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Proposed shelter for immigrant children opposed February 4, 2007 BY Nathaniel Hernandez Associated Press CHICAGO -- The children rarely leave the federal immigrant shelter, a former nursing home near the city's lakefront that houses undocumented children found alone in the U.S. Teachers and doctors are brought to them. And aside from occasional field trips or visits to a nearby park, the children spend almost all their time indoors -- although it may be months before they know whether they will be deported or allowed to stay. But plans to provide more room by converting a 2.5-acre estate near Naperville --...

WASHINGTON — What if we fail to prevent an attack?Assume every line of defense against nuclear terrorism is breached: the efforts to lock up nuclear material abroad, to spy out hidden weapons programs, to deter rogue states and capture terrorists, to detect smuggled bombs at the border or downtown — every preventive measure discussed in the previous five installments of this series. Assume someone, somehow, gets all the way through. It only has to happen once. Assume that this someone puts together a crude atomic bomb, of the “Little Boy” type dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, a heavy and awkward device...

Tehran & Damascus Move to Lebanon Lebanon-born Walid Phares is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Author of the recent book Future Jihad, he was also one of the architects of 2004’s United Nations resolution 1559, which called for the disarming of Hezbollah. NRO editor Kathryn Lopez recently talked to Phares about what’s going on in the Mideast, what happened to the Cedar Revolution, and this war we’re all in. Kathryn Jean Lopez: What is “Future Jihad”? Are we seeing it in the Mideast now? Walid Phares: “Future Jihad,” which has already begun, refers to...

Things are quiet and peaceful in small-town Jericho, Kansas, but when a baffling explosion occurs in the distance, Jericho's residents are plunged into social, psychological and physical chaos. No one knows what to think, and fear of the unknown takes over the town, especially because its isolation cuts it off from outside help. When nearly everything they know seems gone, will the residents of JERICHO band together to face their unfamiliar and mysterious new world?

To: All Kentucky Outdoor Press Association members From: ****** I just received word that Bud Light, the sweetest little dog in the world, and the official Kentucky Outdoor Press Association mascot, had to be euthanized today because he had cancer and it had spread rapidly, leaving him to face delibitating pain. Nobody knows how old Bud Light was, since he was a "pound hound," adopted at the local animal shelter. It's also impossible to determine what breed he was, but he was a white, fluffy small bundle of joy. Any of you who ever attended the KOPA meetings know that...

French families shelter young migrants By Colin Randall in Lyons (Filed: 03/07/2006) Twelve-year-old Edi is Ecuadorian but speaks good French. He enjoys geometry, history and art and regards 11-year-old Valentin as his closest friend. The two boys - "like two brothers", according to Valentin's mother - will be seeing even more of each other in the coming weeks. Valentin Riot-Sarcay [right] and his parents have taken in Edi to prevent his family being deported As one of the symbols of an emotive campaign to save the children of illegal immigrants from being deported from France, Edi has moved in with...

Crumbling Chernobyl Shelter Poses DangerBy MARA D. BELLABY, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 22, 6:37 PM ET An aerial view of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant shortly after the explosion of its still smoking fourth reactor is seen in this 1986 file picture. Ukraine marks the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the world's worst civil nuclear disaster, on April 26 this year. The concrete was used for the building of a sarcophagus around the shattered reactor, designed to contain emanating radiation. BLACK AND WHITE ONLY REUTERS/Vladimir Repik/Files CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, Ukraine - Chernobyl's coffin is cracking. Birds...

REGULAR meals of mammoth meat helped some early human tribes to expand more quickly than their largely vegetarian contemporaries, according to a genetic study. Human populations in east Asia about 30,000 years ago developed at dramatically different rates, following a pattern that appears to reflect the availability of mammoths and other large game. In the part of the region covering what is now northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia, vast plains teemed with mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses and the number of early human beings grew between 34,000 and 20,000 years ago. Further south, where the terrain...

LAKE CHARLES, La. -- The city of Lake Charles will open the Civic Center as an emergency shelter if the Federal Emergency Management Agency puts out hundreds of Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims from area hotels and motels by a Feb. 13 deadline. FEMA extended the deadline for evacuees to be out of their rooms by six days, from Feb. 7 to Feb. 13. Those who wanted to remain after Feb. 7 had to call FEMA by Jan. 30 to receive an authorization code that would extend their stay. FEMA has said it won't pay for rooms after Feb. 13....

This past weekend the Millions More Movement march took place. Well, was anyone there calling for an end to subsistence-welfare? This has done more damage to black families than any sinister plot that some evil racists might have come up with. In the black inner cities of America’s big cities, over 85% of children are born out-of-wedlock. Why? The best evidence points to the anti-poverty welfare state enabling women to support children without husbands, and this welfare state makes it easy for men to shirk their responsibilities. These perverse incentives have resulted in a cultural breakdown in poor black communities...

