Free Republic

Two men are dead and three others wounded after shootings within 15 minutes of each other citywide Friday afternoon.

President-elect Barack Obama added sweep and meat to his economic agenda on Saturday, pledging the largest new investment in roads and bridges since President Dwight D. Eisenhower built the Interstate system in the late 1950s, and tying his key initiatives – education, energy, health care –back to jobs in a package that has the makings of a smaller and modern version of FDR's New Deal marriage of job creation with infrastructure upgrades. The president-elect also said for the first time that he will “launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen.”...

An Ohio newspaper's decision to publish the non-public records of concealed carry permit holders drew a strong response, and one gun rights advocacy group published personal but public information about the newspaper's editor. "The general public may now know who owns and may or may not carry a gun. Additionally, the general public now knows who is not carrying a gun in their day to day activities."

http://www.vh1.com/shows/series/top_20_countdown/

The youngest of the terror suspects arrested in the raids was a heavily pregnant woman from Hackney, London. The Asian woman was taken by police handcuffed and still wearing pyjamas from a top floor flat in Denver Road. It has been reported today that the woman, who has not yet been named, is the wife of Muslim convert Oliver Savant. Eye witnesses described her as five foot tall with braided hair. One witness said: "I heard a man shout and then the door was knocked through. I looked out of the window and saw a team of armed officers -...

Sobbing and clutching her son's toy, the mother of a 2-year-old killed when a stray bullet pierced their minivan on Easter urged police to find her son's killer. According to police, the shots were fired as two groups of men argued.

Questioning the United Arab Emirates track record in the War on Terror, seven U.S. lawmakers said Thursday they want a committee led by Treasury Secretary John Snow to thoroughly review a deal that would let a UAE-based firm run six major U.S. ports. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "The United Arab Emirates has had people involved in terrorism. In fact, some of its financial institutions laundered the money for the (Sept, 11) terrorists. And to just blithely go ahead and treat this as another economic transaction is all wrong."

The Homeland Security Department, created in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has failed to fulfill 33 of its own pledges to better protect the nation, according to a report released Tuesday by House Democrats. According to the Democrats, since the department began operating in March 2003, it has failed to: — Compile a single, comprehensive list prioritizing protections for the nation's most critical and potentially vulnerable buildings, transportation systems and other infrastructure. — Install monitors at borders and every international seaport and airport to screen for radiation material entering the country. — Install surveillance cameras at all high-risk...

As it's pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, it leaves mud, debris, devastated homes and businesses, kernels of hope and optimism, environmental-hazard concerns, and a monumental cleanup task. ...snip... It's been three weeks since hurricane Katrina walloped New Orleans - and the full scale of the storm's impact is still emerging. In a few cases - such as fatalities - the worst didn't come to pass. While search teams are continuing their grim work, notably in Plaquemines Parish, south of the city, the death toll of 579 for Louisiana is far lower than the thousands predicted a week ago.

“What people have to understand is, you’re presented with a horrible choice,” Cobb said. “You take people who are on feeder tubes, who are on oxygen, who are on medications and you put them on a bus to go 70 miles in 12 hours? People are going to die, people are going to die, we know that.”

PHOENIX - Attorney General Terry Goddard launched an investigation Wednesday into the state's high gasoline prices. snip He specifically wants to see what each was charging the day before Hurricane Katrina hit and now. he called it "suspicious" that gas prices in California are lower than in Arizona Goddard's inquiry comes as two proposals were unveiled to cut gasoline taxes, at least temporarily. Sen. Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, wants to suspend the state's 18-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax for up to 45 days to help motorists cope with the high cost of fuel. Verschoor said Arizonans could save about $2 million a day....

A fallen soldier's mother said Thursday that the anti-war vigil she started nearly three weeks ago near President Bush's ranch won't end when she and other protesters pack up their camp next week. "We've started people talking about the war again."

Moral authority is about to have a showdown in Crawford, Texas, where the parents of soldiers in Iraq will square off in the heat-shimmering periphery of President George W. Bush's averted gaze. Cindy Sheehan, who left Crawford on Thursday after her mother suffered a stroke, promised to return if possible. If she does, the bereaved mother who gained international attention by posting herself outside the Bush ranch and demanding a (second) meeting with the president in the wake of her son's death will have company of a different sort. Not the supporters she's grown accustomed to - TV crews, anti-war...

shortly after her son's death and before she became a vocal opponent of the war. Ah, not exactly correct, she was an opponent before he left. If I were a liberal I'd say that was a lie. Some critics say Sheehan is exploiting her son's death to promote a left-wing agenda supported by her and groups with which she associates. Ok, now that parts true, she is exploiting her sons death, and using his flag draped coffin as a soapbox. Before the Crawford vigil began, Gary Qualls, of Temple, walked to the protesters' memorial to fallen U.S. soldiers and removed...

AUGUST 16--Meet Larry Northern. The Texas man, 59, was arrested last night and charged with criminal mischief for allegedly driving his pickup truck over wooden crosses erected near the roadside campsite of Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has brought her antiwar protest to President George W. Bush's Crawford doorstep. A row of the memorial crosses, which carry the names of U.S. soldiers killed during the Iraq war, were destroyed when Northern, a Waco resident, allegedly drove his truck (which was dragging a pipe and chains) over them. The crosses are part of an encampment Sheehan has dubbed "Camp Casey"...

"It takes about 2 weeks for changes in the spot price of gasoline to begin to show up at the pump and it is mostly passed through after 4 weeks," the EIA said. "This implies more price increases lie ahead for the next few weeks."

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police cannot be sued for how they enforce restraining orders, ending a lawsuit by a Colorado woman who claimed police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing her three young daughters. . . Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of the court order against her husband, the court said in a 7-2 opinion. Hours later Simon Gonzales died in a gun fight with officers outside a police station. The bodies of the three girls, ages 10, 9 and 7, were in his truck.

Two days after announcing his intention to seek the presidency, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden on Tuesday accused President Bush of "misleading statements and premature declarations of victory" in Iraq and called on him to change course. Biden said he plans to seek the Democratic presidential nomination unless he decides later this year that he can't win.

"Sen. John McCain disagreed Sunday with Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the insurgency in Iraq is in its "last throes," and called on the Bush administration to stop telling Americans victory is around the corner." ""First of all, I'd go to the international organizations and try to get some kind of sanctions and condemnation of it," McCain said."

Michael Jackson's family and fans - and at least one of the jurors who acquitted him of child molestation - gathered Friday night for a huge party that was billed as a celebration of thanks. "They were playing 'Beat It,' and I almost started to cry," she said "We couldn't have done it without you," Katherine Jackson said "What mother in her right mind would ... just freely volunteer your child to sleep with someone, and not so much Michael Jackson but anyone, for that matter?" Coccoz said Monday.