Free Republic

A sex scandal is causing trouble for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government in Tehran, in spite of numerous attempts to hush it up. But is Reza Zarei, the police chief caught in a brothel with six prostitutes, still alive? General Reza Zarei, Tehran's chief of police, has been under arrest in Iran since mid-March for a curious scandal: He was caught in a brothel with six prostitutes. One of the women involved says Zarei, 52, asked the group to remove their clothes, "stand in a row in front of him and pray naked."

Springfield's men in black are returning. The city's new police commissioner, William Fitchet, says members of the department's Street Crime Unit will again don black, military-style uniforms as part of his strategy to deal with youth violence.

LAREDO — A man who shot and killed a 13-year-old breaking into his mobile home has been indicted for murder in a case that could test a new law giving Texans more leeway to defend themselves with deadly force. Jose Luis Gonzalez, 63, was indicted Friday in the July killing of a teenager who sneaked into his home with three friends to steal drinks and snacks. Francisco Anguiano was shot in the back and later died at a Laredo hospital. Gonzalez was indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder. Gonzalez told authorities he was asleep in a nearby shed...

Flanked by Atlanta business, law enforcement and transportation leaders, Mayor Shirley Franklin Thursday urged Gov. Sonny Perdue to veto legislation that would allow Georgians to carry concealed weapons into state parks, restaurants and onto trains and buses. "This is not about the right to bear arms," Franklin said during a news conference at City Hall. "This is about public safety ... of people who live in Atlanta, live around Atlanta, visit Atlanta or invest in Atlanta." The bill, passed by the General Assembly on the final day of this year's session, would let about 300,000 holders of concealed weapons permits...

Last July, former Zimbabwean Archbishop Pius Ncube raised the possibility of a British invasion of his country to topple Robert Mugabe's regime. "I think it is justified for Britain to raid Zimbabwe and remove Mugabe," he told the Times of London. "We should do it ourselves but there's too much fear. I'm ready to lead the people, guns blazing, but the people are not ready." Perhaps the Zimbabwean people would be ready and less afraid if they actually had guns to blaze. They do not lack a passion for freedom; it is the necessary tools to wrest themselves from the...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Two men were shot, another arrested, after police say the men attempted to rob an apartment on the city's near north side. It happened just after 3 a.m. in the 4800 block of Park Forest Court. Authorities say three black males went into the apartment with a shotgun. Several shots were fired. However, it's the suspected robbers who were injured. Two are being treated at the hospital this morning. Police say their injuries are not life threatening.

An outburst of gunfire rattled Chicago during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence. The shootings were reported from Friday until Monday morning, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Monday. They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store. Authorities did not immediately say whether any of the shootings were thought to be related. Police Superintendent Jody Weis blamed an excess of guns and gangs. "There are just too many weapons here," Weis said Sunday. "Too many guns, too many...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- An energy company has agreed to pay residents of a polluted waterfront neighborhood and to clean up the massive contamination that turned the soil under their homes blue, lawyers for the neighbors said Wednesday, though the company said a deal had not been reached. Attorneys Robert McConnell and Mark Roberts, who represent nearly 100 property owners, told The Associated Press they reached a tentative settlement with Southern Union Co., but said the terms were sealed so they would not discuss details. Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Houston-based Southern Union, said the case had not been resolved. The...

MADISON, Wis. -- The U.S. military's health insurance program has been swindled out of more than $100 million over the past decade in the Philippines, where doctors, hospitals and clinics have conspired with American veterans to submit bogus claims, according to prosecutors and court records. Seventeen people have been convicted so far - including at least a dozen U.S. military retirees - in a little-noticed investigation that has been handled by federal prosecutors out of Wisconsin because a Madison company holds the contract to process many of the claims. It has not been accused of any wrongdoing. At the center...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman says he is reversing his stance and will block the shipment of Italian nuclear waste to a desert dump site in his state. Huntsman initially said the federal government should decide where to dispose such foreign waste. But he says Wednesday he's changed his mind because the federal government has been slow to adopt a policy to block foreign radioactive waste. He also says that space for even domestic waste is limited. A company called EnergySolutions has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permission to store about 1,600 tons of low-level waste...

Police and federal agents have been raiding indoor marijuana growing operations at houses in the Seattle area. The U.S. attorney's office says 14 people and two companies have been indicted. Federal agents and police called a 1 p.m. news conference Wednesday at the federal building in Seattle to discuss the raids and the investigation they call "Operation Green Reaper."

