FREEDOM -- PennDOT has announced northbound Route 65 in Freedom will be closed Friday night through Monday morning, weather permitting.

The northbound lanes will close to traffic 6 p.m. Friday and reopen 6 a.m. Monday as crews conduct painting on the bridge that carries traffic from Third Avenue to southbound Route 65 in Freedom. All northbound traffic will be detoured.

As the posted detour, northbound traffic will take the Freedom exit and follow Third Avenue to the northbound Route 65 ramp.

Additionally, southbound Route 65 traffic will be restricted to a single 10-foot, 6-inch lane during the entire weekend. Third Avenue will also be restricted to 10-foot, 6-inch lanes.

Four additional weekend closures are necessary to complete the bridge-painting operation.

This $20.21 million roadway project includes milling and resurfacing, concrete pavement patching, drainage and guardrail updates, ramp reconstruction, curb and sidewalk work, bridge and retaining wall preservation, sign structure maintenance and signal improvements. The overall project will conclude in late October 2017.

Gulisek Construction Co. is the prime contractor.

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Route 65 in Freedom to close again this weekend - Timesonline.com

World War II era aircraft are at the Corvallis Airport through noon Friday as part of the Wings of Freedom tour put on by the Collings Foundation. (Ray Whittemore Photography)

CORVALLIS, Ore. - World War II era aircraft are at the Corvallis Airport through noon Friday as part of the Wings of Freedom tour put on by the Collings Foundation.

Walk-through tours of the aircraft are available until 5 p.m. Thursday and from 9 to noon Friday.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under.

Flights are available for a fee.

The tour moves on to Aurora, Oregon, on Friday. The planes will be available for tours and flights starting at 2 p.m. Friday and through 5 p.m. on Sunday.

After that the tour moves on to Bremerton, Wash., on June 19; Port Angeles, Wash., on June 21; and Seattle on June 23 before heading east to Yakima on June 26 and Pasco on June 30.

Flights are available before and after the ground tours.

The advertised rates are:

Call 978-562-9182 for flight reservations.

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Wings of Freedom tour visits Corvallis | KVAL - KVAL

The House Freedom Caucus announced Thursday it will oppose reauthorizing the FISA Amendments Act, the legal basis for U.S. surveillance programs, without "substantial" reforms to the law.

Section 702 of that law has come under fire recently after revelations that this provision was used to capture communications of President Trump and his transition team as it had conversations with foreign officials. Under the law, this kind of incidental collection of information from U.S. citizens occurs, but U.S. citizens caught up in that surveillance are usually masked, unless intelligence officials decide there is a good reason to unmask that person.

Republicans argue the outgoing Obama administration unjustifiably unmasked and then leaked conversations involving Trump's team, which has created demands among conservatives for reform.

"Government surveillance activities under the FISA Amendments Act have violated Americans' constitutionally protected rights," the Freedom Caucus board said in a statement. "We oppose any reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act that does not include substantial reforms to the government's collection and use of Americans' data."

The Freedom Caucus has not said what specific reforms it will pursue.

But Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is close with the Freedom Caucus despite not being a formal member of the conservative group, has proposed for three years in a row an amendment to Section 702 to prohibit warrantless searches of government databases for information on U.S. citizens.

Other changes to the law proposed by civil liberty advocates include narrowing the pool of foreigners that the government can legally target for surveillance, thereby limiting Americans who could be caught in the web, to include only those who may pose a threat to U.S. interests.

Congress also could require the circle of officials who can authorize unmasking to be smaller, and tighten the constraints on doing so.

Section 702, which expires Dec. 31 along with other portions of the law, has been reauthorized in past years despite hand-wringing from libertarians and some Democrats. This year's effort is more difficult given the political fighting over the law.

In April, numerous news outlets reported that Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama's national security adviser, sought the identities of people close to Trump whose communications were captured after the election in surveillance of foreigners by U.S. spy agencies.

Intelligence and national security experts say that it's both legal and normal for someone in Rice's position to unmask people.

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Freedom Caucus will oppose FISA reauthorization without reforms - Washington Examiner

A unique restaurant experience in the town of Freedom

Rob Caldwell and Krister Rollins, WCSH 7:17 PM. EDT June 15, 2017

A renovated grist mill that's been in the town of Freedom since 1834 is home to Maine's buzziest restaurant: The Lost Kitchen.

Over the years, 207 has done a lot of stories on restaurants in Maine. The range is extraordinary - from donut shops to elegant inns where wine and dinner for two can run a thousand dollars.

So we have some authority when we say there is no other restaurant in Maine like The Lost Kitchen in the town of Freedom.

