Free Republic

"Most of our children are teenagers," she said. "They have crossed the border, so they're older. For youths who are 13 and older, [the payment to foster parents is] $24.79 per day." $24.97 per day adds up to about $750 per month, but foster parents who take in more than one minor can collect thousands of dollars each month. In addition to standard payments, foster parents additionally receive a "clothing allowance" for the minors every three months. The spokeswoman pointed out that that healthcare costs for the illegal immigrant minors are "provided for" by the government, and that the children...

<p>When Luke Grimes started on HBO’s “True Blood” last season his character James Kent was wooing a female vampire. But Grimes reportedly quit in December when he found out Kent was bisexual and starting a romantic relationship with a gay character in the seventh and final season.</p>

Judge Michael Baird of the federal Dallas Immigration Court said on July 22 that 18 of the children whose cases he was scheduled to hear on that day didn’t show up for court. The unaccompanied children were among 20 from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala who were set to appear in Baird’s court for initial deportation hearings. The Dallas Morning News cited Baird’s statement describing the absentee rate that day as “highly unusual” — so high that he reset the hearings for August 11 rather than possibly issuing a deportation order. Baird said he was concerned that the children may...

There’s no shortage of piling-on when it comes to the controversy over the name of the Washington Redskins football team. But too often overlooked is the government’s response to all the noise. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) created a fatal contradiction for itself when it announced on June 18 that it would cancel the trademarks of the Washington Redskins. In handing down the decision, the PTO claimed the name was disparaging. However, a Freedom of Information Act request showed that nobody complained to the PTO about being disparaged by the name, revealing the decision as entirely subjective....

Hoping to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama administration is considering whether to allow hundreds of minors and young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal. If approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the United States, the White House...

There were more than a few trembling chins, red eyes and sniffly noses as sailors filed past a crowd to board HMCS Toronto on Thursday morning. And those were just the crew members. On the jetty at HMC Dockyard, a little girl bawled as she watched her dad walk toward the gangplank. A couple embraced and indulged in a kiss that would normally be reserved for a private setting. One last whispered “I love you” and it was time to go. Two hundred and fifty-seven women and men set sail from Halifax to join NATO forces responding to the crisis...

The example of “bigotry” used in a sentence is: “The report reveals racism and right-wing bigotry.” The iPhone utilizes the New Oxford English American Dictionary to define words, and the questionable example sentence appears in the web version of the dictionary as well. In the web version, however, there is an option to view more example sentences. None say anything about “left-wing bigotry,” but there is a sentence about bigotry leading to empty churches.

Why isn't Mexico doing more to deter unaccompanied minors from Central America from traversing Mexico to cross the U.S.-Mexico border? If this is a humanitarian crisis, then shouldn't Mexico be taking in its neighbors? Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs, Jose Antonio Meade, met with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board Tuesday, so I had a chance to ask him. His answer was instructive: Mexico offers health services for migrants passing through the country, he said, but when Mexican officials "find an unaccompanied minor within Mexico, he doesn't want to stay in Mexico." And: "At the core of the child's interest...

The New York Times notices the smoke collecting on the ceiling of the auditorium of the world and wonders whether there might be something to worry about. Peter Baker in an article titled “Crises Cascade and Converge, Testing Obama” notices that things are falling apart. “Not long after a passenger jet exploded in midair and plummeted to the ground in Ukraine last week, escalating a volatile crisis pitting the United States and Europe against Russia, President Obama’s thoughts turned to Syria.” Baker has a thought. These problems may be linked. Rarely has a president been confronted with so many seemingly...

The decision comes amid a tightening of security by the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, which has seen dozens of grenade and gunfire attacks the last two years. Earlier this year the U.S. increased the number of security personnel at the embassy and put armed Marines behind sandbag bunkers on the embassy roof. The State Department also reduced the number of U.S. personnel here by moving a regional USAID office out of the country.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas plans to order 1,000 National Guard troops to his state's border with Mexico in an effort to stem the tide of immigrants illegally entering from Central America, dispersing around the country once they've made it into Texas. Critics will call it a stunt and accuse Perry of showboating, but at least he is taking action, while President Obama, who took an oath to defend the country from all enemies foreign and domestic, drinks beer, plays pool and attends fundraisers as our borders are overrun. Enemies are more than adversary nations with weapons. An enemy can...

