Free Republic

Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency. The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care. This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food. The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age. It alerts playgroup leaders...

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- The boyfriend of San Francisco's planning director pleaded no contest today to misdemeanor driving under the influence after he trashed the city's historic fire chief's home, drove away drunk and was pulled over in San Mateo County. Lance Farber, 48, was not present in court in South San Francisco and entered the plea through his attorney, San Mateo County prosecutors said. Farber was sentenced to three years' probation and two days in jail, one of which he has already served, Assistant District Attorney Morley Pitt said. Farber was also ordered to complete a first-offender DUI program,...

IT'S WELL KNOWN that innovation is the lifeblood of the Massachusetts economy. At every period of stagnation or decline over the past 400 years, someone's bright ideas have turned the tide. Too little valued, however, is the central role played by minorities and women in helping Massachusetts thrive. This morning, the state's political, business, and civic leaders will spotlight the contribution of a diverse workforce to the region's success, and challenge each other to do more. Much more. A 2006 report by the Boston History and Innovation Collaborative found that of 64 game-changing innovations in Massachusetts - from wiping out...

Bush administration targets language in war on terrorism WASHINGTON - Don't call them jihadists any more. And don't call al-Qaida a movement. The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language. Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like "Islamo-fascism" is out, too. The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving...

LIBREVILLE, gabon–When the body of 13-year-old Ralph Edang N'na was found drained of blood and with gaping wounds in his genitals, chest and neck last month, many in Gabon thought it was politicians who had ordered his killing. The murder of children and young adults, whose organs are eaten or used to make magical amulets, has increased in recent years in the oil-rich central African nation. Campaigners say some Gabonese politicians use the black magic rituals to boost their chances of winning lucrative government posts. With elections to municipal councils on Sunday, many fear a spate of gruesome child murders....

Nojoud Muhammed Nasser YT Photo by Hamed Thabet SANA’A, April 9 - An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man. Nojoud Muhammed Nasser arrived at court by herself on Wednesday, April 2, looking for a judge to handle her case against her father, Muhammed Nasser, who forced her two months ago to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a man 22 years her senior. The child also asked for a divorce, accusing her husband of sexual and domestic abuse. According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute,...

A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl in Pakistan has been forced to marry a man of 24 to punish her father for eloping with a neighbour’s daughter. Nazia Nawaz, who lives in the village of Babrianwala in rural Punjab, described last week how a mob of 30 men, led by a mullah and the local council, stormed her family home and demanded that she and her seven-year-old sister marry two male relatives to settle the dispute. The forced marriage of Nazia to her adult cousin had just been completed when other family members arrived to stop the wedding of her younger sister, Shazia....

HILLSBORO, Ore. -- John Shipley calls it the "weirdest, sickest case" he's ever investigated. The detective with the Washington County Sheriff's Office says a woman and three men put a 15-year-old Bethany girl through a course of sado-masochistic discipline that included rape. "In the back of our mind, we're concerned that these four individuals have done this to other children," Shipley told The Oregonian newspaper. "These four people are 'out there' in terms of responsibility and knowing how to treat children." Stephanie Lynn Leblanc-Porter, 38, and David Raymond Guy Davies, 44, are charged with rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, unlawful sexual...

February 12, 2008     Internet users could be banned over illegal downloads   Francis Eliott, Deputy Political Editor   People who illegally download films and music will be cut off from the internet under new legislative proposals to be unveiled next week. Internet service providers (ISPs) will be legally required to take action against users who access pirated material, The Times has learnt. Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time,...

The Spartans worshipped many Gods. The Persians only one - Ahura Mazda. Zoroastranism a faith which led to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Spartans despised democracy. They fought for generations against the Athenians because of their devout hatred towards the concept. The Persians allowed democratic reign, freedom for Satrips and anyone within the empire. Cyrus the Great the founder of the Persian Empire is mentioned 23 times in the Bible and is the only figure dubbed the 'anointed' Cyrus is mentioned some 23 times in the literature of the Old Testament. Isaiah refers to Cyrus as Jehovah’s “shepherd,” the Lord’s...