Its set in a renovated grist mill an hour and a half from Portland. And this April, they booked every reservation for the 2017 season in a matter of hours.

Erin French is the owner and chef. Her first job was in her parents' diner. She tried to get away from food but always found herself coming back to it.

She created a pop-up restaurant in her apartment and lost that in a nasty divorce. She moved back home with her parents, found an Airstream trailer and gutted that and started her pop-up again.

Then the old grist mill - which she had walked by on her way to Girl Scout meetings as a kid - was renovated. And now in the town of Freedom, with a population of 700, under the direction of an owner and chef who has always cooked but has no formal training, you can find The Lost Kitchen.

2017 WCSH-TV

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A unique restaurant experience in the town of Freedom - WCSH-TV

Indianapolis, Ind., Jun 15, 2017 / 01:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops voted on Thursday to make their Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty a permanent committee of the national bishops conference.

The very idea of religious freedom and its root in human nature is challenged today, said Archbishop Lori, chair of the ad hoc committee, at a meeting of the U.S. bishops Thursday.

He added, how important it is that we remain in the public square through advocacy for the freedom of religious institutions to fight poverty, provide health care and education, serve immigrants, and protect human life.

In 2011, the ad hoc committee was formed for a period of three years, as the bishops were deeply concerned about a broad trend of threats to religious freedom on the local and national level, Archbishop Lori noted, speaking at the annual spring general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Indianapolis.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to U.S. bishops in January of 2012 during their ad limina visit, warned of grave threats to the Churchs public moral witness presented by a radical secularism where there were certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.

Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices, the Pope said. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

The U.S. bishops voted in 2014 to extend the committee for another three-year period. Then on Thursday, they voted to make the committee permanent by a vote of 132-53, with five bishops abstaining.

Most notably, the committee established the annual Fortnight for Freedom, a two-week campaign of prayer, penance, and advocacy for the Churchs continued freedom to serve in the public square, starting on June 21, the eve of the feasts of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, and ending on July 4, Independence Day.

One of the most notable threats the ad hoc committee warned of was the contraceptive mandate. The Department of Health and Human Services, interpreting the Affordable Care Act, had issued rules under the Obama administration that employer health plans had to cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and drugs that can cause abortions.

While churches and their immediate auxiliaries were exempt from the mandate, many religious institutions, including hospitals, universities, and charities, were not. Changes to the regulation offered by the Obama administration still violated the religious beliefs of the Catholic organizations, bishops and Church leaders contended.

In May, President Donald Trump promised regulatory relief from the mandate for religious non-profits like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The struggle against the HHS mandate is not over, Archbishop Lori warned on Thursday. Victory is not assured.

The promised relief could change with another presidential administration who could again enforce the mandate against religious groups, the archbishop said.

And other threats to religious freedom persist, he said, like the legalization of same-sex marriage, which could pose problems for religious institutions that uphold the Churchs teaching on marriage.

The archbishop cited then-Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who admitted during oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, that there could be an issue with the tax-exempt status of religious universities teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, if same-sex marriage were the law of the land.

Some bishops voiced their strong support for the committee on Thursday, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who chaired the USCCB when the committee was formed, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. The most recent president of the USCCB, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, also supported making the committee permanent.

The bishops of the world look to us, Cardinal Dolan told his fellow bishops, to be the real quarterbacks in defense of religious freedom.

A few bishops voiced objections to making the committee permanent in the discussions before the vote on Thursday.

Several were concerned about how it would appear to make the religious liberty committee permanent at the same time that the bishops working group on immigration, begun in November, finished its formal work.

However, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, vice president of the conference, clarified later on Thursday at an afternoon press conference that the working group will continue, although Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston-Galveston, president of the conference who had begun the working group last November, had not specified a timeline for how long it would continue.

Furthermore, Archbishop Lori stressed, the conference already has a standing Committee on Migration. The important thing is that as the sun sets, theres a permanent committee in place, because we understand the questions of migration are permanent, he said.

Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington, Vt. also voiced concerns that funding for the religious freedom committee could eventually dry up, while Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark said that domestic religious freedom concerns can be handled by the domestic policy committee, referring to the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

I am not convinced that there is a need at this time for it, he said of the religious freedom committee.

Bishop Francis Kalabat of the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle in Detroit strongly supported extending the committee, however.

There are currently 60 million refugees in the world, he said. What percentage of them came as a result of a lack of religious freedom?

Who you back up, or who backs you up, is who gives you the strength in the Middle East, he said, noting that if the U.S. shows strong support for religious freedom, it also shows support for persecuted Christians elsewhere.

Religious freedom, Archbishop Lori stressed, covers a wide spectrum of ministries, a wide spectrum of advocacy, and there is need for some consistency for a clearing house and a clear voice.

