Free Republic

May Day Eve Quickly Turns Ugly In San FranciscoA day that is expected to be filled with anti-establishment protests all around the globe began early last night with a roving band of "anarchists" smashing car windows and store fronts in San Francisco's Mission District. The mini-riot (which was technically on April 30, but still) may have started as a "ruckus street party" organized by Occupy Oakland protesters who invaded their sister city ... The Atlantic Wire via Yahoo! News - 24 minutes ago

It's been more than two months since the tragedy in Tucson stunned the nation. It was a moment when we came together as one people to mourn and to pray for those we lost. And in the attack's turbulent wake, Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing, assigning blame or playing politics with other people's pain. But one clear and terrible fact remains. A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday asked congress to grant him special powers to enact laws by decree for one year, just before a new legislature takes office with a larger contingent of opposition lawmakers. The measure would give the president the ability to bypass the National Assembly for the fourth time since he was first elected almost 12 years ago.

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports: Scott Brown is proving to be an elusive vote on matters of cloture. During his month in the senate, Brown is just about evenly split, siding half the time with Democrats and half the time with Republicans. For a man ushered into the Senate as someone Republicans should “exalt in” and signaling the death knell of Democrats’ super-majority, Brown has shown himself to be no fan of Senate Republicans’ slow-everything-to-a-snail’s-pace strategy. In two cases now Brown joined several other Republican moderates to buck his party and help Democrats narrowly defeat filibuster. The most recent occurred...

Enraged Fatah leaders on Saturday accused Hamas militiamen of looting the home of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza City. "They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize medal," said Ramallah-based Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman. "Hamas militiamen and gangsters blew up the main entrance to the house before storming it. They stole many of Arafat's documents and files, gifts he had received from world leaders and even his military outfits." ...

While the White House remains wary of the proposal to talk with Iran, Tehran sources tell TIME that the regime believes such talks are in the country's best interest...