OCEAN CITY — A wooden box, apparently placed into the ocean as a religious offering, sparked a police investigation when it washed ashore and was found by a resident last week behind his home...Police said the box, the size of a shoebox, contained several notes written in Spanish as well as some balled up paper and gave out a rancid smell.An investigation into the box led detectives to an El Salvador man from Silver Spring, Md., who admitted to making the box and putting some notes and a piece of uncooked chicken in it before placing it in the water...

A man and woman accused killing a 9-year-old boy at downtown Salt Lake City's Melting Pot restaurant last week have made their initial court appearance. Pedro Gaucin-Canales, 36, and Rebecca Hernandez-Velasco, 19, are each charged with first-degree felony murder in the death of Josue Contreras-Velasco, who is the brother of Rebecca. The charges read in today's video hearing allege the boy died of hypothermia after being held naked in a trash can of ice water for 45 minutes in the kitchen of the restaurant at 340 S. Main Street. Charging documents say the ice water was used as a disciplinary...

VRINDAVAN, India (CNN) -- Ostracized by society, India's widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces. Hindu widows are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition -- and because they're seen as a financial drain on their families.

Dellums' swearing-in tainted by crowd mocking De La Fuente - The racism-tinged disruption of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' inauguration on Monday continued to have an impact in Oakland on Thursday as Asian American and Latino community leaders held a news conference to call for racial unity. But the racial divide to be bridged remained apparent. The news conference had no members of the African American community who had called at the inauguration for City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, a Latino, to step down. After those calls were not heeded and De La Fuente was re-elected in a special...

VEILED women will be forced to reveal their identities at UK airports under a government plan to tighten security, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. Home Office insiders last night confirmed that immigration officials will be ordered to impose their legal right to lift the veils of passengers after it emerged a suspected police killer may have escaped the UK dressed as a Muslim woman. But the plan has been attacked by unions, which claim it would impose intolerable demands on their members, particularly female officers who would be the only ones allowed to look under veils. Ministers have been forced...

THE HAGUE -- Bolivian President Evo Morales, on a state visit to the Netherlands, said he is searching for a new model of democracy that could include reviving the ancient tradition of whipping petty criminals as an alternative to jail. "When I was a kid I was punished several times, being whipped and lashed," the leftist president said Monday... "Whenever I did something wrong, I received punishment with a chicote [the loose end of a rope], and always believed that the system our ancestors used was better than the system in the northern justice system....," he said. Meanwhile, some 5,000...

CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people travelling with invading Spanish forces in 1520. Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archaeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say. The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children travelling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king...

One of two teen-agers arrested in South Texas for a string of home invasions while wielding AK-47s has been identified as an illegal alien, previously deported who lied about his age being tried as an adult for the attacks, which also include a drive-by shooting and a sexual assault. The sheriff's department in the Rio Grande Valley now believes one of the attackers is a 19-year-old adult and not the 16-year-old juvenile he claimed when he was arrested. His accomplice is believed to be 16. The suspect's fingerprints matched that of a 19-year-old Mexican national who had been previously deported...

Guatemala City, Aug 22 (EFE).- Fourteen Guatemalan Indians were publicly flogged, forced to kneel on bottle caps and shorn of their hair after being convicted by a traditional assembly of various offenses, local media reported Tuesday. The so-called "Maya punishment," provided for in traditional codes acknowledged by the modern nation-state, was applied Monday in the northwestern town of Nahuala, community leader Pascual Ixmata told the press. The 14 accused - four of them women - were whipped and forced to kneel on bottle caps, and their hair was cut off. The male miscreants, who were charged with sniffing glue, also...

A wave of illegal-immigrant gang rapes is sweeping the U.S. while public officials and law-enforcement authorities fear drawing the link, experts say. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, a Ph.D. researcher of violent crimes, told WorldNetDaily, "It appears as if there is a fear that if this is honestly discussed, people will hate all illegal immigrants. So there is silence. … But in being silent about the rapes and murders, it is as if the victims never even existed." Schurman-Kauflin, who runs the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta, participated in a 12-month, in-depth study of illegal immigrants who committed sex crimes and murders from...

