Free Republic

IN the late 1980s, an elderly blind widow in Arlington frustrated the city's plans for a grand shopping mall. She refused to surrender the small plot of land where she had lived for decades, choosing to live out her days in the familiar surroundings of her wood-frame house. The mall was built around her property, her faded white home jutting into its parking lot. She held out for years. After she died, developers bought the property and paved it over, melding it into the glaring sameness of suburban retail like the last reluctant piece of a jigsaw puzzle. In light...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Shocked at a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows cities to raze homes so developers can build private hotels, malls and office parks on the land, state lawmakers called for legislation to ban the practice Friday. The high court split 5-4 in a Connecticut case Thursday that under the Fifth Amendment, municipalities could take private property for private development because the project in question met a public purpose: creating jobs and revenue. But in an impassioned dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the court majority had forsaken the middle class and gutted the American principle...

IRS sends 600,000 to area agencies Cash is their share of funds taken from money-laundering efforts Copyright 2003 Caller-Times Publishing Company September 9, 2003, Tuesday The Internal Revenue Service handed out more than $600,000 from cash seizures to area law enforcement agencies Monday. The money was seized from drug dealers' money-laundering efforts. The IRS got involved as one of the principals of the South Texas Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Task Force. The IRS's Criminal Investigation office gave $75,000 to the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office, $204,000 to the Kleberg County Sheriff's Office, $245,000 to the George West Police Department...

Man arrested for allegedly plotting to blow up federal buildings, including Denver City and County Building updated: March 08, 2003 - 4:47 PM Written By: Web Producer Jeannie Piper DENVER – Federal and local authorities announced Friday the arrest of a 51-year-old man accused of trying to buy explosives and recruit inmates to blow up government facilities, including at least one building in Denver. Authorities say the biggest local target was the Denver City and County Building. According to a court affidavit, Dana West was apparently recruiting prisoners to help him carry out his plot. It says he tried to...

Allowing Cops To Keep Seized Loot is Unconstitutional New Jersey's practice of letting police and prosecutors keep the money and assets they seize is unconstitutional, a judge said in a case that could affect other states. The ruling, issued by Superior Court Judge Thomas G. Bowen in Salem County, puts a halt, for now, to a system criticized as bounty hunting. The practice gives law enforcement a stake in the cash, cars, computers and other property seized from criminals and suspects. "The decision will ensure that police and prosecutors make decisions on the basis of justice, not on the potential...