Free Republic

WASHINGTON, 3:42 p.m. EDT July 12, 2002 - Part of a northwest Washington neighborhood has been evacuated following an explosion in a parking garage located at 5225 Wisconsin Ave. The D.C. Fire Department said everyone within a two-block radius of the site was ordered out of the area. The D.C. bomb squad arrived at the scene shortly after the 2p.m. blast Friday. Investigators from the D.C. fire and police departments were also there, as were agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Parking attendants told News4 they heard an explosion and saw a van on fire. They said...

Above the cries of government in crisis, protesters honking horns around the Capitol and hours and hours of ever-angrier legislative debate looms a little 56-word pledge that attracted scant notice eight months ago. Only 33 of 132 legislators signed the pledge against a state income tax, but as the session grinds down to its last two days, the pledge itself has become an issue. Supporters and opponents have characterized it as everything from a lock to keep politicians out of the wallets of voters to an illegal instrument of government gridlock. ''Any of my colleagues who signed the pledged violated ...

Legal and illegal immigrants looking for official permission to drive are flooding driver's license testing stations in Tennessee this week. Hundreds skipped work, queued up at 6 a.m. with documents in hand, took a number to hold their place in line, and waited. And waited. ''My number is 109,'' said Carlos Nunez, 38, who had a ticket in his palm at shortly past 11 a.m. yesterday. He had been at the Murfreesboro Pike station for two hours when Department of Safety workers at the counter called number 36. The Honduran native shrugged. ''I need the identification,'' he said. ''I need ...

A former federal informant who says the public will never know the full extent of the conspiracy behind the Oklahoma City bombing if Timothy McVeigh is executed next week is being held in a Joplin mental ward. Joe Hurley, 50, was transported late Tuesday to the Stephens Behavioral Unit at Freeman Hospital East. He was arrested earlier in the day outside the federal courthouse in Springfield. A supervisor at the behavioral unit hung up when asked Thursday night about Hurley. A Springfield police dispatcher said the department’s public information officer had gone home, and that nobody else was authorized to ...