Command: Category 4 Lt Col Randy Coats, 333d Training Squadron/CC Command. There's no better job in the world. After seven years in jobs with “command authority” and two squadron commands, I figured I had a good idea what command was all about. I was wrong. What changed my mind? Four words--"Shelter Commander" and "Hurricane Katrina." From 28 Aug - 2 Sep, I lived with 730 of my "closest friends" in 50-year old Bryan Hall at Keesler AFB, MS. It was my third stint as a shelter commander, but it was unlike anything I had experienced before. As life slowly...

FORT POLK, La. (Army News Service, Sept. 16, 2005) -- Not since the end of the Civil War have U.S. Soldiers returned home from war to such devastation and massive rebuilding. After a one-year combat tour in Iraq, Soldiers from the 256th Brigade Combat Team, Louisiana Army National Guard, started arriving at the England Industrial Airpark in Alexandria Sept. 9. Among the first wave of returning Soldiers was Staff Sgt. Scott Andras, assigned to the 141st Field Artillery. Andras and his wife of 18 months Heather, own a home in New Orleans. “We live two blocks off of St. Charles...

Why Omni-sphere Domes? It is our understanding that current concepts for long term housing for the victims of Katrina, who are financially unable to relocate on their own, is mobile homes converted into barracks. Our plan is not only less expensive, safer, and reusable, it offers these victims some semblance of privacy. The omni-sphere dome. More...Those victims that do not have the financial stability to set up residence in another city will need a place to live and restructure in order to relocate to a permanent residence. It is our recommendation that Dome Villages, of approximately 20-40 people each, be...

But we are a federal republic, so the President and national agencies work to support state and local officials—not to usurp them or "take over." We expect our local and state governments to govern and manage their polities, their policies and programs; to plan and prepare for crises and to continue governing... Consequently Presidential declarations of emergency provide legal authority for the national government to spend money and release national resources, such as the armed forces, and provide “all necessary support” to support, rather than to supplant, state and local civil authorities. It’s the state and local government that bear...

One lesson I thought we had learned from Hurricane Andrew is that after a major disaster, the local and even state governmental system can become rapidly overwhelmed and paralyzed. It is a near certainty that local government and police will be in a “not mission capable” status. Therefore the early entry of military forces with other state and local police forces marshaled into the destroyed zones is imperative...We fell short of this standard in New Orleans...Emergency management plans that work and have been tested [not just paper-drilled] must be in place...New Orleans is not the only city that is sited...

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFPN) -- Five days after Hurricane Katrina dramatically changed many lives in the Gulf Coast region, a couple here began a new chapter in their own lives. Tech. Sgt. Daniel McMullen of the 335th Training Squadron and his girlfriend of three years, LaVerne, exchanged wedding vows Sept. 3 outside one of the base's seven shelters used to house people here since the hurricane struck. Guests of the bride and groom, all who shared a shelter with the couple, dressed for the occasion in the most fashionable way. The groomsmen wore reflective safety belts while the...

Hello Fellow Freepers, I am posting this because forum is the biggest, most active place I can think of to help out a fellow Texan and the Katrina survivors at the same time. I posting this letter from fellow Texan Scott Chaffin, a gentleman who lives just up the way from on the rambling river known as "the Arms of God", El Brazos de Dios, who would like to utilize the resources he has at his "tiny bidness." He writes : Dear Sweet, Clean Texas Members of the TFG Blogroll, You might or might not know that I have a...

HOUSTON — Rescued with 13 relatives after being stranded for three days on a hurricane-ravaged New Orleans highway, Janetta Arnold enjoyed one of life's simple pleasures. "I was able to get a shower last night," the 36-year-old grocery store cashier said Friday outside the Houston Astrodome, her new home. "I am grateful for what the people here in Houston have given us." That also would be food, clothes and care. "I ain't going back to Louisiana," she said. "There ain't nothing there." Hundreds of miles from homes that no longer may exist, so many thousands of people like Arnold uprooted...

Houston Mayor Bill White has authorized opening Reliant Center to as many as 11,000 evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. He said he also has authorized the opening of the George R. Brown Convention Center, if needed. The George R. Brown is not open this morning, however, and evacuees should not go there because it is not set up for occupation. ``The City of Houston and this region will use its capacity to care for tens of thousands of families," the mayor said. "We will be making assessments daily of our community capacity. We do need other cities to be accepting busloads...

KPMG to pay $456 mln in tax shelter case By Arindam Nag and Christine Kearney 2 hours, 39 minutes ago Accounting firm KPMG LLP (KPMG.UL) on Monday agreed to pay $456 million to settle a federal probe of its sales of fraudulent tax shelters, avoiding a criminal indictment that might have crippled the firm. While KPMG, the smallest of the major U.S. accounting houses, itself escaped an indictment of the kind that destroyed Arthur Andersen when it was convicted of destroying documents, eight former partners, including its former deputy chairman, and a KPMG lawyer, were indicted for selling the tax...