Free Republic

MEXICO CITY (AP) — When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming. The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon," or hawk. The radio signal travels deep into the arid countryside, hours by foot from the nearest road. There, the 8-foot-tall (2-meter-tall) dark-green branches of the rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in the dirt draws power from a...

Two tourists from Hong Kong are selling their own pictures in the Pham Ngu Lao backpacker area in Ho Chi Minh City to earn money for their daily meals while waiting for new visas after being robbed off all their possessions, including passports. On December 15, in a rented room in Binh Thanh District, Kit Kay, one of the two victims, told VnExpress newswire that on December 12, he and his girlfriend Leung Ka Kei, who goes by the nickname Doris, both of Chinese origin and born in 1988, arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, their first destination on a...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Dallas based adult entertainment business with a club right here in Lubbock is getting sued by some current and former dancers. The dancers say they're hired as independent contractors rather than employees paid by the hour. Documents from the federal lawsuit show 8 dancers suing Jaguars. According to the lawsuit they worked in Lubbock, Abilene, Odessa, Dallas, and Fort Worth. We've been unable to determine how many dancers worked at the Lubbock location or if they're still employed. Texas Tech labor law professor Jarod Gonzalez explains the difference between an employee and an independent contractor....

LUBBOCK (KCBD) - One person is behind bars following a confrontation at the Occupy Lubbock camp. Protestors say three men, in a black pickup truck, parked behind the camp, at 19th Street and University Avenue, around 6:45 p.m. Monday, and began shouting obscenities at them. One of the protestors, Andrew McMillan, confronted the men, who witnesses say threatened to beat him up if he came any closer. McMillan tried to get the truck's license plate as the men drove off. Protestors say the driver stopped, then one of the men got out and pointed a gun at McMillan. When officers...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Lubbock Police are looking for a suspect who they say stole a $400 generator from Occupy Lubbock. The theft occurred Sunday around 5:30 a.m. Some Occupy Lubbock members say they were on site at 19th Street and University Avenue when a thief cut the chain attached to the generator. According to police, the suspect then stole it and drove off in a white passenger car. "And Loaded it into their car while it was still running, hopefully they don't have carbon monoxide poisoning," said one of the protesters Andrew McMillan. Anica Wilson, one of the protesters...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - United States Attorney General Eric Holder has personally intervened in the criminal case against a Lubbock resident, Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 21. Holder signed a document on October 25th that was filed in Lubbock federal court on Monday. Holder claims that if classified material is made public in the Aldawsari case it "...reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security of the United States." Aldawsari is accused of assembling the material needed for a chemical bomb in his Central Lubbock apartment. Court records say his proposed targets included the home of former President...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Lubbock man, Jeff Gunselman, 29, is suspected of committing $40 million worth of wire fraud. Court records related to Gunselman's company, Absolute Fuels, were unsealed Monday, solving some of the mystery surrounding a mid-October federal raid at several Lubbock and South Plains locations. On Oct. 19, Secret Service Agent Michael Fiveash requested 36 seizure warrants for properties and bank accounts related to Gunselman or Absolute Fuels. Each request for a seizure warrant accuses Gunselman of selling "Renewable Identification Numbers" for bio-diesel fuel that never existed. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 obligated fuel makers to...

Background A little after 1600 UTC on February 21, 2010, in the #wunclub IRC channel, a user (LDO, a European region monitor) threw out the question "Vietnamese numbers? 10255" I had been paying fairly close attention to the Asian numbers stations for the past year or so, and immediately tuned to the indicated frequency of 10255 kHz. Sure enough, there was a previously unreported Vietnamese language numbers station on that frequency. S6 or stronger here in Southern California. What made this signal fairly interesting is that as far as I know no Vietnamese numbers station of any kind had been...

Fallout from the Texas budget cuts is starting to hit home. Public colleges are losing about 15 percent of state funding for financial aid, roughly $140 million statewide, and they're sending out award notices for the start of school next month. No surprise that the price of college is going up sharply for many students who can least afford it. In addition to less aid, enrollments are climbing for students who qualify for Texas grants, which usually translates to family incomes of less than $40,000 annually. For many, the only option is to borrow more money. "Private alternative loans --...

A respectful crowd of Permian Basin residents gathered at Midland Center on Wednesday to speak at a public hearing about the listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard as an endangered species. The listing possibly could shut down oil and gas, grazing and farming operations in Andrews, Crane, Gaines, Ward and Winkler counties in West Texas and Chaves, Eddy, Lea and Roosevelt counties in New Mexico. The hearing was conducted by officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, overseen by Jeff Humphrey, public outreach specialist with the service out of Arizona. Wally Murphy, New Mexico state field supervisor, told the...

