Free Republic

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed Monday to pursue a bipartisan compromise on his remaining special-election measures, despite his redistricting initiative being kicked off the ballot. During a news conference to highlight his agenda for reducing obesity among public schoolchildren, Schwarzenegger was asked repeatedly about his plans for the Nov. 8 special election now that Proposition 77 has been removed from the ballot by a judge who cited constitutional issues. Two initiatives sponsored by the governor -- including one to reform the state budget process -- remain on the ballot, as do others sponsored by various parties. "We are moving forward with...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has attacked violent video games as "a silent epidemic" among children, said she wants a federal investigation into one of the most popular, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." Clinton, D-N.Y., is asking the Federal Trade Commission to probe how users of the game can access "graphic pornographic and violent content" for the game from the Internet. In a letter dated Thursday to FTC chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras, she also urged the agency to examine whether the game's rating of "M" for mature should be changed to an "Adults Only" rating. The Entertainment Software...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that his government maintained good relations with former President Clinton and told U.S. business leaders that he would do his best to improve ties with the Bush administration. Speaking to business representatives from the United States at a trade meeting in Caracas, Chavez said relations with Washington have been tense since Clinton left office more than four years ago. With the current administration, there hasn't "been the smallest possibility of dialogue," said Chavez, one of Latin America's most outspoken critics of U.S. foreign policy in the region. Chavez said he nonetheless...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants California to have a liquefied natural gas terminal and he prefers it be off the coast of Oxnard. Energy companies have submitted four separate proposals for LNG terminals on or off the California coast. Although the state is studying all of them, Schwarzenegger said after a speech in Alhambra on Thursday, "my personal preference is Oxnard." A proposal to build a floating terminal off the Oxnard coast has been submitted by the Australian energy firm BHP Billiton. The Coast Guard is conducting an environmental review, with safety one of the major issues being studied since an...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Tehran should be recognized for its role in unmasking the nuclear black market, a senior Iranian envoy said Wednesday, challenging criticism that his country was not working closely enough on the issue with the U.N. atomic watchdog agency. At the same time, Sirus Nasseri suggested Iran was entitled to supply itself with nuclear technology by all means available - including through illicit channels if it is blocked from legal means by international embargoes. "If you restrict countries ... from (getting access to) what they should be having ... things are bound to go (underground) again," Nasseri...

CHICAGO (AFP) - Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called for a congressional investigation into reports of desecrations of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. "As Muslims, we say enough is enough," the influential African American leader said from the pulpit of his south Chicago mosque. Farrakhan said a delegation of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders should participate in the investigation. Farrakhan also demanded that the US military either charge and try the detainees at Guantanamo Bay or release them to their families. The American Civil Liberties Union accused the US government Wednesday of turning "a...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - After years of neglect, scores of transportation projects statewide would receive a badly needed infusion of $1.3 billion under a plan outlined Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The proposal is a key part of Schwarzenegger's revised 2005-2006 state budget that is due out on Friday. Facing a shortfall estimated at $8.6 billion, Schwarzenegger proposed in January a $111.7 billion spending plan that included more than $4 billion in borrowing and the transfer of $1.3 billion in sales tax money from transportation programs to other uses. The governor told an audience of mayors and city council members from...

Vice PM Shimon Peres said today that the disengagement should be pushed forward rather than postponed due to its coincidence with a period commemorating past Jewish tragedies. “We knew it fell out on that date from the very beginning,” Peres said, referring to the recently publicized fact that the forced expulsion of Jews from Gaza and the northern Shomron will take place during the three weeks leading up to the 9th of Av [Tisha B’Av]. That time period commemorates the destruction of the Holy Temple and a myriad of other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. A special ministerial...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - California First Lady Maria Shriver said Friday that having her husband serving as governor was hard on their family and that she would prefer to see Arnold Schwarzenegger "back home" instead of run for president. "While I was always raised to believe that public service is the most noble calling, it's all-encompassing," Shriver said on "The Oprah Winfrey Show. "And it's tough, if you have young children. And it's a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week job. I want him home." Appearing on the show alongside her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Shriver repeated several times that if she had her...

WASHINGTON – As California officials assert their authority in court over liquefied natural gas terminals, Congress is moving to make it clear that federal regulators have the final word on where the sometimes-controversial facilities are located. An energy bill being crafted by a House committee would solidify the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's role in approving the growing number of proposed LNG facilities nationwide, proponents say. Some of the terminals, including several proposed for California, have encountered strong opposition from residents worried about accidents or terrorist attacks involving the highly explosive fuel. Senate energy subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., introduced similar...

