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How do you get the Associated Press to use the word "terrorism" in an article without scare quotes?

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Venezuelan armed forces occupied 32 sugar plantations Thursday, the latest in a wave of takeovers that some say is a bid by President Hugo Chavez to regain political momentum and reverse his recent slide in the polls. The farms in Lara state were taken over by army units at the request of the Chavez government's National Land Institute, or INTI. The institute in recent years has handled the takeover of thousands of acres of farmland and turned them over to worker cooperatives. The government last week said it would seize privately owned cement manufacturers, and Wednesday it...

Muhammad Al-Munajid: Some of these heretics say: "Islam is not the private property of anyone." So what do they want? They say: "No sect has a monopoly on Islam." So what do they want? They say: "We want to issue rulings." Someone who is ignorant, who does not know any Arabic, or who has no knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence wants to issue rulings?! They say: "We reinterpret the texts." There is a very dangerous conspiracy against the religion of Islam in newspapers and in what these people say. A journalist, or one of those lowlifes, wants to... These people are...

A judge on Thursday dropped nearly half the charges against "private eye to the stars" Anthony Pellicano and a co-defendant at the request of prosecutors, who were preparing to rest their case in the wiretapping and bribery trial. The 28 counts against Pellicano and ex-Los Angeles police sergeant Mark Arneson were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer after federal prosecutors said that witnesses required to prove them could not be brought to court. Both men still face 35 counts in the case, which centers on accusations that Pellicano wiretapped telephones and bribed police and telephone company officials to run...

Immigration agent Cory Voorhis was found not guilty of violating the law by accessing a confidential government database for political purposes — providing information on illegal immigrants used in a campaign attack ad against now-Gov. Bill Ritter. The federal courtroom was full, with some 50 supporters of Voorhis and members of the public. The jury apparently rejected the prosecution's argument that they would have to find Voorhis guilty simply if he exceeded his authority in going on the National Crime Information Center computer to obtain information on illegal aliens who won plea bargains while Ritter was district attorney. Voorhis admitted...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Security agents and paramilitary police in riot gear are surrounding a Harare hotel housing foreign journalists. A man answering the phone at the hotel says they are taking away some reporters. The man refused to give his name but said about 30 police entered the hotel Thursday and were preparing to take away four or five journalists. Foreign journalists have been in Zimbabwe to cover elections in which President Robert Mugabe's party lost control of parliament. He is apparently facing a runoff for the presidency. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information....

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban shoppers are snapping up DVD players, motorbikes and electric rice cookers that are going on sale to the general public for the first time. Lines stretch out the doors of major government department stores as Cubans gaze at the new gadgets on display. The goods that went on sale Tuesday previously were available only to foreigners. But the government of new President Raul Castro has lifted that ban. There was no sign yet of two highly anticipated items: computers and microwaves, though salespeople said computers would soon hit the shelves.

HEMPSTEAD -- The Trans Texas Corridor may be the most controversial highway ever built in Texas. That is, if it ever gets built. All month, there have been public hearings throughout the area where people have been showing up in droves to oppose it. People don’t drive very fast on Odis Styers’ family ranch near Hempstead, but TxDOT wants that to change. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Styers said. “It’s a shame a road is gonna mess it up.” The road is the Trans Texas Corridor. The plans call for it to come through here, and with it: separate lanes for...

Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg Description: “Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst? Glenn's Comments: Fascism with a smiley face, it's already here. Mentioned: January 14, 2008

In the ‘90s, Judicial Watch, an organization that seeks to hold Democrats and Republicans accountable to the law, pursued members of the Clinton administration. Larry Klayman, the organization’s founder, filed several lawsuits to expose alleged cover-ups in Commerce Department trade missions and the suicide of White House aide Vincent Foster. When George W. Bush became president, Klayman demonstrated that he could also go after Republicans. In 2002, he sued the Bush administration in an unsuccessful attempt to gain access to documents and information about Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret energy task force. Now the self-described “public interest group” may have...

