Free Republic

IMMOKALEE, Fla. - Tejano music bounced off the one-story buildings of this farming town and the smell of tamales filled the air as scores of revelers danced into the night outside the headquarters of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The celebration marked a hard-fought, unlikely victory by a group of mostly Guatemalan and Mexican tomato pickers over one of the nation's fast-food giants, Taco Bell. They led a four-year boycott against the chain until it agreed in March to pay a penny more per pound for Florida tomatoes and adopt a code of conduct that would allow Taco Bell to...

TIJUANA – Fear of being kidnapped is prompting some of Tijuana's middle-and upper-class families to move across the border to San Diego County neighborhoods where they feel safer. In a recent case, a Tijuana businessman said his family paid several hundred thousand dollars for his release after he was kidnapped this year. The family never reported the incident to police, he said. Afterward, he and his family decided to move into the county. "Many friends of mine have already decided to live in the United States – they are refugees from fear of Tijuana," the man wrote in an e-mail...

Young Iranian women (left) and men (right) presented themselves yesterday as volunteers to carry out suicide bombings against Americans in Iraq and Israelis. More than 200 gathered at the Behest-e-Zahra cemetery near Tehran and put on white shrouds symbolizing their willingness to die for their cause.

To all those employees who waste time on the Web at work, San Diego-based Websense owes you a debt of gratitude. If it weren't for those goof-offs who check personal e-mail, access their bank accounts and shop online on company time, Websense wouldn't be nearly as successful. The company capitalizes on workers' proclivity to surf the Net for fun by selling subscriptions to software that allows employers to block, or limit, access to non-work-related Web sites. "Any company that's trying to increase the productivity of its employees and make them safe on the Internet is a potential customer of ours,"...

Sweeping measures face an uphill fightWASHINGTON – Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate will introduce legislation today that could grant legal status to an estimated 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States. The bills, which would dwarf previous programs to provide legal status to foreign workers, would give illegal immigrants work permits and the opportunity to apply for permanent residence and eventually citizenship once they pay a fine and fees. The legislation is certain to raise the temperature of a national debate already simmering over the Minuteman Project's volunteer border patrols and just-passed...

Induced-labor abortion is one of the best-kept secrets within American hospitals. This heinous procedure is committed not only in abortion strongholds like New York City and Chicago, but also in unexpected places like Valparaiso, Ind., Lancaster, Pa., Waukesha, Wis., and Columbus, Ohio – and not just in public and secular hospitals, but also in protestant and Catholic hospitals. I was shook recently when a traveling labor-and-delivery nurse told me she had never worked at a hospital that didn't commit induced-labor abortion. I knew it was performed on a wider scale than publicly realized, but even I didn't understand how pervasively....

(CBS 5) Workers at a medical clinic want to start handing out condoms and birth control pills to students at one Santa Rosa high school. Southwest Community Health Center sits adjacent to Elsie Allen High School. The area around the campus is mostly low-income and has a large Latino population. Latino teens have among the highest teen pregnancy rates, and this particular school has one of the highest rates in the state. To curb that, clinic staffers want to distribute condoms and birth control pills to students. "It's very sad when these young girls get pregnant," said Dr. Enrique Gonzales,...

MADRID, Spain - If it comes to choosing between pleasing President Bush or the Spanish public, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Wednesday that he - unlike the conservative opposition Popular Party - would opt for the latter. "Between pleasing Bush and doing what Spanish people want, I will go for what Spaniards want, and you (the Popular Party) are, naturally, within your rights to decide to please the U.S. president," Zapatero said. The remark came in a heated debate in Parliament between Zapatero and Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy over the state of Spain a year into Zapatero's...

In Las Vegas, folks can't wait for the "Big One," the massive earthquake that will some day cause California to fall into the ocean. When it happens, the joke goes, Las Vegas becomes waterfront property. It's not true, of course. When the "Big One" does strike, today or a thousand years from now, California isn't likely to fall anywhere except down. Still, don't bet entirely against that notion of new waterfront property. A monster earthquake won't create it, but scientists say the passage of time and giant crustal plates might. Someday, Southern Californians might enjoy ocean views not just to...

WASHINGTON -- Scientists trying to sniff out biological differences between gay and straight men have found new evidence - in scent. It turns out that sniffing a chemical from testosterone, the male sex hormone, causes a response in the sexual area of gay men's brains, just as it does in the brains of straight women, but not in the brains of straight men. "It is one more piece of evidence ... that is showing that sexual orientation is not all learned," said Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine...

