Free Republic

Nature of mysterious hot spot revealed by “photogeology” Analysis of new images of a curious “hot spot” on the far side of the Moon reveal it to be a small volcanic province created by the upwelling of silicic magma. The unusual location of the province and the surprising composition of the lava that formed it offer tantalizing clues to the Moon’s thermal history. The hot spot is a concentration of a radioactive element thorium sitting between the very large and ancient impact craters Compton and Belkovich that was first detected by Lunar Prospector’s gamma-ray spectrometer in 1998. The Compton-Belkovich Thorium...

Really. Need I say more. Her breathless reports extolling the Greatness of Obama that interrupt Rush and Levin are just too much for me. ML/NJ

With a huge drop in homicides in a historically crime-ridden part of Los Angeles County, longtime residents say they finally feel safe sitting on their front porches and visiting neighborhood parks. Compton, Calif., tallied only 24 homicides in 2010, down from 36 in 2009 and 87 in 1991, according to L.A. Times crime reporters. All in all, homicides plunged by 67 percent in less than five years, and other violent crimes are also way down

By Marlene Romero’s count, her son has had just one effective teacher in his five years at McKinley Elementary School here. Most of the time, she said, he has merely shuffled through classrooms, struggling in math without ever getting extra help. So when an organizer came knocking at her door promising that if she signed a petition, her son’s school could radically improve, Ms. Romero immediately pledged her support. Now, she is one of more than 250 parents in Compton who are using a new state law to force the failing school to be taken over by a charter school...

This year's campaign for Congress looks to be the liveliest since 1994's "Contract with America" explosion. And, unless she has a last-minute change of heart and mind, Star Parker, president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, is announcing this month her candidacy to represent a poor, heavily Democratic, majority-black congressional district just east and south of Los Angeles. Parker, born in 1956, is a Republican who hasn't held political office before, but we joked last month that she had a ready reply if attacked on grounds of inexperience: You're wrong. I've stolen. I've lied. I know how to...

The Compton city attorney's office is investigating a $1-per-lot sale of government land to a housing corporation that failed to receive the tax-exempt status it sought and is associated with a Los Angeles labor union mired in a spending scandal. The housing group was established as a nonprofit in 2004, but never received an Internal Revenue Service exemption and had lost its right to do business in California for not filing its tax returns, The Times disclosed last month. It was founded under the direction of Tyrone Freeman, president of the Service Employees International Union local, whose financial practices are...

You have heard of white flight. Now consider black flight Next month the Burning Bush Baptist Church will hold its first service in a converted Sears department store. When the church was founded, in 1995, it had a congregation of 12. About 750 now attend Sunday services, and more are joining all the time. One reason for the church's growth is the oratorical skill of David Denson, its pastor. Another is that Burning Bush is a mostly black church, and there are a lot more blacks around these days. Between 2000 and 2006 the black population of Victorville and Apple...

(CBS) COMPTON, Calif. - Beginning this weekend, Compton residents can exchange their guns for gifts -- no questions asked -- as part of a city-sponsored endeavor to reduce violence. According to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, personnel will collect firearms in the parking lot of the Circuit City/Ralphs Grocery shopping center at Compton Boulevard and Alameda Street. The guns for gifts drive will continue over the next three Saturdays. For every gun turned in, participants will receive a $50 gift card to Circuit City, Ralphs Grocery or Toys "R" Us. "The largest challenge to this program...

Police officers assigned to protect Compton schools against vandalism and other campus crimes have been asleep at the wheel, quite literally, according to photographs and sworn testimony in a racial discrimination lawsuit. The photographs appear to show several uniformed school officers in the driver's seats of parked squad cars with eyes shut and, in some cases, heads leaning back. The pictures emerged in a suit against the Compton Unified School District, which operates the 34-member police department. The case was filed by a white ex-officer and two Latino officers who contend that they were treated differently from black colleagues within...

If you see hundreds of units responding to the Compton area, two LASD deputies have been shot in the hood...setting up containment for the shooters 484.1625 LASD Carson/Compton going to CTAC 1 soon

A federal jury awarded $18 million to a teacher who claimed a sheriff's detective falsely accused him of kidnapping and assaulting a girl and hid evidence that would have exonerated him. Wednesday's award was the largest ever against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The jury could decide that plaintiff Raul Ramirez deserves more money when the trial enters its punitive phase Thursday. Because the county is not insured, the award, if upheld, would be paid by the department at a time when Sheriff Lee Baca is complaining that underfunding is forcing him to release jail inmates early and preventing...

