Free Republic

When only macadamia–based cheese will do for that late-night craving, a new luxury condo on New York’s Lower East Side delivers: the Madison Jackson has been “designed to support a vegetarian or vegan organic lifestyle,” offering prospective tenants 24-hour organic vegetarian room service, organic dry cleaning and an on-site juice bar, “for those who get kale cravings at 2 a.m.” The “vegan condo” will also offer in-house nutritional counselling, craniosacral therapy and Jivamukti yoga, which combines hatha yoga with meditation and stresses veganism and environmentalism. “We have many people who are health conscious,” Michael Bolla, the building’s developer, told DNAinfo.com....

A big increase in reports of Asian tiger shrimp along the U.S. Southeast coast and in the Gulf of Mexico has federal biologists worried the species is encroaching on native species' territory. The shrimp are known to eat their smaller cousins, and sightings of the massive crustaceans have gone up tenfold in the last year, biologists say. The black-and-white-striped shrimp can grow 13 inches long and weigh a quarter-pound, compared to eight inches and a bit over an ounce for domestic white, brown and pink shrimp.

The giant Black Tiger shrimp that Ron Pockrus caught off the Texas coast might be the biggest threat to the $700 million Gulf shrimp industry to come along in years, marine biologists said. Pockrus, the owner of a 13-vessel shrimp fleet operating out of Brownsville, caught the 12-inch, 13-ounce specimen last week. Pockrus said he’s been aware of the species for about three years but hadn’t seen one. Now, he has turned in two to marine and wildlife officials this season. “I have another boat coming in with one on it now,” Pockrus said. “That makes the third one we’ve...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 6, 2007 — Two suicide bombers killed at least 149 Shiite pilgrims today in the town of Hillah south of Baghdad. The pilgrims were making their way toward the town of Karbala, 60 miles south of Baghdad, for a religious festival due to start Friday. The bombers had mingled with the crowd when it stopped at a roadside tent, where they detonated the explosive vests hidden under their clothes. Iraqi officials say Sunni insurgents are systematically targeting Shiite pilgrims ahead of this weekend's festival of Arbain, which draws believers from all over the country. At least 12...

WASHINGTON - Congress should pass legislation protecting religious liberties in the workplace, and America should help Iraqis write a constitution that will respect freedom of conscience even if it is "against their traditions," Senator Clinton said yesterday."Religious liberty is one of the most important issues on the world's agenda today," Mrs. Clinton told the Religious Liberty Annual Dinner of the Seventh day Adventist Church.Freedom of conscience is often "a bellwether for human rights," she said.The senator's religiously themed speech comes as Democrats seek to identify anew with the "moral values" that were said to play a role in the Republican...

Walter Cronkite, who once remarked that Dan Rather, his successor as anchor of the CBS Evening News, should have been fired after he walked off the set in 1987 when his newscast was delayed by a tennis broadcast, has enlarged upon his previous criticism of Rather's discredited report on George W. Bush's National Guard service. Asked in an interview in the upcoming edition of Details whether he had ever come close to making a mistake like Rather's, Cronkite responded: "Fortunately, I don't know about the close times, and I'm sure there must have been some. But I never had a...

The United States was labelled a rogue superpower yesterday by a group of artists and intellectuals opposed to military action against Iraq. "Not just a rogue nation, but a rogue superpower," author Linda McQuaig said at a press conference yesterday. A letter, signed by about 100 people -- including Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Bruce Cockburn and Senator Doug Roche -- states they are opposed to a military attack on Iraq. "The Americans are demanding we legalize aggression," said Osgoode Hall law professor Michael Mandel, also one of the signatories. The group hopes the letter will spur the prime minister to...