Free Republic

Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and former wife of pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. citizenship - and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill. Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, top Democratic donor and glamorous figure in European royalty circles, renounced her American passport in November, according to her lawyer. Her maiden name, Denise Eisenberg, appeared in the Federal Register on April 30 in a quarterly list of Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship and permanent residents who handed in their green cards. ___Songwriter also has Austrian citizenship through her late father ___ Former husband...

http://www.amazon.com/Front-Burner-Qaedas-Attack-ebook/dp/B007KLYXK0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

The U.S. Air Force is considering whether to revamp basic training for recruits, including separate training for women and men, following the worst U.S. military sex scandal in 16 years involving a dozen male drill sergeants accused of abusing women. Twelve male military training instructors at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, the home of all Air Force basic training, are under investigation for seeking sexual favors from female Air Force trainees. Six instructors have been referred to court martial on charges ranging from attempting to have a sexual relationship with a recruit to adultery and aggravated sexual...

China’s nuclear warhead stockpile is more than twice as large as U.S. intelligence estimates and could include as many as 3,000 warheads, according to a retired Russian general and former strategic forces commander. Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, the former head of the Strategic Rocket Forces, revealed in a May 2012 article that based on estimated stocks of up to 70 tons of uranium and plutonium, Beijing has enough material for 3,600 nuclear warheads. Based on the fissile material, “there are probably 1,600 to 1,800 warheads in the Chinese nuclear arsenal,” Yesin stated. “According to assessments, 800 to 900 warheads...

Liu Yang, a female pilot, is amongst the three member crew of the Shenzhou 9 mission, the latest step in China’s increasingly ambitious space programme.

BEIJING - In a matter of days, the number of expected foreign visitors to Tibet has gone from millions to zero. Chinese authorities alerted foreign travel agencies Tuesday that they would no longer be issuing entry permits to Tibet, the latest in a series of regulations being put on travelers to Tibet. The announcement follows the self-immolation of two Tibetans last week. Tibet is no stranger to Chinese interference in its tourism industry. Tibet's failed rebellion in March 1959 and the event's annual memorial on National Uprising Day has chronically put the region at odds with the People's Republic of...

BEIJING - In a matter of days, the number of expected foreign visitors to Tibet has gone from millions to zero. Chinese authorities alerted foreign travel agencies Tuesday that they would no longer be issuing entry permits to Tibet, the latest in a series of regulations being put on travelers to Tibet. The announcement follows the self-immolation of two Tibetans last week. Tibet is no stranger to Chinese interference in its tourism industry. Tibet's failed rebellion in March 1959 and the event's annual memorial on National Uprising Day has chronically put the region at odds with the People's Republic of...

The Brooklyn teacher who allegedly plied her 17-year-old student with cannabis and repeatedly had sex with him in her office was released on bail after she was charged with rape. Mother-of-one Erin Sayar, 36, is accused of seducing football player Kevin Eng, 16, while she was a teacher at Brooklyn's James Madison High School. Kevin is still a student there.

TRIPOLI, Libya – The former Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, has died in Libya, his brother told AFP on Sunday. "He died an hour ago," Abdelhakim al-Megrahi said, putting the time of death at shortly after 1:00pm local time. The UK Foreign Office could not confirm the report Sunday, however it said it was "seeking further information." Megrahi, 60, was convicted in a Scottish court in 2001 for his role in the December 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Most of those killed in the bombing of the Boeing 747...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Walter in Modesto, California. Hey, Walter, I'm glad you called. Hi. CALLER: Yes, I want to say I agree with the Democrats that not everyone would have pulled the trigger on Bin Laden. How many chances did Bill Clinton have to do it? RUSH: That's true. That's true. Clinton was handed Bin Laden on a silver platter two or three times and rejected it. CALLER: We still have him. RUSH: That's right. See, what Walter's point here is while Obama is out there trying to say Romney wouldn't have pulled the trigger (laughing), it's Bill...

