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Los Angeles (CNN) -- The closure of a mountain highway pass in the heart of the nation's second-largest city -- an event anticipated to be so calamitous to car-loving Southern California that it's been dubbed "Carmaggedon" -- is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Pacific on Friday. That's when crews will begin closing ramps on Interstate 405 where it passes over the Santa Monica Mountains, California Department of Transportation officials said. At 10 p.m. Pacific, crews will begin closing lanes, and by midnight, the 405 will be eerily vacant -- a "carpocalypse," some say -- for the next 53 hours....

President Obama’s advisors wanted him to get out in front of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on Monday. So they preempted Bibi’s own peace proposal by having Obama call for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, give or take a few land swaps. There was one problem with the timing. It overlooked the fact that President Obama is addressing the largest gathering of AIPAC ever this coming Sunday, with 10,000 pro-Israel activists in attendance. It’ll be fun to see what happens. Here is Obama who just became the first president to ever call on...

US President Barack Obama's views on the issue of West Bank settlements are more challenging for Israel than those of former president Jimmy Carter, Minister-without-Portfolio Bennie Begin said in a meeting with Likud activists from Judea and Samaria at the Knesset Tuesday. Likud minister Bennie Begin. Begin, whose father, former prime minister Menachem Begin, made peace with Egypt during Carter's presidency, made the comments just two weeks after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu censured Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat for calling the Obama administration "horrible."

Hospitals Begin Giving Kids FluMist Nasal Spray For H1N1 The first doses of H1N1 flu vaccine were given to children today, a day after health care workers began getting doses in what is likely to be the largest flu vaccination campaign in U.S. history. Dr. Richard Besser explains which states have doses of the H1N1 vaccine. These early doses of swine flu vaccine -- all so far given as the nasal spray FluMist -- are being administered at hospitals in Chicago, Georgia and Nebraska, among other places. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals were targeted first so they could safely...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials will begin asking travelers about illness if they're entering the country from areas with confirmed swine flu.</p>

Israel marked the 30th anniversary of its historic peace treaty with Egypt on Wednesday, with both sides acknowledging that its goals have yet to be fulfilled. At a conference in Jerusalem, Egyptian ambassador Yasser Reda indicated the agreement has not been able to bring about comprehensive peace in the region. He said the Palestinian issue is still at the center of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Also commenting on the anniversary, the Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Shalom Cohen, lamented that peace at the official level has not filtered down to the Egyptian people. The relationship has come...

In a conversation with Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, after a sharp confrontation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of the settlements, Begin defined himself as “a proud Jew who does not tremble with fear” when speaking with foreign statesmen. During that committee hearing, at the height of the Lebanon War, Sen. John Biden (Delaware) had attacked Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and threatened that if Israel did not immediately cease this activity, the US would have to cut economic aid to Israel. When the senator raised his voice and banged twice on the table with his...

JERUSALEM – Teddy Kollek, the legendary mayor of Jerusalem and one of Israel's most re-elected politicians, ratted out fellow Jews to the British occupiers of pre-State Israel, even once trying to have former prime minister Menachem Begin arrested. The information was provided by recently declassified British intelligence documents held back from the public at the request of the Israeli government as long as Kollek was alive, prompting some here to wander whether other Israeli politicians currently living, such as former prime minister Shimon Peres, who worked closely with Kollek, were also moles against Jews. Kollek died three months ago. The...

This Friday marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Menachem Begin. He died of a broken heart on March 9, 1992, vilified as a warmonger by the Left and cast off by right-wing purists after he traded the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. The purists also berated Begin for his 1978 Camp David offer of five years of limited self-government to the Palestinian Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, to be followed by final-status negotiations between Israel and a Jordanian-Palestinian negotiating team - a proposal the Arabs rejected. Begin would have been...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2006 – After a brief stop at Ground Zero in New York this morning, 105 bicyclists, some for the fifth time, began the 272-mile trek that will end at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Mike Depaolis, a New York City police officer and an organizer of the “Tour de Force” bike ride, said his brother Robert, also an NYPD officer, helped start the ride in 2002 as a way to remember the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “My brother Rob … responded the day of the attacks and he was down there, Jesus, for weeks on...

Staff Sgt. Edwin R. Sanchez, right, an instructor at the Q-West Iraqi Army Noncommissioned Officer Academy, and an interpreter watch a slideshow depicting scenes from the latest training cycle during a graduation ceremony on July 25. Story and photo by Sgt. Rachel Brune101st Airborne Division Q-WEST BASE COMPLEX --The latest cycle of Iraqi troops graduated from the Iraqi Army Noncommissioned Officer Academy here, about 45 miles south of Mosul on July 25. The class was the last of a series taught by U.S. instructors from the 11th Field Artillery Regiment. The latest Iraqi NCOs will now return to their units...