Tony Dungy is being proven right, and his critics in the media are helping him do it. Dungy, a well-respected coach and revered figure in the NFL community, currently finds himself at the bottom of a media dogpile because he said he would not draft St. Louis Rams rookie linebacker Michael Sam, who became the first openly gay NFL player earlier this year. “I wouldn’t have taken him,” Dungy told the Tampa Tribune in an article published this week. (Reporter Ira Kaufman later revealed that the quotation is from a separate interview he conducted with Dungy in February.) “Not because...

Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, is releasing a major document this morning laying out a conservative approach to reforming federal anti-poverty programs (he’s speaking on it this morning at the American Enterprise Institute). Not all of his proposals are specific legislation and some endorse existing legislation. Roughly speaking, here’s what in it: Offer states the option of a big block grant to replace existing federal welfare programs Ryan proposes a pilot program called the “Opportunity Grant,” which offers states the ability to use the funds they currently get for a range of programs to run individually...

"The official statistics on migration are very low," said Mikhail Gorshkov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology (ISRAS), a state-funded body. "It's a wake up call for our politicians when someone wants to leave their home country: What is missing for him?" Echoing the post-Soviet brain drain, sociologists say Russia is bleeding exactly the kind of people it needs to plug a skilled labour shortage and diversify the economy away from reliance on energy exports. "We are losing the most educated, most active, most entrepreneurial people," Lev Gudkov, director of the independent Moscow-based Levada Centre pollster....

In October of 2013, a Pennsylvania resident named Shaneen Allen drove into New Jersey’s Atlantic County and was pulled over by police for an “unsafe lane change.” When the detaining officer arrived at her car window, Allen informed him that she was carrying a concealed firearm, and presented her Pennsylvania carry license as proof of eligibility. Unbeknownst to her at the time, however, was that New Jersey is among the 20 states that do not recognize Pennsylvania’s permit. In consequence, she was arrested. If convicted of the charges that the state has elected to bring, she will be locked in...

A professor at the University of North Carolina died Thursday morning after being mugged on a Chapel Hill street during a lunchtime walk Wednesday, police said. Feng Liu, 59, of Durham, a research professor in UNC's Eshelman School of Pharmacy, was assaulted and robbed at about 1 p.m. Wednesday in a residential area near the intersection of West University Drive and Ransom Street, police said.

The Obama administration has filed a brief with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver indicating it plans to develop an alternative for Catholic and other religious nonprofit employers to opt out of providing federally mandated contraceptives they object to including in their employee health care coverage. Several media outlets, including AP, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, reported July 23 that the administration said it would come up with a "work-around" that would be different than the accommodation it currently has available to such employers. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as part...

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, co-author and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush argued that it was important to send the majority of the 50,000 unaccompanied minors back home. “Except for those deserving few who may demonstrate true cause for asylum or protection from sex trafficking, these children must be returned to their homes in Central America,” he wrote in the op-ed, which was co-authored by Clint Bolick. Bush argued that the 2008 anti-trafficking law - allowing children to stay in the country - should be changed to help stop the flow of children crossing the border, who then claim...

A Belgian watchdog on anti-Semitism complained to the mayor of a suburb of Liege against owners of a cafe whose window display featured a sign that said Jews were not allowed inside. The Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA, filed the complaint Wednesday against the parties responsible for hanging a Turkish- and French-language sign at a cafe in Saint-Nicolas, a town located just east of the southern city of Liege. The Turkish text reads: “Dogs are allowed in this establishment but Jews are not under any circumstances.” The French text replaces “Jews” with “Zionists.” Following the LBCA complaint, the mayor...

Rowena met Roger when she was a teen and knew he was the man for her and they ultimately married when they were 21 years old. Both agreed they never wanted to have children, so when Rowena became pregnant twice, she had abortions both times.Rowena says she had the abortions in part because she didn’t want to share her husband’s affections with her children.She also believes remaining childless is why their marriage has lasted and condemns women who have had children, saying they often have children simply to make their marriage last and not because they truly want children.Here’s the...