Free Republic

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Nov. 29, 2005) -- While many 19-year-olds juggle a busy college class load or their first part-time job back in the United States, one peer carries the responsibility of ensuring his battalion’s weapons are prepared for battle here. “It is an awesome responsibility,” said Lance Cpl. Christopher Ruiz, 19, battalion armorer, Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD). “I don’t know too many 19-year-olds back home who can say the same thing about what they are doing.” Ruiz, whose unit is based out of Marine Corps Base, Hawaii, has been in Iraq...

8 CHARGED IN ORANGE COUNTY-BASED ALIEN SMUGGLING SCHEME Suspects include proprietor of Anaheim travel agency SANTA ANA, Calif. - Eight members of an Orange County-based human smuggling ring suspected of bringing as many as 100 undocumented aliens a month into the Southland have been indicted following a two-year investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Among those charged in the case is the organization's alleged ringleader, Emilio Mayorales, 42, who was arrested at his Anaheim residence yesterday. Also under indictment is the proprietor of the Aero Paris travel agency in Anaheim, Mauro Perez, 49. According to the indictment, Perez...

Court rules English-only petitions in SoCal recall were unfair Associated Press SANTA ANA, Calif. - Petitions used for the 2003 recall of a Latino Santa Ana school trustee should have been printed in Spanish as well as English, an appellate court has ruled. The trustee, Nativio V. Lopez, had come under fire for seeking exemptions to the state's English-only instruction requirements and was partly blamed for the district's lack of new school construction. He was recalled by 71 percent of voters. The decision Wednesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could be used to force election officials throughout...

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Traffic is so bad along the eastern rim of Los Angeles' suburban ring that regional planners are considering the once unthinkable — an 11-mile tunnel through a mountain range in earthquake country. Critics question the logic of building a multibillion-dollar project in a region so prone to earthquakes that an alternate proposal for a double-decker highway was deemed too dangerous. The tunnel would begin barely a mile from a fault that produced a 6.0-magnitude earthquake about a century ago. "It's absolutely absurd to have a tunnel 700 feet below ground in earthquake country," said Cathryn DeYoung,...

El Salvador's largest volcano, dormant for more than a century, shook the ground as it woke up, hurling out hot lava rocks and forcing more than 2,000 people to flee. The Santa Ana or Ilamatepec volcano, located 66 kilometers (41 miles) west of the capital, rumbled and belched thick plumes of smoke that reached more than 15 kilometers (nine miles) into the sky just after 8:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) Saturday. Military emergency sirens blasted, calling for an immediate area evacuation of the hamlets in the coffee growing area, and soon after the volcano began hurling glowing lava and ash from...

LOS ANGELES - A wind-whipped brush fire quickly tripled in size early Thursday to more than 9,300 acres, destroying at least one home and prompting evacuations as a ridge of flames was visible for miles. The blaze burned to the edge of a number of multimillion-dollar homes that abut rural, picturesque hillsides in the San Fernando Valley. Homes in several communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties were evacuated, but officials did not release an exact number. "Our house is still OK, but oh, God, it's not a good feeling," said Phil Goldenberg, 53, who was at an evacuation shelter...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Wind-driven brush fires scorched nearly 2,500 acres north of Los Angeles on Wednesday, killing thousands of chickens at a farm while destroying at least one home and threatening others. A mandatory evacuation was ordered in Box Canyon and a freeway was closed as the blaze hopscotched the roadway and burned at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Ron Haralson said more than 700 firefighters were on the scene. One firefighter was struck on the head by a 40-pound boulder and was taken to a hospital for treatment, Capt....

ORANGE COUNTY MAN WHO “WEB-CAST” EXPLICIT IMAGES OF A PRE-SCHOOL-AGED RELATIVE INDICTED FOR CHILD PORNOGRAPHY SANTA ANA, Calif. – An Orange County man who engaged in sex acts with a then four-year-old relative and web-cast the images over the Internet to computer users in Texas and Indiana has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of producing and possessing child pornography. Jed Philip Larson, Sr., 44, faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the charges contained in the two-count indictment handed down today. Larson was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Orange County...

Orange County Assemblyman Tom Umberg on Thursday admitted to and apologized for cheating on his wife in a four-year affair that ended about the time of his election in November. Umberg went public with his indiscretion after his former mistress, who possesses e-mails they had exchanged, threatened to ruin his political career, said George Urch, Umberg's spokesman. In a brief written statement Thursday, Umberg said he has apologized to his family and will regret forever the mistakes and pain that he has caused his wife of 23 years, Robin, and their three children. "I love my wife very much and...

LA PORTE, Texas — More than 10,000 Texans and others are expected to gather at San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site on April 24 to celebrate the brief but decisive battle that brought Texas its independence from Mexico. This year marks the 168th anniversary of Gen. Sam Houston’s Texan troops’ victory over the Mexican army under the command of Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna on April 21, 1836. The festival is free and lasts from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. At 3 p.m. April 24, more than 200 re-enactors will dramatize the victory of the roughly 800 Texans under...

Just received a freepmail from Sandyeggo. She writes: "We have VERY BAD fire conditions - low humidity, winds. Fire about 4-5 miles away - evacuations taking place there. We are OK - but ash everywhere and winds gusting all over the place. Sky glowing orange - billowing smoke. " Please say a prayer for Sandyeggo and her family, as well as her parents who live nearby. Thanks and God bless you!

Michael Stravato for The New York Times In 1857, Mexican-American freight haulers were hanged on an oak tree at the courthouse in Goliad, Tex. GOLIAD, Tex., July 16 — In history books, the killing of more than 300 Texan rebels by Mexican troops here has long been known as the Goliad Massacre. But to many residents of Goliad, with its 18th-century Spanish fort and towering monument to the dead, that brutal episode in its history is still open to interpretation. At the heart of the dispute, largely between Anglos and Mexican-Americans, is the porous definition of who is a Texan...

<p>The recall from office of a school board member in a medium-size Southern California city wouldn't normally be big news. But the ouster last week of Santa Ana Unified School District's Nativo Lopez should send a signal to ethnic-enclave politicians across the state, if not the nation.</p>

September 19, 2002 9:00 a.m. Ron Unz has whipped the bilingual-education establishment in two states: California in 1998 and Arizona in 2000. He hopes to double his winnings on November 5 when Colorado and Massachusetts voters consider their own ballot initiatives on language instruction. (Visit Unz's website here.) Odds are they'll give bilingual ed the old heave-ho: Initiatives promoting English tend to win easily, whether they're the "Official English" proclamations of the late 1980s and early 1990s or the more meaningful efforts Unz has sponsored. Just about everybody believes immigrants should learn English, from those who want to preserve American...

Bill Clinton used his first Orange County appearance since 1999 on Thursday to discuss everything from actress Rita Moreno's career to his own current activities, from attacks on GOP tax cuts to warnings that the United States should avoid war with Iraq.