SPRING, Texas (AP) -- A newborn boy was abducted from his dying mother after she was repeatedly shot outside a suburban Houston pediatric center on Tuesday,according to investigators searching for the suspected shooter who sped off with the infant in a blood-stained Lexus. Kayla Marie Golden, 28, was walking to her pickup truck after a checkup with her 3-day-old son, Keegan, when she had a verbal altercation with a woman in a Lexus parked next to her, Montgomery County sheriff's Lt. Dan Norris said.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A free annual Easter egg hunt held in Old Colorado City was canceled because "aggressive" parents were grabbing too many eggs for their children. Thousands of candy-filled plastic eggs are scattered across Bancroft Park every year for children to find and collect, KXRM reported. But organizers said some parents were too aggressive and took too many of the eggs, leaving some children empty-handed.

The great majority of Kosovar Albanians take pride in their reputation as the most pro-American Muslims in the world. Their Sunni Islam is conventional and moderate, and spiritual Sufism is a powerful force among the believers. Since 2009, however, a serious effort has been visible in the Balkan republic to turn Kosovar Islam in the direction of Wahhabism, the ultrafundamentalist sect that inspires al Qaeda. The meddling is coming mainly from neighboring Macedonia, where Albanians and Muslims are recognized officially as minorities, and the Islamic clerical apparatus has come under Arab control. Kosovo defines itself constitutionally as a secular state,...

Muslim Bosnian Neo-Nazi Group: Most Of the World's Problems Result From a Plot Aimed at "Letting the 'Chosen People' Control... the World" By: A. Ceresnjes and Y. Carmon* Introduction The Bosanski Pokret Nacionalnog Ponosa (Bosnian National Pride Movement), founded about two years ago, describes itself as a National Socialist (Nazi) movement championing white supremacy and Bosnian national revival. What differentiates the BPNP from other European neo-Nazi groups is that it was founded by, and is intended for, Muslim Bosnians – as evident from its spheres of operation, which are listed on its website. [1] Indeed, the site states that 95%...

New pictures of the China's J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighter have surfaced and are making their way across military blogs. This newest round of photos show the J-20 in the skies somewhere over mainland China. The prototype is said to be using the Saturn AL-31 turbofan engine developed by the Russian's for their Su-27 air superiority fighter. Reuben Johnson at The Washington Times reports the Chinese may be as much as 10 years away from producing an original stealth engine to slip into the J-20. In the meantime, they'll have to take comfort in the fact that while the F-22...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is for the first time citing Vatican City as a potential hub for money laundering. The State Department's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released Wednesday identifies the Holy See as one of 68 countries or jurisdictions "of concern" for money laundering or other financial crimes.

Last year, Jordan Powers was just another student from Mr. Hooker's class. Now she's his live-in girlfriend. James Hooker -- the 41-year-old married father who left his wife and kids for his 18-year-old-student -- might be the worst teacher ever. Last week, he resigned from his job at Enochs High School in Modesto, California over the scandal that's shaken up a community and pit one mom on a crusade to save her daughter from a man she calls a "master manipulator."

Chinese hackers gained control over NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in November, which could have allowed them delete sensitive files, add user accounts to mission-critical systems, upload hacking tools, and more -- all at a central repository of U.S. space technology, according to a report released Wednesday afternoon by the Office of the Inspector General. That report revealed scant details of an ongoing investigation into the incident against the Pasadena, Calif., lab, noting only that cyberattacks against the JPL involved Chinese-based Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Paul K. Martin, NASA’s inspector general, put his conclusions bluntly. “The attackers had full functional...

A U.S. teenager who admitted stabbing, strangling and slitting the throat of a young neighbor girl wrote in her journal on the night of the killing that it was an "ahmazing" and "pretty enjoyable" experience -- then headed off to church with a laugh. The words written by Alyssa Bustamante were read aloud in court Monday as part of a sentencing hearing to determine whether she should get life in prison or something less for the October 2009 murder of her neighbor, 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, in Missouri. Bustamante, 18, sat silently as law enforcement officers, attorneys and forensics experts read...

Welfare reform has been touted by Bill Clinton as one of the great achievements of his administration. But hold on a minute. GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says it’s one of his major successes as speaker of the House. Rick Santorum, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination has been resuscitated by the Iowa Caucuses, even claims to have been an author of the landmark welfare-to-work legislation. With all those claiming paternity, I’m reminded of the proverb: “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” Unfortunately, the name of former U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw, who represented South Florida...