Free Republic

An actual game changing technology is being demonstrated as we sit in our air-conditioned abodes reading this. And it is being demonstrated by North Carolina–based Net Power at a new plant in La Porte, Texas. The process involves burning fossil fuel with oxygen instead of air to generate electricity without emitting any carbon dioxide (CO2). Not using air also avoids generating NOx, the main atmospheric and health contaminant emitted from gas plants.

LAPORTE — Law enforcement in LaPorte County is preparing for the possibility of an already-congested and dangerous U.S. 20 being overrun with more semi-trucks as drivers avoid the 35 percent cost increase of traveling the Indiana Toll Road. Much of that stretch of highway being down to one lane in each direction for resurfacing adds to the concerns. LaPorte County Sheriff John Boyd said he’s reached out to Indiana State Police to help patrol U.S. 20 if an increase in truck traffic becomes too much for his staff to handle alone. “We’re going to prepare for it,” Boyd said. “We’re...

AUGUSTA COUNTY, Va (WVIR) - Augusta County schools closed their doors Thursday and canceled all sports and activities for the day. All the county’s schools are closed Friday, December 18, too. Meanwhile, all school sports and activities scheduled for the weekend are also canceled. It all stems from a world geography class assignment at Riverheads High School that some parents called Islamic indoctrination. The writing assignment incorporated Arabic calligraphy, but also included an Islamic proclamation of faith. That prompted a community meeting and a lot of anger. That anger apparently coming not just from central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley,...

After a teacher at a Virginia school handed out a standard homework assignment on Islam, such an angry backlash flooded in that it prompted officials to close every single school in the county as a safety precaution.

A teacher at Riverheads High in Staunton, Va., had students practice calligraphy by copying the Muslim statement of faith. The assignment caused so much controversy that school officials decided to shut down all public schools in Augusta County on Friday. (Reuters) A Virginia county closed all of its schools Friday because of intense backlash over a class assignment about Islam, with some parents alleging that their children were being subjected to Muslim indoctrination and educators emphasizing the importance of exposing U.S. students to the world’s fastest-growing religion. A high school geography teacher in rural Augusta County asked students to try...

A Breitbart News investigation reveals that mainstream media outlets incorrectly reported a key detail in the story of the 9th grade World Geography teacher in Virginia who sparked a national controversy over a "calligraphy lesson" that required students to hand copy the Arabic characters that comprise the shahada, the Islamic statement of faith. According to news reports, the teacher said she "had not designed the assignment herself, but took it from a standard workbook on world religions." That was how the News Leader, a Gannett daily newspaper headquartered in Staunton, Virginia, initially reported the story on Thursday. Gannett is the...

State Sen. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, will join some 105 delegates from 33 states at the Indiana Statehouse on Thursday and Friday for the second meeting of the Convention of the States planning group dubbed The Mount Vernon Assembly. Arnold did not attend the group's first session in December at George Washington's Virginia estate, but said he jumped at the chance to participate this time when Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, an organizer of the planning group, asked Arnold to join him and state Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn, as Indiana's delegation. However, because an Article V convention never has been...

The federal judge who overturned the Bush administration’s Roadless Rule declared Wednesday that energy companies can’t set up their drill rigs on any undeveloped oil and gas lease issued since 2001 within a roadless area. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte ruled in September that President Bill Clinton’s 2001 Roadless Rule be reinstated, protecting 4.4 million acres of roadless areas in Colorado national forests and more than 58 million acres nationwide. Her ruling Wednesday prevents the U.S. Forest Service from approving or allowing any surface disturbance of a mineral lease issued after Jan. 12, 2001, on which drilling or development...

SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the Bush administration's rules on road construction in untouched areas of national forests and reinstated a Clinton-era ban on new roads in nearly a third of federal forests. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states and environmentalists who sued the U.S. Forest Service after it reversed Clinton's "Roadless Rule" that prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of forest land in 38 states and Puerto Rico. In May 2005, the Bush administration replaced the Clinton rule with a voluntary state-by-state petition process that the plaintiffs claimed violated federal...

SAN FRANCISCO, April 27 - In a rare settlement, the federal government has agreed to pay $87,500 to a woman from Kenya who was denied entry into the United States even though she says she expressed fears for her life in Kenya. The woman, Rosebell N. Munyua, was returned to Kenya by immigration officials at San Francisco International Airport in March 2001. She was admitted six months later on a tourist visa in Houston and now lives with her two daughters in Santa Rosa, Calif. She was granted political asylum in September 2002. The proposed settlement was submitted Wednesday in...

<p>SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A top U-S general says impoverished North Korea might resort to selling weapons-grade plutonium to terrorists for much-needed cash.</p> <p>General Leon LaPorte, the top U-S military commander in South Korea, says if that happens, it would be "disastrous for the world." LaPorte says the communist state may have harvested plutonium from a pool of eight-thousand spent nuclear fuel rods, which experts say could yield enough material for several atomic bombs.</p>

<p>U.S. military commanders in the Pacific warned Congress yesterday that North Korea could provide nuclear arms to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.</p> <p>Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, leader of the U.S. Pacific Command, and Army Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, commander of U.S. forces in Korea, testified about the danger of nuclear terrorism at a budget hearing for the House Armed Services Committee.</p>

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has visited American troops on the frontline with North Korea, after confirming plans to withdraw them from the potential military flashpoint. "Our motto is 'fight tonight'. We take that seriously," said Major Tamara Parker, spokeswoman for the 2nd US Infantry Division, whose combat-ready troops guard this strategic valley leading from North Korea to Seoul, some 56 kilometers (40 miles) further south. On Monday, following annual security talks with South Korea, Rumsfeld and South Korean Defense Minister Cho Young-Kil reaffirmed a plan to withdraw the division from camps near the frontlines as tensions on the Korean...

LaPorte Addresses 'Change' by Yoo Yong-won (kysu@chosun.com) General Leon J. LaPorte, the commander of the United States Forces Korea said Thursday that with the advent of a new administration it was time to change the makeup of the USFK-Korea alliance. General LaPorte said the alliance could be improved by closely studying the respective roles, missions, structure, deployment and leadership of the American and Korean militaries, with respect to future requirements and capability. In a keynote speech at a seminar sponsored by the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, the Heritage Foundation, and the Korea-US Exchange Council, LaPorte noted it was necessary...