In the Spring 2010 issue of City Journal, I described an archive of documents from Soviet government agencies smuggled to the West by the Russian researcher Pavel Stroilov and the Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. These documents, I noted, were available to anyone who wanted to consult them. But nobody did. Publishers were indifferent. Only a fraction of the documents had been translated into English. This was, I argued, a symptom of the world’s dangerous indifference to the enormity of Communist crimes. Within weeks of the article’s appearance, I received hundreds of e-mails. Many came from victims of Soviet Communism—there is...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Two weeks ago we told you about oil and gas companies taking a growing interest in properties south of Lubbock. After our story aired, viewers came to us with questions about how the advanced drilling methods could affect the environment. Tuesday, we spoke with the chair of Texas Tech's Petroleum Engineering Department to get some answers. As we reported, geologists are looking for natural gas and oil in a large rock formation more than a mile below the surface. They'll inject a combination water, sand, and sometimes chemicals into the rock called shale. When it breaks,...

LYNN AND TERRY COUNTY, TX (KCBD) - Advanced methods and technology have oil companies interested in drilling throughout several counties in our area. Land owners are receiving offers to lease mineral rights to the companies, and many of them are seeing big offers. Geologists think there is oil and natural gas in large shale formations underneath Hockley, Terry, Gaines, Dawson, and Lynn counties, and they want to get it out. If they're right, the economy of communities in these counties could change forever. "I don't think I'd have an opportunity in 3 or 4 lifetimes to see this," Bill McGowan...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Slaton man is among four people who sued President Barack Obama and other government officials on Friday to stop implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Arthur Enloe and other members of a Knoxville Tennessee-based group called the Liberty Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit in Lubbock federal court. Why Lubbock? "Because Lubbock is the most Constitution following town we could find," says lead attorney Van Irion. Defendants include the President, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and U.S. Attorney General...

UPDATED at 8:52 p.m. The Texas Senate just gave final approval to a GOP-backed law that will require voters to show an approved photo identification card to cast a ballot in elections. Approved by a vote of 19-11, along party lines, the measure is touted by both sides as one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country. The final approval came in two votes: One on final reading, the second after a brief delay so the Senate could start a new legislative day, a procedural move. The bill now goes to the House for consideration. Lt. Gov. David...

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas environmental regulators on Wednesday approved a crucial air quality permit that paves the way for construction of a coal-fired power plant in Corpus Christi, defying a request by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deny the permit. The three-person Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted 2-0 to approve the permit for the planned Las Brisas Energy Center, with a few minor modifications. Commissioner Carlos Rubinstein abstained from voting due to being briefed on the permit when he previously served as deputy executive director. The permit's approval marked the latest chapter in a feud between the state...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - As the investigation continues into Elizabeth's death, frustrated citizens have questions for the Lubbock Police Department. People have posted concerns on the police department and KCBD's Facebook page. Comments have also been found on Craigslist and other public forums. Most of the questions ask LPD why two weeks went by before police viewed surveillance tapes from the motel where Elizabeth was last seen. One person posted the following on LPD's Facebook page: "You can ignore us but we can be in your face for answers either through the Chief or Mayors Office." Captain Greg Stevens was...

AUSTIN — Outraged groups — from doctors and health executives to teachers, the elderly, advocates for abused children and even some Republicans — ripped the proposed House budget Wednesday, saying it would send the state backward. Critics heaped scorn on the House GOP leaders’ all-cuts approach to the state’s giant budget hole, particularly for reductions in education that would eliminate pre-kindergarten programs, shutter four community colleges and close university opportunities for tens of thousands needing financial aid. Any advancement in curtailing high school dropout rates, improving college graduation statistics and preparing Texans for future jobs would be, at best, placed...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - You can expect to see some changes to the Lubbock Police Department's fleet. LPD is buying 50 new SUV or Sport Utility Vehicles to replace aging police cars. Police have traditionally used a Ford Crown Victoria as their most common vehicle. However, Mayor Tom Martin says the Crown Victoria is no longer an option. Internet reports indicate that Ford will stop production of that particular model in 2011. "I did talk with the police administrators and it's not going to be as much as we thought," said Councilman Floyd Price, Lubbock City Council. Councilman Floyd Price...

The Dong A Commercial Joint Stock Bank inaugurated its first automated teller machine (ATM) specifically for selling gold at its Tran Phu branch in district 5, Ho Chi Minh City. Tran Phuong Binh, General Director of the bank, said this ATM is the first of its kind in Vietnam and the second in the world;. the other one is in Dubai. Banks will issue buyers a card and, when they decide to make a purchase, they will pay using their cards, not cash. Prices will be updated at the ATM on a real-time basis. Dong A bank currently has almost...