WASHINGTON (March 31) - The same Congressional committee that conducted hearings into steroids in baseball has asked NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue for information about how football regulates the performance-enhancing substances. The Government Reform Committee also said Thursday it will ask for similar data from the NBA, NHL, NCAA, U.S. Track and Field and Major League Soccer. "As the committee has stated publicly numerous times, its focus on the performance-enhancing drug use in sports is not limited to professional baseball," the committee said in a letter signed by committee chairman Rep. Tom Davis and ranking Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman. "As part...

The California agency famous for putting the squeeze on automotive tailpipe emissions is poised to tackle dirty indoor air. In a hefty report to the Legislature completed this month, the California Air Resources Board asserts that indoor air can be as polluted and dangerous to breathe as outdoor air, costing the state at least $45 billion a year in lost worker productivity, medical expenses and premature deaths. Yet, by and large, the government does little to stem indoor air pollutants, which come from sources as disparate as cigarettes, gas stoves and certain types of air purifiers. "Efforts to reduce indoor...

<p>This mail may not be surprising to you if you have been following current events in the international media with reference to the Middle East and Palestine in particular.</p> <p>I am Mrs. SUHA ARAFAT, the wife of YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestinian leader who died recently in Paris. Since his death and even prior to the announcement, I have been thrown into a state of antagonism, confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization {PLO} and the new Prime Minister.</p>

The state's largest teachers union will ask its members to consider a $60 hike in dues in each of the next three years to help raise tens of millions of dollars to combat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's merit pay, pension and budget initiatives, union officials said Friday. If approved by the California Teachers Association's state council in June, the increase would tack on a total $180 over the next three years to the $500-a-year dues that its 335,000 members now pay the statewide organization. "We feel the need to defend public education and our students," said CTA President Barbara Kerr. "Our...

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) plans to ask Congress to spend more to crack down on undocumented workers and arrest and deport illegal immigrants. But he wants to fund only a fraction of the new Border Patrol agents called for in a bill he signed last year. Bush's budget plan will call for spending $23 million, nearly five times the current level, on work site investigations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a government official familiar with the spending plan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The money would be used to conduct audits on employers, investigate violations...

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer has all but officially declared that he's running for governor next year, seeking endorsements in a letter to Democratic legislators in which he also said, "It's the job I want." California's top cop is one of three statewide Democratic officeholders whose names have been prominently mentioned over the past year as leading prospects to take on Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in next year's balloting. Lockyer, who previously served as the state Senate's president pro tem, provided his strongest signal on his intent in the Jan. 10 letter he sent to the Democratic members of the...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - He's running unopposed, but Mohamed ElBaradei may still fail in his bid for a third term leading the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, tripped by his main opponent, the United States. Unable to find a candidate willing to oppose the independent-minded Egyptian diplomat, Washington is now quietly lobbying other member states in ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency in a bid to unseat him by June, opening the way for a replacement more to the Bush administration's liking - one harder on Iran and other nations on the U.S. nasty list. With the agency spearheading international attempts to...

SACRAMENTO — The second-most-powerful California politician is proposing the state seize some zoning power from cities and counties to build projects that round out areas like Oakland and the East Bay as transportation hubs, where even depressed inner-city housing would then bloom — an issue voters may decide this year. The proposal to ease sprawl, traffic congestion and housing prices is opposed by cities and counties but could go to voters this turbulent political year — with or without the support of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor is planning to call a statewide special election on a wide array...

BOSTON (AP) - A 94-year-old woman who won a $5.6 million dollar Megabucks lottery drawing in September wants to get the cash now instead of a 20-year annuity payout. Louise Outing of Everett said she won't live to collect her full winnings, and she wants to be able to help her family and spend the money as she chooses. In March, I will be 95 years old. "Do you realize that? Ninety-five in March". Now, you know I'm not going to live another 20 years, she told The Boston Globe. On Tuesday, she asked Norfolk Superior Court Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration Friday proposed abandoning an expensive suspension design for the eastern stretch of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in favor of a plainer, cheaper concrete skyway. "We need a safe bridge completed as soon as possible at a reasonable cost," said Sunne Wright McPeak, secretary of California's Business, Housing and Transportation Agency. "This is a time of very constrained resources for the state of California." The bare-bones skyway design could shave between $300 million and $400 million off a project whose price tag ballooned from $2.6 billion to $5.1 billion, McPeak said. She...