Free Republic

A 69-year-old Japanese man injured in a traffic accident died after paramedics spent more than an hour negotiating with 14 hospitals before finding one to admit him, a fire department official said Wednesday. The man, whose bicycle collided with a motorcycle in the western city of Itami, waited at the scene in an ambulance because the hospitals said they could not accept him, citing a lack of specialists, equipment, beds and staff, according to Mitsuhisa Ikemoto. It was the latest in a string of recent cases in Japan in which patients were denied treatment, underscoring the country's health care woes...

Tijuana - The double fence that separates Mexico from the United States near Tijuana is just a few hundred metres away from the Casa del Migrante - the migrant's house. The white church of Father Luis Kendzierski, which sits on a hill and is visible from the city centre, is always surrounded by scores of people. The men who approach the church have often lived and worked in the United States for up to 25 years before being picked up by police, taken before US immigration authorities and deported to Tijuana. In the migrants' home there is accommodation for up...

CONGRESSIONAL NEGOTIATORS DELIVER LUMP-OF-COAL INTEL BILL TO 9/11 FAMILIES FOR CHRISTMAS; But Tancredo, House Conservatives Claim Partial Victory in Securing Bush Commitment on Addressing Driver’s License Issue Next Year WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) expressed disappointment with the conference report on the intelligence bill after negotiators on the bill stripped key border security provisions approved by the House of Representatives in October from the bill. Tancredo had been a leader in the effort to retain the provisions – recommended by the 9/11 Commission – executing a parliamentary maneuver prior to the Thanksgiving recess temporarily thwarting efforts to...