Divers begin search for underwater 'Atlantis' By Wu Chong (China Daily) Updated: 2006-06-17 05:56 YUXI, YUNNAN: Ten divers began a seven-day search for a possible underwater "Atlantis" on Friday in the Fuxian Lake near Kunming, the second-deepest freshwater pool in the country. Local diver Geng Wei first told of a large ancient city in the lake eight years ago, thought to span 2.4 square kilometres. Geng claimed to have seen lots of square boulders more than 1.4 square metres in size, either piled or scattered deep underwater. In 2001, the local government launched the first large exploration of the lake,...

5/23/2006 - KIRKUK AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- The 506th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron has begun the transfer of its mission to the Iraqi government. Following the transfer of authority to the Iraqi Army by the U.S. Army in April, security forces Airmen here are now shifting their combat patrol mission of the base defense zone to the Iraqi army, Iraqi police and security infrastructure battalion. “The security forces mission here is evolving,” said 1st Lt. Justin Banez, flight leader. “Ultimately we want to ensure Iraq’s independence lies in the hands of the Iraqis. “We have moved from the Air...

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (NNS) -- The U.S. Naval hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) is scheduled to depart its San Diego homeport April 24, in support of a five-month humanitarian assistance mission to the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. Following logistics stops along the way, Mercy should arrive in the Philippines in mid- to late May. The ship’s mission is being coordinated with host nations in the region and is being carried out in conjunction with non-governmental relief organizations to provide medical, dental and other humanitarian assistance programs ashore and afloat. “The deployment of USNS Mercy to Southeast Asia and...

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, April 7, 2006 – The military commissions proceedings for suspected terrorist Binyam Ahmed Muhammad began dramatically here yesterday, with the defense team essentially boycotting the proceedings and Muhammad requesting to represent himself. At the start of the proceeding, Muhammad was joined at the defense table only by his detailed defense counsel, Air Force Maj. Yvonne Bradley. Muhammad's two civilian attorneys, Clive Stafford Smith and Joseph Margulies, were in the commissions room but did not sit at the table. Bradley refused to give a reason the civilian attorneys were not at the table and, in fact,...

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2006 – Afghan and coalition forces killed one insurgent yesterday in combat in the Deh Rawod district of Afghanistan's Uruzgan province. Elsewhere, U.S. officials announced that Afghan aviators are ready to begin flying missions. While conducting a combined security patrol, Afghan National Army and coalition elements engaged four Taliban insurgents with small-arms fire, killing one, and then called for close-air support. Coalition aircraft responded and dropped two joint direct-attack munitions -- 2,000-pound guided bombs. No battle-damage assessment was available; there were no Afghan or coalition casualties in the engagement, U.S. officials said. "The enemies of Afghanistan cannot...

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, April 4, 2006 – Preliminary hearings began here today for an Afghan man accused of working as a translator and accountant for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and involvement in a grenade attack that injured three journalists in March 2002. Abdul Zahir appeared in court wearing a dress shirt and khaki pants and talked and laughed with his translator and military attorney before proceedings began. An issue arose immediately when the presiding officer found out that written charges had been submitted to Zahir in English, Arabic and Pashtu, but Zahir's native language is Farsi. Marine Col....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2006 – Afghan National Police and coalition forces detained four members of the Taliban in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, Feb. 5, officials reported today. The detainees were transported to the Ghazni detention center for questioning, a coalition leader said. "This was a joint operation between the ANP, coalition forces and the Afghan people," said Army Col. Pat Donahue, commander of coalition forces in the country's eastern region. "We were able to apprehend these four based on information given to us from the provincial coordination center in Ghazni." The center in Ghazni proved to be even more valuable than...

FORT LEE, Va. (Army News Service, Dec. 15, 2005) – Students of Advanced Individual Training at Fort Lee’s Quartermaster School will begin carrying weapons with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, starting Jan. 15. The weapons immersion program being implemented by the 23rd Quartermaster Brigade at Fort Lee is designed to better prepare Soldiers for future deployments, officials said. A number of other Army schools began weapons immersion earlier this year for AIT students, an Army Training and Doctrine Command spokesman said. The TRADOC plan was to begin with combat-arms branches last spring and have all AIT...

With lawn chairs, binoculars and water bottles in tow, civilian volunteers will begin patrolling California's southern border today with hopes of drawing further attention to illegal immigration. But their arrival is being met by serious opposition. Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a civilian border watch group that began patrolling the Arizona/Mexico border in April, announced Friday the expansion of the controversial project to California and New Mexico as well as three states along the northern U.S. border with Canada. "In the name of public safety and national security something needs to be done," Simcox said, speaking...

WASHINGTON - Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts will begin the day after Labor Day, but Senate Democrats said Friday the White House will have to release more documents to ensure he's wearing a justice's black robes before the new term begins in October. "There is no reason why the date cannot be met, but we need the full cooperation of the administration," said top Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont. President Bush officially nominated Roberts as the replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Friday, and Senate Republicans later announced that confirmation hearings would...