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) - "Big Daddy" Willis came to Compton to turn an illegal homemade pistol into Christmas dinner. Charlene Watt planned to turn three shotguns into a plasma TV. The two were among dozens of gun-toting residents who converged on a shopping center parking lot Saturday to anonymously swap firearms for gift certificates as part of a program aimed at reducing violence in this crime-plagued city. Each was rewarded with a $100 gift card for Ralphs or Circuit City. In a line that snaked across a parking lot, participants from across Los Angeles County carried guns in cardboard boxes,...

BAKERSFIELD - A robbery suspect from Palmdale who reportedly ran from officers was shot and killed Sunday night, Bakersfield police officials said. Erson Alexander Welchen, 22, died at 11:15 p.m. Sunday at the Kern Medical Center emergency room, according to the Kern County Sheriff's Department coroner's division. Welchen was in a Cadillac with three other people suspected of robbing a Rite Aid when the car was pulled over by an officer at 10:17 p.m. near the 3200 block of Panama Lane. According to a department statement, the Cadillac had been spotted by another officer leaving the Rite Aid. When driver...

I live in Fairfax California. I have been for most of my life. I am fed up with the economy, the blackouts the crime and all the liberals. I am thinking of moving and I was wondering if any of you know a good place for an average joe like myself to live in. In a couple weeks I'll have enough money and I can take the greyhound out of here and move out of this dump. Im looking for a place where I can get jobs, not have nasty taxes, some good public transportation in a city and to...

Where is Reverend Al Sharpton's apology? "Black leader" and former presidential candidate Al Sharpton recently capped off a busy week by demanding apologies from Mexican President Vicente Fox and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. Fox, in defending Mexican illegals working in America, said such workers take jobs that "even blacks" refuse to do. Enter Sharpton. He demanded an apology, arguing Fox's words "confirm the stereotype that blacks are the lowest peons in the workforce of this country." Although Fox promptly "clarified" his remarks and told Sharpton that he "regretted any hurt feelings," Sharpton remains unappeased. "If I step on...

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) - A former school board member received a two-year suspended jail sentence Thursday for charging more than $2,000 on a district-issued credit card while he was no longer on the board. Basil Kimbrew, 51, pleaded no contest to a charge of misappropriation of public money. Superior Court Judge Janice Croft sentenced Kimbrew to two years in jail, but suspended the sentence in favor of five years of probation, according to the district attorney's office. She also barred Kimbrew from having any contact with political campaigns, candidates or political causes during his probation. In exchange for the plea,...

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) - A former school board president was sentenced Thursday to five years in state prison for welfare fraud, violating campaign finance laws and lying about her academic background. Cresia Green-Davis also was ordered to make about $200,000 in restitution and, unless her conviction is overturned she is barred from holding elected office in California. She could have been sentenced to as much as 16 years in prison. Green-Davis, 52, told Superior Court Judge Bob S. Bowers Jr. that she made bad choices out of a desire to help her family. "I thought I did what I had...

LOS ANGELES — Police today chased a man suspected of driving a stolen car and arrested him in Compton, and news footage showed an LAPD officer hitting him repeatedly with a flashlight after he appeared to surrender The chase began shortly after 5 a.m. in an area patrolled by the Los Angeles Police Department's Southeast Station, said LAPD Officer Sandra Escalante of the Media Relations office. The man's name was not immediately released, and it was unclear if he was injured. Patrolling LAPD officers saw a white Toyota Camry that was reported stolen from Compton, Escalante said, adding that the...

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) - The former mayor and two other ex-officials were convicted Tuesday of misappropriating public funds and making an unauthorized loan in a city long plagued by poverty and crime. Shouts and screams of protest erupted in the crowded courtroom after Superior Court Judge Jack Morgan ordered the three men taken into custody. Former Mayor Omar Bradley, Councilman Amen Rahh and City Manager John D. Johnson were found guilty of felony charges involving the use of city-issued credit cards for personal expenses.Court documents indicated they used the cards as "personal piggy banks" to pay private expenses ranging from...

<p>The violence of a city that helped give birth to "gangsta rap" and is plagued by rampant corruption now haunts a family whose success and wealth gave them the means to move out -- a situation no Compton resident resents.</p>