The death count climbed to nine Monday in a rollover accident on Martinez Lake Road involving what may have been an alien smuggling vehicle. The accident occurred at milemarker 4, west of Highway 95, at about 7 a.m. when the white Chevrolet Suburban swerved to avoid spike strips deployed by the U.S. Border Patrol to stop the vehicle, according to the Yuma County Sheriff's Office. Five of the Suburban’s passengers died at the scene and four more died at Yuma Regional Medical Center, said Mike Shelton, spokesman for Rural/Metro Fire Department, one of the agencies that responded to the accident...

Here we go again. This time, it's a fatal shooting at a Jewish organization in Seattle, but to the authorities it's yet another inexplicable incident characterized every which way except as what it is: freelance jihadism. My radio pal Hugh Hewitt has a great summation here . One is surprised only that this time the cops didn't redeploy the Mounties' line from Toronto the other week and describe the killer as representing the "broad strata" of society. The notion that a fellow isn't a terrorist unless he's got a machine-readable al-Qaeda membership card is pathetic: The fact that you don't...

MILWAUKEE -- On Monday, the Milwaukee Brewers will open a six-game, seven-day homestand which includes visits by two National League Central rivals. Highlighting the homestand is "Cerveceros Day" on Saturday, July 29... On Saturday, July 29, the Brewers will celebrate "Cerveceros Day" at Miller Park. The Brewers will pay tribute to Hispanic baseball by wearing uniforms that read "Cerveceros" ("Brewers" in Spanish) across the chest. Brewers great Teddy Higuera and Milwaukee Braves legend Felix Mantilla will be honored by the Brewers and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in a pre-game ceremony. Throughout the ballpark, there will be mariachi bands, bilingual...

Somali Muslims warned of death 06/07/2006 11:36 - (SA) Mogadishu - Somali Muslims who fail to perform daily prayers will be killed in accordance with Qur'anic law under a new edict issued by a leading cleric in the Islamic courts union that controlled the capital. The requirement for Muslims to observe the five-times daily ritual under penalty of death was announced late on Wednesday and appeared to confirm the hardline nature of the increasingly powerful Sharia courts in Mogadishu. Sheikh Abdalla Ali, a founder and high-ranking official in the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, said: "He who does not perform...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Workers clearing piles of garbage from a beach in Acapulco found an unpleasant reminder of the seamier side of Mexico's Pacific resort, which has seen dozens of murders this year -- a decomposing human head. The head washed in from the ocean and appeared to be that of a man around 40 years old, Reforma newspaper said on its Web site on Wednesday. The head was discovered by state workers cleaning the beach. Police believe the slayings are related to drugs trafficking. In April suspected drug gang hitmen decapitated two policemen and placed their heads outside...

WINONA, Minn. - Winona Senior High School has prohibited students from wearing a certain style of baggy pants because of safety concerns. Although the straps haven‘t caused any injuries at the school, Sampson said they could possibly hook students onto something or someone and would be especially dangerous around shop class equipment. Students said the new prohibition is aimed at groups who some label as "Goth" or "freak." They said teachers have been less stringent enforcing the dress code among students in other groups who wear skimpy blouses, T-shirts promoting alcohol or pants that show underwear.

Bristish banks are banning piggy banks because they may offend some Muslims. Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reported today. Muslims do not eat pork, as Islamic culture deems the pig to be an impure animal. Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move. "This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers," he said. However, the move brought accusations of political correctness...

HOUSTON — In the early 1990s, lawyer-bashing was all the rage. And Harriet Miers didn't like it one bit. Then the president of the State Bar of Texas, Miers used her monthly column in the Texas Bar Journal to condemn politicians who were trying to score points by disparaging the legal profession. She suggested the criticism was myopic, and noted that it was coming, by and large, from Republicans.It was time, she wrote, to "fight back." The written record of President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court is meager. But her musings in the Texas Bar Journal in 1992 and...