Scientists to begin study of ancient skeleton over Indian protest By William McCall ASSOCIATED PRESS 2:05 p.m. June 28, 2005 PORTLAND, Ore. – After nearly a decade of court battles, scientists plan to begin studying the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man next week. A team of scientists plans to examine the bones at the University of Washington's Burke Museum in Seattle beginning July 6, according to their attorney, Alan Schneider. Four Northwest Indian tribes had opposed the study, claiming the skeleton could be an ancestor who should be buried. The Interior Department and the Army Corps of Engineers had...

Time has run out to stop conceal carry permits from coming to Saint Louis City and Saint Louis County. The excuse that there is no funding to cover the costs is no longer valid. Tuesday, Missouri senators gave final approval to a bill that passed in the house in March. Now a spokesman for Governor Matt Blunt says it's not a matter of if he will sign this new bill, but when. It will becomes law immediately. The conceal-carry law has resulted in a barrage of opinions from gun owners and those against guns getting in more hands. Despite his...

MANILA (AFP) - Nearly one thousand American and Filipino soldiers on Sunday began joint military exercises aimed at improving cooperation against terrorist and other attacks. The two-week exercises are to be held in military camps in Luzon. Some 300 US troops and 650 Filipino soldiers are taking part. The maneuvers are aimed at improving joint planning and enhancing capabilities "against armed attacks, including threats from terrorist groups, as well as readiness to respond to natural disasters," the US embassy said. The Philippines is a US ally in its global war on terrorism, and small numbers of US military advisers have...

Pro-Life Leaders Seek Face to Face Meeting with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to Begin Dialogue about Abortion and Abstinence Tue Feb 8,10:12 AM ET To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, 202-547-1735 or 540-538-4741 (cell) News Advisory: The Christian Defense Coalition will hold a news conference on Wednesday, Feb. 9, at 11 a.m., outside of the Russell Office Building on the corner of Constitution and 1st St. NE. The group will then go to Sen. Clinton's office to schedule a meeting and present the senator with a letter discussing reasons why a...

Right on CampusThroughout 2003 and into 2004, a surge of protests roiled American campuses. You probably think the kids were agitating against war in Iraq, right? Well, no. Students at UCLA, Michigan and many other schools were sponsoring bake sales to protest . . . affirmative action. For white students and faculty, a cookie cost (depending on the school) $1; blacks and Hispanics could buy one for a lot less. The principle, the protesters observed, was just that governing university admission practices: rewarding people differently based on race. Indignant school officials charged the bake-sale organizers with "creating a hostile climate" for minority students,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites) will bring top figures of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s ousted regime to court next week for the first time since they appeared before a judge five months ago, and formal indictments could be issued next month. Many have been in custody for more than a year and have not met with lawyers, prompting Saddam's attorneys to cry foul. The regime figures face charges for crimes allegedly committed during the 35-year Baath Party dictatorship, including war crimes, mass killings and the suppression of the 1991 Shiite rebellion. Saddam, who was...

KABUL, Afghanistan - The 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan (news - web sites) have begun a new offensive to hunt Taliban and al-Qaida militants through the country's harsh winter, aiming to sap their strength ahead of planned spring elections, the American military said Saturday. Operation Lightning Freedom was initiated after Tuesday's inauguration of Hamid Karzai as the country's first democratically elected president, Maj. Mark McCann said. "It's going on throughout the country of Afghanistan. It's designed basically to search out and destroy the remaining remnants of Taliban forces who traditionally we believe go to ground during the winter months,"...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Children begin United Nations conference on the environment NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Mimicking a chimpanzee's shriek to the cheers and laughter of children from around the world, primate researcher Jane Goodall Tuesday opened the United Nations-sponsored Tunza International Children's Conference on the Environment. The four-day conference brings together 450 children from 50 countries to talk about environmental issues and the many small ways that children can work for environmental causes. At the end of the conference, the children will vote on resolutions that will be passed on to the United Nations' Environment Programme for possible consideration by the UN. "Not...

'I don't know who taught him to fly, but they didn't tell him to check the gas'. A 25-year-old man is facing several charges after his plane, reported stolen from an airfield in Maine, crashed into a Montérégie field yesterday morning. The man, a Livingston, Me., resident, suffered only minor injuries in the accident. He had been flying a Cessna without a pilot's licence or flight training, said Constable Manon Gaignard of the Sûreté du Québec. For unknown reasons, the man left a private airport, near Turner, Me., about 6:30 a.m., running out of gas three hours later above St....