Authorities have fired an official in central China after city inspectors beat to death a man who filmed their confrontation with villagers, China's Xinhua news agency reports. The killing has sparked outrage in China, with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government. The incident has also alarmed advocates of press freedom, who say municipal authorities had no right to attack a man for simply filming them. Police have detained 24 municipal inspectors and are investigating more than 100 in the death of Wei Wenhua, a 41-year-old construction company executive,...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — An outspoken Saudi blogger is being held for “purposes of interrogation,” the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman reached by telephone, said the blogger, Fouah al-Farhan, was “being questioned about specific violations of nonsecurity laws.” Mr. Farhan’s blog, which discusses social issues, had become one of the most widely read in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Farhan, 32, of Jidda, was arrested Dec. 10 at his office, local news sources reported. Two weeks before his arrest, he wrote a letter to friends warning them that it was imminent. “I was told that...

CAIRO, Egypt — In Iran, a large red icon pops up on computer screens. In Syria, there's a discreet note from the filter. Other Arab nations display "blocked" in bold lettering or issue crafty "page not found" replies. However the censors put it, the message is clear: You're not permitted to see this Web site. Governments in the Middle East are stepping up a campaign of censorship and surveillance in an effort to prevent an estimated 33.5 million Internet users from viewing a variety of Web sites whose topics range from human rights to pornography. As a result, millions of...

Written in an age in which minutemen rose to dress and fight at a moment’s notice, the Second Amendment was no doubt motivated by a young nation’s concern for its own safety and stability. But now, when the United States is protected by the most powerful security forces on the globe, the Second Amendment is neither relevant nor useful. Rather, it has become an impediment to vital public policy, and it should be repealed and replaced with nuanced federal legislation. Despite the controversy surrounding the Second Amendment, arguments about its relevancy have not surfaced in the Supreme Court since 1939,...

KABUL, Afghanistan — A teenage boy who was teaching English at a local school was dragged into the street and executed by Taliban militants, the provincial police chief reported. The brutal killing sparked a clash that left two suspected Islamist fighters and two policemen dead, an official said. "The boy, who was teaching English to other students after school hours, had been warned by the militants to stop teaching," provincial police chief Esmatuallh Alizai said. Taliban militants have killed several teachers and students in the past for attending the government-run schools, which they regard as un-Islamic. -snip-

A UNC-Chapel Hill professor says John Edwards' presidential campaign tried to kill a student's video story about the campaign's headquarters. In an interview with State Government Radio, Associate Professor C.A. Tuggle said that he received phone calls from two top staffers for the former North Carolina senator. The journalism professor said the staffers threatened to cut off access to Edwards to all UNC student groups if the student-run television program aired a segment critical of the location of the Chapel Hill headquarters. "I'm dumbfounded by it," Tuggle told the radio station. "I can't imagine that a national campaign would spend...

Abstract: "The Irony of Populism: The Republican Shift and the Inevitability of American Aristocracy" analyzes the shift in the role of the Supreme Court following the movement towards a democratic Senate which culminated in the Seventeenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's shift is presented as the inevitable result of the system of mixed government that underlies the constitutional order, which orders American Government into democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical parts. While in the original conception of the constitution the Senate was the aristocratic part, the Senate would become part of the democratic part with the Seventeenth Amendment and prior procedural changes. Into...

<p>FLASH: Rush Limbaugh to auction off Harry Reid's letter to CLEAR CHANNEL on EBAY; Money goes to Marine Charity.... Developing...</p>

DUMP RUSH We can't let Rush Limbaugh call our troops "phony soldiers" - email Congress and urge them to take Rush off Armed Forces Radio! October 2, 2007 We're far from giving up. Last week, Rush Limbaugh labeled any American soldier who supports an end to the war in Iraq as "phony."1. We challenged Limbaugh through an email campaign to invite VoteVets.org's Jon Soltz to his show and repeat these same insults to an Iraq war veteran's face. Over 10,000 of you responded and emailed Rush -- but to our disappointment, he has refused to respond to our request....

I want to talk about an online slime machine known as Media Matters for America. It is a tax-exempt organization which states its purpose as countering conservatives in the media. I have said before that Media Matters was started with help from Hillary Clinton and took George Soros' money. Media Matters has written to me and all my bosses saying my charge is a lie, that it is an independent organization which plays no political favorites and has never received slime machine cash from Soros-funded Democracy Alliance. Here are the facts: Media Matters was started in offices provided by the...