A man who was shot to death and set on fire early yesterday morning in a quiet Mount Airy neighborhood was identified as the stepfather of rap star Beanie Sigel, who was acquitted last week of attempted-murder charges. Officials said family members identified the victim as Samuel Derry, 46, of the 2200 block of Mifflin Street in South Philadelphia. Police Inspector William Colarulo declined to corroborate the report. Police said they were called to the 8100 block of Forrest Avenue in the Cedarbrook section shortly after 4 a.m. and found a body that had been engulfed in flames. The victim...

<p>Just heard as news alert on Fox News. One beieved dead. No other details.</p>

(06-10) 15:09 PDT Aurora, Colo. (AP) -- A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted. A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Homaidan Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant. Al-Turki also faces state charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment and extortion, as well as 12 charges of sexual assault. His wife faces some of the same charges. The two...

SAN FRANCISCO ---- Ten school districts statewide and three nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit against the state Wednesday for allegedly testing non-English-speaking students in English and then labeling them and their schools as "failing" under the state's implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind law. The lawsuit, filed in federal Superior Court in San Francisco, demands that the state test its 1.6 million non-English-speaking students in a "language and form" they understand, as mandated in the federal education reform law. The lawsuit is asking the state to change the way it tests students who do not yet understand English,...

THE most lurid testimony to be heard in Michael Jackson's looming child molestation trial could concern the bizarre appearance of his penis. Private investigator Ernie Rizzo, who was hired by the family of the boy who accused Jackson of molestation in 1993, predicts that Jackson's latest alleged victim could provide damning testimony about the pop oddball's uniquely marked manhood. Rizzo, a former Chicago police detective who has seen photographs of Jackson's genitals taken by cops in 1993, claims that because Jackson "bleaches" his body twice a week, distinctive markings on his penis are visible when he is aroused. "It looks...

KABC TV 7: Los Angeles LOS ANGELES — A fight between two Jordan High School students Friday led to a blacks-Latinos brawl that police said may have involved up to 1,000 people, including some gang members who came on campus for the fracas. The scrap, which reportedly began with two girls fighting, possibly over something that happened yesterday, began during the second lunch period, officials said. Nobody was seriously hurt.

Breaking...

FORT WORTH - The chief executive of American Airlines has apologized after a pilot suggested that non-Christian passengers on a recent flight discuss the faith with Christians. Gerard Arpey said the airline has grounded the pilot with pay while executives investigate the incident. Arpey said he apologized to anyone who was offended by the pilot's comments on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. "Let me assure you that we take this very seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation," Arpey wrote in a letter to Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group that monitors...

Vigneux sur Seine, France – The boys were patient, standing in line and waiting their turn to rape. Their two victims, girls of 13, were patient as well, never crying out, at least that is what the neighbors said, and enduring the violence and abuse not once, but repeatedly over five months. That was three years ago. Late last month, 10 young men, now ranging in age from 18 to 21, were convicted of rape in a closed courtroom in nearby Evry and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to five years. Seven others will go on trial in...

<p>A West Virginia man was nabbed for allegedly having sex with a sheep - that was part of a live nativity scene.</p> <p>Joey Armstrong, 29, broke into a shed that housed animals used in the holiday scene at the Bartlett-Burdette-Cox Funeral Home in Charleston at about 5:50 a.m. Saturday, police Sgt. Brent Webster said.</p>

A man has confessed to murdering and eating another man who allegedly volunteered to be killed, in a case that has shocked Germany. The 41-year-old - who was remanded in custody on Wednesday - videotaped the murder, prosecutors said. The victim, also in his 40s, was chopped into pieces at the killer's home in the central German town of Rotenburg, near Kassel. Prosecutors in Kassel said the accused and the victim were apparently homosexuals who shared cannibalistic tendencies. The German daily Bild reports that the victim, from Berlin, had seen an advertisement on the internet which said: "Seeking young, well-built...