Religious liberty is a concept that really relates to ones fundamental stance towards God, he said, that first and primal relationship towards God. As Dignitatis Humanae states, he noted, religious freedom is rooted in human nature and granted by God as a fundamental human endowment.

On Thursday, the bishops also voted to approve new guidelines for the celebration of the sacraments of persons with disabilities.

The new guidelines were said to pay deeper attention to allergy problems, for example the gluten intolerance or alcohol intolerance of a communicant. They encouraged parishes to be more aware and accommodating of persons with disabilities in the distribution of the sacraments.

Archbishop Kurtz tweeted on Thursday that the National Catholic Partners on Disability were excited about the revised guidelines.

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US bishops vote to make religious freedom committee permanent - Catholic News Agency

Updated June 16, 2017 15:59:05

A highway with no-one on it. Balmy nights and a glassy sunrise swell. Bikinis, a vintage kombi, young love and freedom.

That's the "Van Life" movement, a bohemian revival of living in a van, now being showcased by 20- and 30-somethings on social media under the hashtag "#vanlife".

While its beginnings lie in the high cost of housing or employment itinerancy, it's now become so popular and stylized in the US that "Van Lifers" are using social media to market their carefree lifestyle to people like you and me who are hungry to live vicariously through them.

It's given rise to a surprising kind of existential crisis: is it freedom or just a paid-for, Instagrammed version of freedom? And does the reality of freedom outweigh the limitations?

I met with "van lifers" at a gathering of these normally solitary road folk in northern NSW to find out.

One of brains behind the community in Australia is Jonny Dustow from the website "Van Life Diaries".

The schoolteacher/musician/marketing entrepreneur has been living out of his van for the past six years on and off.

"You've always had the grey nomads and you've had the hippies in the '60s and '70s," Mr Dustow said.

"But there's been a change where uni students [and] young professionals are getting on the roads and spending more time in vans exploring."

The pull of Instagram images reflecting the lifestyle are what has spurned the revival and he's hoping to use it to expand the movement as a self-sustaining lifestyle brand.

"From my marketing standpoint, because I studied that and work in that, I was like, 'oh this is awesome, I can help you guys get more work through that'," he said.

"I know girls that get paid $500 to just take a pictures of them in their bikini and I've seen that coming into the van life community now."

So powerful is the draw of freedom as a brand that luxury goods, tourism regions and food brands are creeping into the market overseas as an opportunity to leverage van life's popularity for commercial purposes; an irony for a movement that largely rejects corporate, materialistic values.

A sign of the growing sophistication of the movement is the weekend's ticketed event, replete with an ATM, two stalls and a sponsor display.

"We are really picky with our brands that we work with." Mr Dustow said.

"I mean any lifestyle could be marketed if there's products we're all consumers."

But not all van lifers see it that way.

Cristal Cachia, 36, recently gave up her corporate life in Melbourne, bought a van and hit the road solo with her dog, Henry.

She sees the commercial influence in van life, together with the fact that photos with strategically placed girls in them seem to get more likes, as "a big pile of garbage".

"If you look at most of the Instagram photos of girls in bikinis who are perfectly tanned with their perfectly lumberjack-looking partners, hitting the road with amazing landscapes how real is it?" she asked.

"It's all there for sponsorship.

"If you have a look they are usually hashtagging the packet of chips they're eating or the brand of clothing that they've been given. It's not just real.

"The reality of it is you've got to stop for petrol, you are going to hit some in-between towns, you are going to stay in some fairly unspectacular places.

"You're not going to shower every day, you are not going to look like that.

"I don't know how those girls look like that.

"They may look like that but they may not smell like that."

Ms Cachia says she has to battle the impression that she has no better work or housing options and that van life is her choice.

"When I tell people I don't work that much, they usually look at me and maybe they get jealous, or they don't understand," she said.

"They kind of think, 'why the f*** should you get to not work really hard like I do' not knowing that I worked really hard to pay off my house.

"I just don't get this Australian need to work really hard to be a good human, it just doesn't make any sense to me."

It's not all sunsets and romance all of the time, according to Jared Melrose and Ash, who've been living van life as a couple for nearly two years.

"The reality of van life is it's tricky. It's not a, 'get in the car and your life will change'," Mr Melrose said.

The tradesman/musician hopes to sustain the lifestyle by offering van fit-out "consultations" for the "groundswell" of newbie van lifers.

His partner Ash says bad weather and a lack of personal space can put pressures on a relationship that are not shown on Instagram.

"We're kind of 'this' far away from each other for substantial amount of time," she said, holding her fingers an inch apart.

