Free Republic

MINNEAPOLIS — Target Corp. (TGT) is slipping $1 million into The Salvation Army's kettle, but it still won't allow the familiar holiday bell-ringers in front of its stores.

YORK, Pa. -- York's traditional Halloween parade may be coming to an end. The York Jaycees have decided not to sponsor the parade this year. The Jaycees said they rescinded their offer to city officials because they didn't want to be involved in the controversy over a float sponsored by the Rev. Jim Grove. Grove's anti-abortion float, "Dr. Butcher's Chop Shop of Choice Cuts," features fetuses and mutilated body parts. Jaycees Chapter president Lisa Benson wrote in an e-mail to members Wednesday that the potential liabilities and legal ramifications of sponsoring the parade are just too great for the chapter...

WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) - Ontario workers are well-trained. That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant. Industry experts say Ontarians are easier and cheaper to train - helping make it more cost-efficient to train workers when the new Woodstock plant opens in 2008, 40 kilometres away from its skilled workforce in Cambridge. "The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people...

The number of gay and lesbian service members discharged under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has dropped by almost half since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and is at its lowest level since the Defense Department began keeping such figures in 1997. Significant declines have occurred in every branch of the armed forces, according to statistics released yesterday by the Pentagon. The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy discharged fewer gay men and lesbians in 2004 than in any year since the Pentagon began tallying the number of its "homosexual separations" eight years ago. The Army's discharges...

CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — The 2nd Brigade soldier who created www.beerforsoldiers.com, a Web site that lets people buy a beer online for a U.S. soldier, has been ordered to stop running his site. Sgt. Dale Rogers, in Iraq with Company C, 1st Battalion (air assault), 503rd Infantry Regiment, posted a notice on the site last week informing readers that he is turning it over to his brother. A spokesman for the 2nd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which includes 1-503, said in an e-mail that lawyers from the unit rendered a legal opinion that the Web site...

WASHINGTON - Major League Baseball will announce Wednesday that Washington will be the new home of the Montreal Expos (news), bringing the national pastime back to the nation's capital for the first time in 33 years, The Associated Press has learned. A city official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Washington has been notified by Major League Baseball of the impending announcement.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart apologized Wednesday for saying in a televised worship service that he would kill any gay man who looked at him romantically. A complaint was filed with a Canadian broadcasting group, and Swaggart said his Baton Rouge-based Jimmy Swaggart Ministries has received complaints from gay groups over the remarks made on the Sept. 12 telecast. In the broadcast, Swaggart was discussing his opposition to gay marriage when he said "I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry." "And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks...

Southeastern Arizona voters did it again. Republicans told Rep. Jim Kolbe in no uncertain terms they want him to remain in Congress, and Democrats tapped a woman to go up against him in November. Eva Bacal decisively beat back two other Democrats for the chance to run against Kolbe, a 10-term incumbent who over the past two decades has proved to be one of Arizona's most able vote-getters.

CHARLOTTE MICH - As if we needed further proof that the world is upside-down these days, I confirmed Monday - on the very day that the Detroit Tigers began their major league season - that beer got in the way of baseball. Radio station WLCM-AM (1390) in Charlotte was THIS CLOSE to signing a deal to broadcast the Tigers games this year - and rescue local fans from a season-long radio rain-out. Then, the most wicked of curveballs ... Station manager Jeff Frank learned that the Tigers broadcast package included commercials for Miller beer. "Being a Christian station, we couldn't...

Hot Springs - Fire officials in Hot Springs believe they found a cause for a house fire over the weekend. Former President Bill Clinton lived in the home as a boy. Officials say oily rags in the garage caught fire, when occupants were attempting to start a car and it backfired. The blaze quickly spread to the rest of the house. The fire department received the call around 9pm and the fire was extinguished about 30 minutes later. The former president live in the home with his family during the 1950's after he moved from Hope.

