Tabqa. “The Coalition supported this offensive with air movement and logistical support, precision airstrikes, Apache helicopters in close air support, Marine artillery, and special operations advice and assistance to SDF leadership,” the US-led coalition said in a statement. “Over the last four months, the Coalition has conducted more than 300 airstrikes...

LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC — A naked man threatening to harm himself at the Lake Murray dam kept sheriff’s deputies and first-responders busy for nearly eight hours Monday. The incident, which started at the Dreher Shoals Dam at about 11:30 a.m., was resolved without incident or harm shortly after 7 p.m., according to Erik Murray with the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. Officials who arrived on the scene were met with a man with no clothes threatening to commit suicide. Crisis negotiators were able to diffuse the situation, Murrah said. The man was taken via EMS to a local hospital, where he...

Nearly nine months after a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, left 80,000 people dead or missing, a growing number of American and Chinese scientists are suggesting that the calamity was triggered by a four-year-old reservoir built close to the earthquake’s geological fault line. In Dujiangyan, a hard-hit city, right, a girl held an egg as her father carried her to safety. A Columbia University scientist who studied the quake has said that it may have been triggered by the weight of 320 million tons of water in the Zipingpu Reservoir less than a mile from a well-known major fault....

Warming threat fails to sway foes of dam (Auburn, CA)AuburnJournal.com By: Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer Tying global warming and the possibility of increased flooding into efforts to build a multipurpose Auburn dam, a California State University, Sacramento survey indicates that the more people fear the threat of a shrinking ozone layer, the less they want the controversial flood-control project. The poll of 1,100 adult residents, including nearly about 200 from Placer County, indicated that 74 percent of those taking the survey think the threat of global warming is a serious one. Forty-eight percent said it was very serious while...

DURHAM, N.C. — A man who pleaded guilty to lobbing a homemade bomb at his girlfriend said he was actually aiming for a beaver dam. In the end, he was the only person injured, and he now faces 10 months in prison as well. Otis Cecil Wilkins, 45, pleaded guilty Wednesday to assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 300 days in jail. He had been charged with attempted first-degree murder. According to sheriff's deputies, Wilkins had threatened the ex-girlfriend, then threw the bottle bomb at her car as she drove into her yard in Rougemont, N.C., about...

I was hoping someone could answer a couple of questions I have on how to get rid of beaver out of a lake. I live in Indiana now but grew up in Michigan my whole life. Up there if you even look crosseyed at one the DNR will arrest you on the spot, so I was surprised when I called them here to get permission to live trap the d@mn things the officer just laughed and suggested I use dynamite on their home. He told me they were endangered once but since they brought them back our county has classified...

Broken ice dam blamed for 300-year chill 14:21 10 January 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kurt Kleiner A three-century-long cold spell that chilled Europe 8200 years ago was probably caused by the bursting of a Canadian ice dam, which released a colossal flood of glacial meltwater into the Atlantic Ocean. Two new papers, using different computer models, show that the massive freshwater flood accounts for evidence of the sudden climate change, which cooled Greenland by an average of 7.4°C, and Europe by about 1°C. It was the most abrupt and widespread cool spell in the last 10,000 years. Evidence for the...

Dam fails in Missouri. People reported missing. Details to come... -

Gary Bettman makes it official: 2004-05 NHL season has been cancelled. Damn you.

KETCHUM, Idaho - Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says the lower Snake River dams are standing in the way of salmon recovery. The Clinton administration Democrat told a Ketchum fund-raiser yesterday that those dams will be breached, despite the Bush administration's anti-environment policies. Babbitt claims there's virtually no long-running economic reason to keep the four dams standing. And, he says Bush wants to trample any opposition, rather than looking for a resolution of the issue. EarthJustice Steve Mashuda says his group plans to sue Idaho Power Company and others to make them realize the cost of keeping dams in place.