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court affirmed Wednesday that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law. The unanimous decision comes in a case from Portsmouth, Va., where city detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him for a traffic ticket offense. David Lee Moore was pulled over for driving on a suspended license. The violation is a minor crime in Virginia and calls for police to issue a court summons and let the driver go. Instead, city detectives arrested Moore and prosecutors...

Despite nearly three decades of totalitarian abuse of the American people, and supposedly stern reprimands by Congress, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives continues its violent and illegal reign of terror while its size, power, and appropriations grow. Even worse, the arrogant attitude of these jackbooted thugs has now spread to many other "law enforcement" agencies at all levels of government. A few names say it all: Ruby Ridge, Waco, Donald Scott, Donald Carlson, Accelynne Williams. Each time such travesties occur, promises of reform ring across the political landscape, only to die without an echo. Unconstitutional agencies get...

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide a Second Amendment challenge to the gun ban in Washington, D.C. I am co-counsel to Dick Heller in District of Columbia v. Heller, so I take a backseat to no one when it comes to vindicating Second Amendment rights. But the "Take Your Guns to Work" law signed by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist last week, with vigorous backing from the National Rifle Association, has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. It has everything to do with violating the rights of private property owners. Despite the bill's overwhelming support among his Republican colleagues...

A 74-year-old grandmother spent the night in jail after she refused security officers' efforts to check her at Palm Beach International Airport and then shoved a deputy, authorities said Thursday. Elena Reichman, a Holocaust survivor who lives west of Boca Raton, is charged with felony battery on a law enforcement officer. She was released from jail after posting a $3,000 bond at 5 a.m. Thursday. It was her first arrest, state records show.

Officials at San Jose State plan to offer self-defense classes so that students and professors will be prepared in the event that a gunman opens fire on campus. College officials simulated just such a situation on campus last week. Junior Hillary Tiopa responded like it was the real thing. ”Once I heard the gunshot I was speeding out of the building. I just wanted to get away from him. I wanted to get down the stairs and out of the building,” said Tiopa. University officials say Tiopa did the right thing, using one of four techniques officials plan to teach...

REGINA, Saskatchewan, April 21 (UPI) -- Three Canadian men from a Saskatchewan reservation were sentenced Monday to prison for running a marijuana farm the leader claimed was the Creator's order. The men were found guilty of running a farm of 10 marijuana greenhouses, or what Canadian police describe as "grow-ops," in Regina in February. The judge sentenced alleged ringleader Lawrence Agecoutay to six years in prison, his brother Robert to 3 1/2 years and Chester Girard to 5 1/2 years, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., reported. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police seized more than 6,000 marijuana plants in the raid in...

NORTH NEW HYDE PARK, N.Y. -- A Long Island man had to know he would be arrested when he called police to report he had just been robbed during a drug deal that went bad. Nassau County Police said Christopher Canonico, 23, of Seaford, called at 8:19 p.m. Wednesday to say he had just been robbed in North New Hyde Park. Police said Canonico was set up by two women who agreed to buy heroin at a local gas station. While they were sitting in Canonico's car, a third person with a gun came up to the car and robbed...

WASHINGTON -- The head of the union that represents 6,000 federal food inspectors told a congressional committee Thursday that the Agriculture Department tried to intimidate him and other employees who reported violations of regulations, an allegation denied by the agency. Union chief Stan Painter said that following a mad cow disease scare in 2003, he told superiors that new food safety regulations for slaughtered cattle were not being uniformly enforced. Painter said he was told to drop the matter, and when he didn't, was grilled by department officials and then placed on disciplinary investigative status. Painter said he was eventually...

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is grappling with growing numbers of public corruption cases and a surge in mortgage fraud investigations, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday, wondering aloud whether Americans are "becoming more crooked." In a speech to the American Bar Association, Mueller asked the assembled defense lawyers for help in "creating a culture of integrity" by reporting evidence of wrongdoing by politicians and corporate executives alike. "Anyone who follows the news these days and sees repeated references to corporate fraud and public corruption might think the nation is in the midst of a moral crisis," Mueller told the defense...

The Issue: Years of mishandling the gun issue have cost progressives the support of many Americans who would otherwise be on their side. The Message: I take a back seat to no one in support of Second Amendment rights, but those rights do not extend to terrorists and criminals. The Policy: Supporting Second Amendment rights, closing gun law loopholes that terrorists and criminals can exploit, fixing the broken background check system, and reversing the Bush gun crime policy by vigorously enforcing the major federal gun laws on the books. Overview: The Gun Gap Gun owners believe that progressives are anti-gun,...

