Free Republic

Aurora police officers were trapped inside the District 1 station house for hours July 3 night after protesters chained the doors shut and plotted to storm the building. The incident occurred when protesters demonstrating at a memorial for 23-year-old Elijah McClain marched to the Aurora Police Department’s District 1 station house near Montview and Wheeling just after 8 p.m. on July 3, KDVR reported. Protesters chained the doors of the police station shut from the outside, trapping officers inside. Aurora police have refused to comment on how many officers were locked inside the building for approximately seven hours, KDVR reported. “The unfortunate part is...

Gov. Tom Wolf and health secretary Dr. Rachel Levine on Wednesday expanded on their previous order that everyone must wear masks inside businesses, saying masks are now required whenever anyone leaves home. It takes effect immediately. “This mask-wearing order is essential to stopping the recent increase in COVID-19 cases we have seen in Pennsylvania,” Wolf said. “Those hot spots can be traced to situations where Pennsylvanians were not wearing masks or practicing social distancing – two practices that must be adhered to if we want to maintain the freedoms we have in place under our reopening.” Wolf cited the Disease...

The message of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children in 1917 points to God as the source of peace in the worldBetween May and October 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared six times to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. Francisco and Jacinta Marto and their cousin, Lucia dos Santos, received MaryÂ’s words with simple trust and faithfully put them into practice. Our LadyÂ’s message was one of prayer, penance and conversion at a time of international crisis, as World War I intensified in Europe and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia loomed on the horizon.During the deadly flu...

Our Lady’s Request: Pray for the Dying! R. Jared Staudt“Pray, pray very much. Make sacrifices for sinners. Many souls go to hell, because no one is willing to help them with sacrifice.”-Our Lady of Fatima, July 13, 1917Today is the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal. It is also the anniversary of the assassination attempt on Pope St. John Paul II, when Our Lady of Fatima intervened at what seemed the moment of his death to save his life.This is fitting as Our Lady at Fatima appealed to us to assist those at the...

This past week we celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. (And, given my mention of Fatima, you may wonder why I have Our Lady of Guadalupe pictured here, but more on that in a moment). But as for Fatima, with all the emphasis on the magnificent teaching and prophetic fulfillment of that apparition, something that has always intrigued me is that she would appear of all places in a town called Fatima. Why Fatima, a town that recalls the daughter of Mohammed?Indeed, I have often heard that Muslims hold our Blessed Mother Mary in high regard. This reverence...

After looking for a decade to buy a dark place in the country to practice landings of its noisiest aircraft, the Navy has decided to look at renting airport space for quieter aircraft landing practice and to keep the big jets working at home. Navy Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., announced Friday that it will survey public and private airfields within 90 nautical miles of Norfolk Naval air station for interest in renting landing strip time for its turboprop planes to practice. The Navy has not abandoned its search for an outlying landing field, said Ted Brown, spokesman for...

The film, The 13th Day, distributed in North America by Ignatius Press, continues to earn rave reviews from viewers. Sr. Helena Burns, FSP, who authors the "Hell Burns" blog, writes: This is a triumph of a film. And I don’t think I’ve ever used that word for a film before. “The 13th Day” was screened here at the 1st Annual John Paul II Film Festival in Miami: http://www.jp2filmfestival.com/. British producer Natasha Howes (birthday: May 13, feast of Our Lady of Fatima) was present. I was prepared not to like this film, and very apprehensive about not liking it because...

Airport Arrest Turns Up Nuclear Info Nov 16 9:36 AM US/Eastern A man was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after officials say they found him carrying more than $78,000 in cash and a laptop computer containing information about nuclear materials and cyanide. Sisayehiticha Dinssa, an unemployed U.S. citizen, was arrested Tuesday after a dog caught the scent of narcotics on cash he was carrying, according to an affidavit filed in court. When agents asked him if he had any cash to declare, he said he had $18,000, authorities said. But when agents checked his luggage, they found an additional $59,000....

As the late Yusuf Bey built Your Black Muslim Bakery into an empire of wealth and influence, he also orchestrated a systematic welfare fraud scheme at his Oakland compound, three of his former wives have testified. By the wives' sworn account, Bey directed many of the 100 women whom he considered his wives to make fraudulent applications for government aid programs intended to assist poor families, then diverted the benefits to himself. Bey's alleged fraud scheme began in the 1970s and continued in some form until his death in 2003, according to the women, who gave depositions in a negligence...

Gov. Mike Easley on Friday strongly objected to any use of poisons by the Navy to control birds at a proposed airstrip near a national wildlife refuge. Easley said the Navy's plan would destroy the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. "I want to make sure you are aware of this threat to our state's fragile and priceless natural heritage," Easley said in a letter to state officials before six public hearings, starting Monday, scheduled by the Navy to gather comments on the proposal. The Navy wants to build a jetway for pilots to practice aircraft carrier landings about five miles...

