Free Republic

The man thought he was going to die. Hungry, thirsty and unbelievably hot within the metal train car where he had hidden for the past two days, he knew he had to do something when the train crawled to a standstill. And it couldn't have stopped at a better place: the corner of Goldsmith and Garcia streets, in front of the Bexar County Sheriff's Department East Side substation. "Lucky for him," Sgt. Russell McWhorter said. The man, a Honduran citizen, had left his country several weeks ago, "fleeing the war," McWhorter said. He crisscrossed through Guatemala and Mexico before making...

GREENSBORO, N.C. (BP)--Messengers to the 2006 Southern Baptist Convention adopted resolutions on such currently controversial topics as immigration and the environment June 14, but the debate time was dominated by an issue addressed repeatedly in the convention’s 161-year history -- alcohol. A lengthy debate on a recommendation concerning the use of alcoholic beverages consumed the Resolution Committee’s report in the morning session. In a departure from recent years, the committee needed the evening session to complete its report. When the back-and-forth on alcohol finally ended, the messengers passed with about a four-fifths majority a resolution not only opposing the manufacture...

Bloemfontein - A lesbian couple's appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal to have their marriage legally recognised and registered succeeded on Tuesday. The court, in a majority decision, declared that under the Constitution the common law concept of marriage was to be developed to embrace same-sex partners. The appeal brought by Marie Fourie and Cecelia Bonthuys in essence challenged the definition of marriage under South African common law. According to common law, marriage was the union of one man and one woman. This made it impossible for same-sex couples to be married to each other. On Tuesday, Judge of...

Updated: 10:21 a.m. ET Aug. 18, 2004 NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg turned down requests to allow an anti-war demonstration in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention, but he offered protesters something else: cheap tickets to a Broadway show. All they have to do to get discounted tickets, reduced hotel rates and other perks is play nice when they come to town. “There is no reason we shouldn’t welcome them in the same way we are welcoming the delegates and the press,” Bloomberg said Tuesday. “The right to protest is a basic American right ......

Statement from ALA President-Elect Michael Gorman on the destruction of Department of Justice documents CHICAGO -- The following statement has been issued by President-Elect Michael Gorman, representing President Carol Brey-Casiano, who is currently in Guatemala representing the Association: Last week, the American Library Association learned that the Department of Justice asked the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the Department has deemed not "appropriate for external use." The Department of Justice has called for these five public documents, two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries...

ATTORNEY GENERAL ISSUES OPINION ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today issued a legal analysis of the issues surrounding same sex marriage in New York. The analysis is meant to provide guidance to local officials throughout New York State as to whether they may issue marriage licenses to same sex couples and whether same sex marriages are valid in New York. Spitzer's office carefully reviewed the language and history of New York's Domestic Relations Law and other relevant statutes and issued an opinion from his office with the following findings: -The language of the New York State Domestic...

FBI agents stripped of media IDs at neo-Nazi trial COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho, (Reuters) - Seven undercover federal agents, who posed as journalists to photograph protesters at a civil trial targeting the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations group, were stripped of their media passes Thursday following a reporter's complaint. The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had obtained the media credentials earlier this week in the trial aimed at bankrupting one of the most potent forces in the U.S. white supremacist movement. Capt. Ben Wolfinger of the Kootenai County Sheriff's department said Thursday he had not hesitated to issue the media passes to the ...

Was Gore’s Speech Accurate? Some of Al Gore’s factual claims Thursday night fell short in giving voters a complete picture of his campaign proposals and those of his opponent. Gore alluded in his acceptance speech to a pair of tax fights in Congress: efforts to eliminate the estate tax and the “marriage penalty,” a quirk in the tax code whereby some married couples pay more in taxes than they would if they were single. Both tax cuts have been championed by Republicans. In his speech, Gore said he, too, favors these cuts. But the Democrats support much more narrow changes ...