"So when we need space Jared kind of sits on the chest, and the other day I lay down and listened to this meditation CD and we were kind of like a bit cranky with each other.

"You can't shut a door!"

Families are also making a go of van life, like Jay, Trip, their home-schooled children Hunter and Ace, and rottweiler Gypsy, who live in a designer yellow Bedford school bus called "Margie".

"We've got enough space for everything and our whole mentality was to keep it simple," Trip said.

"Clear home, clear head.

"The kids are never bored, the kids are always outside, they are always learning."

Jay said: "As for the lifestyle, I think it's much easier than we imagined because we can go wherever we want, whenever we want. So it works for us.

"We don't have Facebook, our Facebook is the ceiling, there's photos of where we have been weddings, birthday, babies."

Trip said: "I don't think a lot of people are awake enough."

While the downsides of van life, such as tedious roads, mechanical troubles and the anxiety of where to sleep tonight are as present on social media as any of the downsides of our own housebound lives, even van life's Australian evangelist, Mr Dustow, admits that it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

Like the fact that he recently crashed his home into a pole.

"Now I'm vanless, and it does mean I'm homeless at the moment," he laughed.

"It definitely doesn't suit everyone, [just] like the pictures definitely suit everyone.

"It's that feeling of that lifestyle is better than my lifestyle when that's not the truth and the grass is not always greener."

Topics: community-and-society, australia

First posted June 16, 2017 14:31:47

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Freedom or freedom porn? The reality of Instagram's #vanlife - ABC Online

President Trump is expected this Friday to reverse the Obama administration's policy of opening up political and economic relations with Cuba. Thanks in part to the advocacy of Florida's Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, America will likely return to a policy that allows us to exert our political, moral, and economic strength to push for freedom and human rights in an authoritarian regime just a hundred miles from America's shores.

It has already been over half a year since Fidel Castro passed away at age 90 as a seemingly out-of-place historical icon, with a peace that few of his victims knew. Just like when Venezuela's Hugo Chavez passed away in 2013 or North Korea's Kim Jong-Il in 2011, there was briefly a flash of hope that this would be an opportunity for the repressive police state and command economy to finally unravel itself.

Yet Cuba continues to remain an authoritarian regime that has little room for freedom of any kind, whether political, economic, religious, or otherwise. For America to reward a regime that has steadfastly refused to move in the direction of freedom with sudden political and economic legitimacy would be a surrender of the moral struggle we've waged with Cuba for the past half-century.

Proponents of President Obama's Cuba-opening policy cite precedent in how America has regularly established relations with authoritarian regimes, including Communist ones such as China and Vietnam and otherwise. Proponents further cite the theory that increased interrelation pushes authoritarian nations to slowly edge towards human rights and international cooperation.

Yet it would be difficult to back up such claims with historical examples. Nations such as Vietnam and China are deeply immersed in the world economic system, yet their human rights abuses continue just as frequently as before. In fact, often our ability to condemn such abuses becomes limited because of how deep our economic interrelation now is with them.

With no change in human rights in Cuba, American dollars will be spent funding authoritarian repression and a regime that has historically supported insurrectionism across Latin America and the world against America's interests. That tarnishes America's moral authority in exchange for a small economic gain.

We see in a nation like Venezuela how the socialist regime has been able to survive in large part because of foreign financing and aid. While Cuba continues to slog on economically, nonetheless by establishing economic relations with the regime it is almost certain it will never collapse economically of its own accord. In a terrible irony, America would be indirectly subsidizing socialist repression.

Lastly, while America has in the past opened up to nations such as China and Yugoslavia, those decisions were based significantly due to incredible geopolitical concerns at the time due to the Cold War and the Soviet Union's threat. There is no current excruciating geopolitical situation that demands that we must make the difficult decision of compromising our commitment to freedom and opening up to Cuba.

Furthermore, the same argument for establishing relations with Cuba could very well be applied to a nation like North Korea. North Korea differs from Cuba by degree, not by type. North Korea's repression reaches a level beyond even the tastes of the Cuban regime, but nonetheless once a rationale is embraced that so easily puts aside our commitment to human dignity, that is the natural end.

America has stood firmly on the side of freedom for the Cuban people for over half a century. Our strong stand against Cuba's regime has been undoubtedly a bulwark in preventing socialist repression from spreading across South America, as was a real concern during the Cold War.

President Trump and Senator Rubio are wise and right in continuing to push the cause of liberty in Cuba. While it may be a long time before the Cuban people see freedom, we cannot abandon their cause so easily.

Erich Reimer is a Republican activist and freelance writer.

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Trump's expected reversal on Cuba is a victory for freedom - Washington Examiner