Catholic Family News Special ReportPictures of a DesecrationPhoto Report of Hindu Ritual at Fatimaby John Vennari(article appears below photos) May 5: Portugal's SIC television announces its coverage of an "uncommon ecumenical experience".There will be a Hindu ritual at the Fatima Shrine.  Morning prayers in the Radha Krishna temple in Lisbon  "All the invocations of the pagans are hateful to God because all their gods are devils"- Saint Francis Xavier   A young Hindu woman explains the importanceof their various gods  About 60 Hindus travel by bus to Fatima  Arrival at the Fatima Shrine  The Hindus bring a gift of flowers. For...

A federal judge has told the U.S. Navy it can't build a planned fighter jet airstrip next to a wildlife refuge in eastern North Carolina. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle this afternoon issued a ruling that the Navy broke the law by planning the 30,000-acre site without conducting the thorough environmental review required by federal law. Boyle said the Navy badly underestimated the harm aircraft takeoffs and landings would pose to giant flocks of migratory birds that inhabit the remote area. And he said it also underestimated the threat of bird strikes to pilots and their multimillion-dollar aircraft....

The following is featured in the latest edition of The North Carolina Conservative newspaper Hard questions remain unanswered about the need for an "Outlying Landing Field," or an "OLF" in historic and environmentally sensitive land in eastern North Carolina. Now internal Emails, revealed in federal court, may show the Navy "reverse engineered" the process for site selection, deciding upon a preferred location and then creating a paper trail to make it appear as though other sites and possibilities for a desired aircraft carrier landing practice field had been eliminated. In an era of impending base closings, unveiling the Navy’s site...

Phi Phi Island, Thailand : ocean swallows all 200 bungalows at sea level, some of them including the tourists and employees.

Attorneys: Navy arguments, findings 'divorced from reality' By BILL SANDIFER Staff Writer Attorneys suing the Navy to stop construction of an outlying landing field in Washington County contend the Navy's account of environmental studies outlined in its last federal court brief is "divorced from reality." Law teams representing the Charlotte-based firm of Kennedy Covington and the Chapel Hill Southern Environmental Law Center office responded Dec. 20 with a brief discounting Navy contentions that it had "fully complied" with National Environmental Policy Act requirements. "(T)he Navy paints a different -- but highly sanitized -- version of the process it followed," argues...

WDN News Analysis: OLF, chicken or egg? By BILL SANDIFER, Staff Writer The Pentagon has frequently cited the "fog of war" to describe confusion that can scramble the best-laid battle strategies. That same phenomenon may now beset circumstances surrounding the evolving decisions that led to the Navy's selection of Washington County for its preferred outlying landing field site. Just what came when -- and in what order -- now befuddles many who have followed the process since its inception. And the very record that reflects that evolution now appears subject to different interpretations by the Navy and OLF opponents. One...

To the Editor: With regard to your Outlying Landing Field (OLF) news articles and editorials, I would ask the question: Did Members of the U.S. Congress and Military violate their Oath of Office and act as agents to deprive citizens of rights guaranteed them under the U.S. Constitution; and specifically the XIV Amendment? I believe that the prospect of a decisive, concerted and active effort to deprive citizens of their due process protection of property rights by the federal government would draw serious concern from anyone who holds the Constitution as the foundation, structure and security of our society of...

Navy top gun calls the shots By BILL SANDIFER, Staff Writer As the Navy skated on the thinning ice surrounding its justification for a Washington County outlying landing field, a former Tiger Team member, Navy Cmdr. John Robusto, penned a document titled, "OLF justification verbiage." That paper was circulated among Tiger Team members who had been polishing the language to pass muster with high-level Navy officials. That account is gleaned from a court brief summarizing more than 200,000 Navy documents turned over to OLF opponents' attorneys under court order. Those documents form the backbone of the latest brief filed by...

The Virginian-Pilot © September 13, 2004 Last updated: 8:56 AM Cmdr. Dave “Mongo” Koss checks an F/A-18 at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach. Photos by Bill Tiernan/The Virginian-Pilot. VIRGINIA BEACH — The Navy has long stressed training the way it fights. But at Oceana Naval Air Station, that is no longer the case. It has been years since the base’s Navy pilots have been able to practice like they fight, and the gulf between the two is growing. The reason: jet noise. The chief purpose of Oceana, the Navy’s East Coast master jet base, is to train...

The Navy wants to build an outlying landing field for Super Hornet jets amid this farmland in Washington County, N.C. Drew Wilson / The Virginian-Pilot file  A federal judge today ordered the Navy to stop negotiations for land, all site preparation and construction of its proposed practice landing field in Washington County, N.C. The temporary injunction was issued in Raleigh by U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle pending a full hearing on a lawsuit, likely late this summer. The Navy wants to construct a single-runway landing field on more than 30,000 acres of farm land near Plymouth in northeastern...