MADISON, Wis. -- A ruling that freed a woman from prison and cast doubt on "shaken baby syndrome" prosecutions will stand, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided. The decision is a victory for former daycare provider Audrey Edmunds, who has long maintained her innocence against charges she shook a baby to death in 1995. Edmunds spent more than 10 years in prison after a jury convicted her of first-degree reckless homicide in 1996. But she was freed in February after an appeals court said new research into "shaken baby syndrome" cast doubt on her guilt. The Wisconsin Department of Justice...

Police say two people have been injured and five people arrested after dozens fought in the streets of the Rockland County village of Nyack. Orangetown police say fights among 40 to 50 people broke out Wednesday afternoon. It took police officers from seven departments to finally break up the fights, which continued across Nyack for an hour. Police say some involved in the fight were armed with knives, bats and an ax. They say one man was stabbed and hit with a claw hammer; a second person was hit in the head with a hammer. Both victims were treated and...

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ― Opposition to a new law which allows Florida residents to keep guns locked in their cars while they are at work plan to take their case to court. In Broward, one opponent of the bill, attorney Charles Caulkins, explained he believes it violates employers' rights. "We represent clients around the country, and most clients do not want to have their employees on their property with firearms." The Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Retail Federation have hired legal representation to file a suit against the state for a new law which bars businesses from prohibiting...

Philadelphia DA Lynne Abraham says the city's newly enacted gun control laws are unenforceable. At a hearing on Tuesday before City Council, Abraham (above) said that in her opinion the laws passed last week (see related stories) are illegal and will be challenged as soon as the first person is charged under the new statutes. And, she added, she thinks any defendant bringing a court challenge to the new laws would be successful. The new laws include a requirement to report lost or stolen guns, and a one-per-person-per month limit on gun purchases. Abraham agrees with state lawmakers that state...

On the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says it's still too easy for criminals to get guns. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, says not enough has changed since the worst campus shootings in the nation's history when 32 people, including the gunman died. ``Much more needs to be done. The bottom line is we make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns in this country. There really aren't very many restrictions on people's ability to get guns," Helmke said. ``A lot of times, folks think that...

WASHINGTON -- The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency - a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people. Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons. Expanding the DNA database, known...

Pierce County sheriff's deputies found a semi-automatic handgun, remnants of liquid explosives and bombs packed with nails while combing through an obliterated South Hill home Tuesday -- and were relieved that there weren't more victims after a registered sex offender detonated explosives there Monday night. Authorities say they found the body of that man, 26, who they believe was killed in the explosion, which blew off the top of the two-story house about six miles southeast of Tacoma. The couple who own the house called police about 11 p.m. Monday, saying the man was being strange and making explosives, Pierce...

Assembly Passes Comprehensive Legislative Package To Protect Citizens And Law Enforcement From The Nightmare Of Gun Violence Legislation Approved as April Marks First Anniversary of Virginia Tech, Ninth Year Anniversary of Columbine Killings **** For Immediate Release: April 15, 2008 Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly Codes Committee Chair Joseph Lentol announced that the Assembly Monday approved a series of gun safety measures aimed at helping law enforcement officers track down illegal guns, keep guns out of the hands of felons and children, and ban advanced weaponry used to kill police officers. The 10-bill package has been passed by the...

LOS ANGELES -- A Long Beach man has been acquitted of smuggling iguanas in his hollowed-out prosthetic leg. However, a jury on Thursday found Jereme James guilty of concealing and possessing Fiji Island banded iguanas. The neon green-striped iguanas are endangered species, prosecutors said. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison when sentenced July 14. The jury rejected charges that James stole the iguanas while visiting the South Pacific island in September 2002. An e-mail message to James' lawyer was not immediately returned. During an undercover probe, James told investigators he had sold three iguanas for...

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A jail inmate who recently filed more than 60 lawsuits in a day will no longer be able to flood Lancaster County courts with lawsuits. All six Lancaster County District judges signed off on an order limiting Eric Lewis to six filings a year unless he can show he faces immediate harm. Lewis, 36, has filed 149 cases since January 2007. Many of Lewis' filings ask for protection orders against people who work at the jail or oversee his custody. The judges said most cases can be denied without hearings, but the filings can create significant work...