... Now I'm going to pick on the worst habits of certain anti-Times critics lurking on the Web. Last Sunday, an item appeared on FreeRepublic.com under the headline "FReeper Call to Action! Help make N.Y. Times correct the phony setup outrage story of Bush ads." Posted by "Doug from Upland," it exhorted readers of the self-described "Premier Conservative News Forum" to call Washington correspondent Richard W. Stevenson and demand that he "correct the record." Stevenson's apparent offense was a March 5 story he and Jim Rutenberg had written about negative reactions to Republican ads invoking the events of 9/11. Stevenson's...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Monday that she doesn't expect Michigan cities will follow San Francisco's lead and begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, and she wouldn't support them if they did.</p> <p>"I just can't imagine that happening. It's a violation of the law," Granholm told The Associated Press during a National Governors Association conference in Washington. "The law says, and I think this is right, that marriage is between a man and a woman."</p>

<p>DETROIT -- U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was sanctioned by a federal judge on Tuesday for twice violating a court-imposed gag order in the Detroit terror trial.</p> <p>But Ashcroft, the nation's highest-ranking law enforcement officer, will not face criminal charges of contempt of court. He apologized for what he said were inadvertent comments.</p>

<p>When darkness falls on Wednesday, artist Yoko Ono will appear on the Woodward Avenue lawn of the Detroit Institute of Arts to talk about her "Freight Train" exhibit.</p> <p>It will be the artist/musician's first look at the Detroit installation of the work she created in 1999 as her response to the 1987 tragedy of Mexican migrant workers smuggled across the Texas border and locked in a boxcar to die.</p>

U.S. Troops Order Comfort, With Fries on the Side Soldiers Looking for a Taste of Home Make for a Booming Business at Iraq's First Burger King BAGHDAD -- Welcome to Iraq, home of the Whopper. Deep inside Baghdad International Airport, past a vehicle search, a body search and four checkpoints, soldiers are lined up for burgers and fries. They have come by plane from Mosul, 220 miles north, for onion rings. They have picked up Chicken Royale sandwiches while picking up buddies flying back from a two-week home leave. They have begged and borrowed Humvees, making up any excuse for...

Losing a Church, Keeping the Faith By ANDREW SULLIVAN Published: October 19, 2003 Last week, something quite banal happened at St. Benedict's Church in the Bronx. A gay couple were told they could no longer sing in the choir. Their sin was to have gotten a civil marriage license in Canada. One man had sung in the choir for 32 years; the other had joined the church 25 years ago. Both had received certificates from the church commending them for "noteworthy participation." But their marriage had gained publicity; it was even announced in The New York Times. This "scandal" led...

Killed commando's widow ordered to repay salary The widow of a Royal Navy commando killed in Iraq has been asked to repay 10 days' salary which was paid after his death. Mechanic Ian Seymour, 28, died in a helicopter crash in Kuwait at the beginning of the war. Because he was not identified for 10 days, the Ministry of Defence continued to pay his salary into his bank account. It has now asked his wife Lianne to repay the money and move out of the Defence house in Dorset she shared with him and their three-year-old son Beck. "I just...

150 acres of dreams dashed Buyer now sought for super-collider site By JIM HENDERSON Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle WAXAHACHIE -- The historical footnote will record that it was the most expensive dry hole ever drilled: 18 miles, $2 billion. It was a cursed quest not for oil or gold or any other tangible resource, but for a brief glimpse -- through a window measured in billionths of a second -- at the creation of the universe. It touched off a frenzy of land speculation, ignited delusions of quick wealth and long-term prosperity, inspired visions of this placid, North Texas prairie...

<p>ANN ARBOR -- In a case that could change the way students are admitted to colleges nationwide, University of Michigan attorneys expect more than 60 briefs, signed by about 300 organizations, to support the claim that universities should be allowed to consider race in admissions to ensure a diverse student body.</p>

<p>LANSING -- The state has pulled a newspaper ad that says people who don't file their state taxes online would have to be "certifiable," a spokesman for the Department of Treasury said Wednesday.</p> <p>State officials decided to replace the ad before receiving complaints from mental health advocates, including a letter from the Mental Health Association in Michigan that calls the ad "extremely stigmatizing."</p>