Twenty-five years ago, the leaders of Israel and Egypt – Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat – signed a treaty that ended decades of warfare. The treaty and its implementation are far from perfect, but the framework of peace has been preserved despite differences between Cairo and Jerusalem. Advertisement In the intervening decades, a great deal has been written about this singular accomplishment. Unfortunately, some of these accounts are misleading or based on myths. As a result, the "Camp David formula," to which former president Jimmy Carter attributes the success of the negotiations, is often seen as the key to a...

It was an exquisite June morning. Sun shafted on the upper reaches of the Western Wall, enhancing its luminous cinnamon hue and brightening its bouquets of caper bushes that sprouted from high crevices. Kvittelech – those ubiquitous snippets of scribble stuffed into cracks and chinks and bearing the petitions of the pious – profiled the Wall's lower tiers, most of whose immense antique blocks looked almost fresh from the quarry. A crowd of black-clad worshipers, Hawaiian-topped tourists, and a host of other sundry onlookers gawked at the sudden appearance of the prime minister emerging from a gray Chevrolet, ringed by...

George Woodrow Carter Posted: November 12, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Reading President Bush's address to the National Endowment for Democracy, one wonders: Have the neocons captured him totally? For, though he is being hailed as Reagan's true heir, Bush has begun to sound like a clone of Woodrow Wilson or Jimmy Carter. Foreign policy is, in Walter Lippman's phrase, the "Shield of the Republic." Its purpose: protect our independence and freedom. "We do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy," said John Quincy Adams. Traditional conservatives believe in the Eisenhower formula of Peace...

The occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Camp David Agreement furnished a fresh opportunity for the critics of prime minister Menachem Begin to lambaste him once again (see The Jerusalem Post, September 18). Foremost among these critics is US president Jimmy Carter, who repeated the canard that Begin had promised him Israel would suspend its settlement policy in the territories for the duration of the autonomy talks. The claim was, from the very beginning, patently preposterous. To assume that Begin, at a closed meeting attended only by Carter and one or two others, would blithely abandon the goal of...

Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer, ran an austere White House. Consonant with his innate Calvinistic intuitions, he cast himself in the role of citizen-president. He banned Hail to the Chief, slashed the entertainment budget, sold the presidential yacht, pruned the limousine fleet, and generally rid his mansion of foppery, artifice, and pretentiousness. He even carried his own bag. So when he welcomed prime minister Menachem Begin to the White House in July 1977 with a flamboyant ceremony fit for a king - replete with a 19-gun salute, a march-past of all the armed services, and a choreographed parade of the Army...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides over $600,000 annually in federal funds to the Stop AIDS Project of San Francisco to pay for HIV "prevention" workshops including the flirting classes scheduled for tonight: Title: Flirt, Date, Score Program: STOP AIDS Description: Want to flirt with greater finesse and date with more confidence? Who doesn't? Share your expertise and hear how others are successful in meeting guys and staying safe today. Date: 8/13/2003 Start Time: 7pm End time: 9pm Location: STOP AIDS Main Office Address: 2128 - 15th Street Directions: The STOP AIDS Project Main Office is located on...

On the 90th anniversary of Menachem Begin's birth - a fond recollection of Shabbat in his company The weather in Jerusalem was unusually warm and naturally breezy that Shabbat afternoon, adding spice to the smell of poplar and pine that always fills Rehavia in high summer. Under a blue sky streaked with tangerine wisps of cirrus that heralded the onset of sunset, tourists, soldiers, yeshiva boys, neighbors, and even casual passers by, lined up at the prime minister's gate waiting their turn to enter. Menachem and Aliza Begin were hosting an open house, a tradition they had maintained for the...

The ANGLICAN PROVINCE of CHRIST THE KING is an Anglican Church committed to traditional forms of doctrine and liturgy. Go to this web site:http://anglicanpck.org/index.html for more information. It was formed several years ago to counter the non-religious ways of the Espicopal Chruch.

Atty.-General Rubinstein has decided to charge Rabbi Yitzchak Ginzburg with incitement to racism. Ginzburg, the former head of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Shechem, wrote a book two years ago in which he allegedly made inflammatory claims regarding Jews and Arabs. A letter from the State Prosecutor's office invited the rabbi, to discuss the charges that may be leveled against him. Before the rabbi responded to the letter, the Ministry of Justice, under Minister Yosef Lapid (Shinui), leaked to the press that Rabbi Ginzburg was to be charged with incitement. Rabbi Ginzburg's attorney Wertzburger, questioned the timing of the...

Allies begin all-out assault By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 21 March 2003 US and British forces began the air bombardment and ground invasion to topple Saddam Hussein yesterday. Thunderous explosions were seen in Baghdad as British and American troops pushed out of Kuwait into the deserts and marshes of southern Iraq. The strategically vital Iraqi town of Umm Qasr – the only major sea port for goods to enter the country – was reported to have fallen to British and American marines following a heavy artillery barrage all along the Iraq-Kuwait border. Fierce engagements were reported last night between the...