A prosecutor told jurors Thursday that two septuagenarian women accused of killing homeless men so they could collect on their life insurance policies saw their victims as "profit," not human beings. "They picked up complete strangers, men who they did not love, men not related to them, men who could not offer them any kind of financial support because they were homeless and destitute, and made them worth millions if dead," Deputy Dist. Atty. Truc Do said in her closing argument, wrapping up four weeks in the murder trial. Do said Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, evenly split...

LAPD officers would be required to report gang members found to be illegal immigrants to federal authorities under a proposal to be introduced in the Los Angeles City Council today. The proposal, by Councilman Dennis Zine, a former LAPD officer, would result in a closer relationship between the department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and is likely to generate controversy. The plan comes amid a new debate over Special Order 40, a Los Angeles Police Department rule that defines when officers can inquire about the immigration status of suspects. The 29-year-old rule is a cornerstone of the department's policy...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A dry-cleaning shop owner in Papua New Guinea has found a unique way of encouraging thieves to clean up their behavior: giving them a steam cleaning. Police in the northeast coastal town of Lae said a 20-year-old man suffered burns and scalding to his abdomen, chest and back after the owner turned a steam cleaner on him after he was caught stealing pants worth 14 kina ($5.50). "The owner has done this to many people already," police spokesman Nema Mondiai told Australian Associated Press on Wednesday. Police seemed unconcerned about the radical punishment and released the thief...

LAPD detectives say Sam Flemming was truly skid row's nickel and dime drug dealer. LAPD narcotics detectives said that when they arrested him last Thursday after watching him sell rock cocaine in the heart of skid row, they found $11,000 in his pockets. But when they got a search warrant for his apartment -- a block from the LAPD's Central Station -- they found 1.5 pounds of cocaine and $135,035 in bills and coins. What detectives say was more shocking was that $11,000 was in dollar bills and about $6,000 was in quarters, nickels and dimes.

GONZALES, CALIF. -- Melanie Horwath phoned the California Tomato Board with what she assumed was a simple request. She needed promotional materials that her family's tomato packing company could display at a Salinas Valley agricultural event called Taste of the Valley. Do you have posters or recipes? she asked. We don't have that. What kind of promotion do you guys do? We don't do that kind of promotion. That's odd, Horwath thought. Her company paid thousands of dollars a month in mandatory dues to finance the board's research and marketing efforts: its legal purpose. She started digging into the board's...

Empty, upended boxes were all that remained of neatly stacked cases of canned tuna, spaghetti sauce and beef stew. That's how the food bank volunteers knew the Alexandria facility where they store canned goods for some of the area's neediest had been cleaned out by thieves. More than 1,000 pounds of canned goods was stolen from the food bank at a time when demand has soared and supplies are dwindling.

Americans cover their bodies in the sauna more than Germans visiting an Italian church. Anyone visiting a health club in downtown Washington who walks into the sauna after exercising will encounter a host of people all wrapped in material. One towel is used to cover the chest and shoulders, while a second one is elaborately draped around the midsection and hips. But lust often rages beneath these towels and, in the case of some politicians, naked lunacy. When it comes to their sexual behavior, the Western superpower's elected representatives exhibit a number of traits that clearly distinguish them from politicians...

ATF added another weapon to its gang-fighting arsenal Nov. 28 with the formal opening of a new facility in Northern Virginia that will house 80 intelligence analysts, agents, prosecutors and support personnel — all from different agencies — and all working together to investigate and dismantle the most violent gangs in the United States. “Coordination has brought us success in the past, and can yield even more in the future,” said ATF Acting Director Michael Sullivan, speaking during the formal opening of the new facility. The new site brings together two separate gang deterrence units — the National Gang Intelligence...

ATF is deploying its resources strategically on the Southwest Border to deny firearms, the “tools of the trade,” to criminal organizations in Mexico and along the border, and to combat firearms-related violence affecting communities on both sides of the border. In partnership with other U.S. agencies and with the Government of Mexico, ATF refined its Southwest Border strategy. ATF developed Project Gunrunner to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico and thereby deprive the narcotics cartels of weapons. The initiative seeks to focus ATF’s investigative, intelligence and training resources to suppress the firearms trafficking to Mexico and stem the firearms-related...