WASHINGTON The Bush Administration wants every American to have a personal health record within a decade, and the Internet could make that possible. The American Medical Association and several other physicians organizations have launched i-HealthRecord, a free service that encourages consumers to file their medical records in a secure database. Ninety-thousand physicians have linked their web sites to the service. Ten-thousand people have already signed up. Proponents say the information is more secure than records stored in a doctor's office. They also say the service could improve treatment for travelers and help those involved in caring for children or elderly...

WESTMINSTER – The stabbing deaths of a popular Vietnamese fortuneteller and her daughter were mysterious enough, but stranger still was how their bodies were left in the ransacked home: white paint covered their hands and faces. Since the slayings two weeks ago, the murder case with cultural overtones has confounded police and locals in this Orange County suburb where a thriving Vietnamese district known as Little Saigon evokes the old country. Theories abound to explain why Ha Jade Smith and her 23-year-old daughter, Anita Nhi Vo, were killed and coated with paint: robbers hiding evidence, a disgruntled client warding off...

Today my kids will be creating a huge mess in the kitchen to make me breakfast. I'm guessing cinnamon French toast and fresh-squeezed orange juice. What's less clear is how long my son and daughter will honor the one real request that I and millions of other moms make every Mother's Day: "The only gift I want is for you to be good." Not all mothers, however, will experience anything approaching the sort of warm feelings that Hallmark tries to capture. For moms who have undergone a tortuous divorce or are now involved in the expensive task of dismantling a...

Morning Edition, May 5, 2005 · In recent years, religious conservatives have been fighting the culture wars with new assertiveness. Many observers see a widespread nostalgia for America's early days, when most of the founders were Protestant and, some religious conservatives believe, Christian principles reigned. As president of a group called Wall Builders, David Barton is at the forefront of the Christian heritage movement. He says with few exceptions, the founders spoke openly of their protestant Christian faith and many, including John Adams, Benjamin Rush and John Jay, wrote that American freedom was based on Christian principles. Robert George, a...

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. vetoed a same-sex marriage ban passed by the Navajo Nation Council. However, the veto could face an override in the council and the gay marriage ban could still become law. While Shirley said gay marriage is not an issue on the Navajo Nation because currently gays are not requesting marriage licenses, the Navajo gay community, concerned with freedom of future choices, disagreed. Shirley said the law would generate feelings of disharmony and disunity among Navajos and violates a central Navajo belief in goodwill. "The legislation veiled a discriminatory aspect in the...

It wasn't that she couldn't afford the payments: Brenda had been given valuable property by her father - leaving her with 2.4 million in investment holdings - while James had little to his name. But Brenda did not want to pay a man who, she alleged, had both committed adultery and treated her with cruelty during their marriage. Could marital misbehavior play a role in the alimony determination?

Rep. Adam Putnam, a Florida Republican, is only 30 but already serving in his third term in the House of Representatives. So it may have been just youthful exuberance which caused him to exclaim, "It is a great day in this House and a great day for our nation and an honor to kick off the debate about the fiscal blueprint, that our conference of the House and the Senate has come together to set forth the priorities for our nation." Putnam was talking about the budget resolution – [snip] What does it do about the deficits? If you believe...

Middle to outside places were in vogue Wednesday when the connections of 20 starters selected post positions for Saturday's $2-million Kentucky Derby (gr. I), for which Bellamy Road was installed as the 5-2 favorite. The order in which the post positions could be selected was determined by a draw earlier in the day, and owner Michael Tabor used the first choice to select post position 15 for Toyota Blue Grass (gr. I) winner Bandini. Trainer Tim Ritchey quickly went to the middle for 9-2 second-choice Afleet Alex, the Arkansas Derby (gr. II) winner who will start from post 12. "I...

The Republicans' philosophy about the relationship between God and government distinguishes them from everybody else, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore said Tuesday. Moore held a gathering spellbound Tuesday at Valley Hill Country Club as guest speaker at a luncheon hosted by the Republican Women of Huntsville. Citing phrases from the Declaration of Independence and quoting Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, Moore stressed that America began on the principle that citizens have God-given rights. The role of government is not to split God from everybody, he said. "The government is there to secure the rights that God gave us," he...

An Australian woman pleaded guilty in court to killing her boyfriend because he called a phone-sex hotline. Prosecutors told the Queensland Supreme Court that in October 2003, Amanda Jane Griffin woke at 2:00 am to find her partner Michael Campbell on the phone. The court heard Campbell, 27, told Griffin he was speaking to a friend but she hit the redial button and was connected to a sex hotline. Shortly after, neighbours heard Campbell yelling “no Mandy” followed by a crashing sound. afp