Youths on Britain's increasingly dangerous streets will soon be able to equip themselves with bulletproof hoodies - fuelling fears of a further increase in lawlessness. The hoodie can allegedly stop a bullet from a 9mm Magnum handgun and protects the entire upper body. The £300 top goes on sale later this month. While the hoodie is being marketed as a sensible precaution, critics will certainly see bulletproof protection as another step up in the spiralling violence among Britain's youngsters - by prompting gangs to arm themselves even more heavily. Barry Samms, who owns its British manufacturer Bladerunner, said today: "This...

NEWARK - Ten immigrants yesterday charged that warrantless and abusive pre-dawn raids by federal authorities violated their constitutional rights. The immigrants, in a federal lawsuit, asserted that ranking Homeland Security officials ordered agents to meet arrest quotes but failed to provide proper training or current addresses for people they were seeking.

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) - Police are searching for a man accused of shoving an electric guitar in his pants and walking out of a store in Lewiston, Maine. Police say the theft occurred last week and they're looking for three men. One of the men shoved a Fender Stratocaster in his pants and pulled a sweatshirt over the top. The other two acted as lookouts. All three can be seen on footage from video surveillance. Strangely enough, the music shop has seen the method before. A man did the same thing in 2006 but was caught as he tried to...

Robbers armed with submachine guns smashed down the wall of a money transport firm with a crane on Tuesday. They got away with over $6 million in cash by laying a carpet of nails and planting a bomb in a train station to divert their pursuers. In a spectacular heist that had all the precision of a military operation, armed robbers in Denmark stole 30 million kroner ($6.3 million) in cash early on Tuesday by smashing down the wall of a money transport firm with a crane and storming through the breach armed with submachine guns and rifles.

WASHINGTON, April 2 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A Chinese diplomat has sent out an e-mail to U.S. congressional officials with a commentary alleging that the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has close ties to Nazi Germany, a congressional member said Wednesday. Dennis Halpin, a Republican member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, revealed the e-mail by the diplomat in charge of congressional liaison at the Chinese Embassy in Washington during a forum on Asia. Halpin slammed the action, saying it is "counterproductive" for a Chinese diplomat to do such a thing at a time when the situation in...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A former Army veteran arrested after trying to check luggage containing pipe bomb-making materials onto a flight home explained that he wanted to show his friends there how to make them, authorities said Wednesday. Investigators were questioning whether Kevin Christopher Brown had ever been to Iraq—where he told them he'd seen similar bombs made, according to court documents—and looking into his mental health history after his arrest Tuesday at Orlando International Airport. Authorities and airline officials repeated their assurances that passengers were never in danger. Transportation Security Administration officials nonetheless touted the 32-year-old's arrest as a...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Class-action lawsuit king Melvyn Weiss pleaded guilty on Wednesday to U.S. racketeering charges in connection with a scheme to pay kickbacks to plaintiffs, apologizing to his former law firm and saying he deeply regretted his conduct. The Bronx-born Weiss, who pioneered high-stakes shareholder litigation in U.S. courts, pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering conspiracy as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors. As part of the plea deal the 72-year-old attorney, who landed some $1 billion in settlements for investors hurt by the Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond scandal in the 1980s, faces between...

TROY, Mich. (AP) - The husband of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow told authorities that he used the Internet to arrange a $150 sexual tryst with a prostitute at a metropolitan Detroit hotel, police said Wednesday. Thomas Athans, 46, co-founder of the liberal TalkUSA Radio network, was stopped by police who were investigating prostitution at the hotel, according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press. Athans, in a statement issued by his attorney, apologized and said he "fully cooperated with law enforcement. My family and I are dealing with this matter in a personal and private way." Stabenow, D-Mich.,...

More than 400 Los Angeles police officers now assigned to administrative tasks and other desk-bound jobs should be returned to patrolling the streets in order to bolster the city's meager police force, according to a report released Monday by City Controller Laura Chick. The 203-page study comes as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton continue their aggressive push to hire 1,000 officers by 2010 despite a severe budget shortfall facing the city.

SARASOTA — Driving with your car stereo too loud here can already get you a ticket. If Sarasota police have their way it could also get your car impounded and cost you at least $500 to get it back. Sarasota police want the authority to tow away drivers' cars if they are caught playing the stereo too loud, driving with a suspended license or leaving the scene of a minor crash -- all misdemeanor charges. Sarasota police Lt. Steve Breakstone said towing a car and charging the owner a $500 fine to pick it up is an effective crime-fighting tool...