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San Rafael -- Al Gore and his crusade against global warming landed in the Bay Area this week with a call to arms and a message for those who still think the former vice president is tilting at windmills. The solution to climate change includes windmills, along with solar and geothermal energy, Gore told The Chronicle in an interview Monday. He also defended himself against attacks by critics who accuse him of pushing the green agenda so that he can personally benefit from investments he has made in green technology. "I have made some investments in the last few years...

RICHMOND, Va. — Attorneys for John Allen Muhammad released a May 2008 letter on Wednesday in which the mastermind of the deadly 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area proclaims his innocence. The rambling, handwritten letter was made available because of requests for a statement from Muhammad, his attorneys wrote on the Web page of their law firm. The letter was filed in federal court in connection with Muhammad's unsuccessful attempt to block his execution, the attorneys said.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Sunday he will tap his huge political network of donors and volunteers to help U.S. victims of Hurricane Gustav after it comes inland. "I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there, if it becomes necessary," Obama told reporters after attending St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Lima, Ohio.

MANCHESTER, Mo.- A music teacher who twice ordered a seven-year-old pupil to hit himself in the head with drum mallets will not return to the Parkway School District next year. The incident happened on February Ninth in teacher Paul Provencio's music class at Carman Trails Elementary School in suburban St. Louis. State officials say the 36-year-old teacher intended the head-banging as a lesson to Justin Barricklow about hitting the drums too hard.

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger boasted Wednesday that California's leadership is making environmentalism hip, sexy and mainstream, no longer just a guilt-driven movement for "tree-huggers" and "fanatics." "Environmentalists were no fun. They were like prohibitionists at the fraternity party," the moderate Republican governor told a student audience at Georgetown University, part of an East Coast swing to promote his increasingly enthusiastic embrace of the environment. "Successful movements are built on passion. They aren't built on guilt," he said, predicting that environmentalism was reaching a "tipping point" where it will move into the mainstream. "I don't know when the tipping point...

BRISTOW, Okla. - A former judge convicted of exposing himself while presiding over jury trials by using a sexual device under his robe was sentenced Friday to four years in prison. Donald Thompson had spent almost 23 years on the bench and had served as a state legislator before retiring from the court in 2004. He showed no reaction when he was sentenced. At his trial this summer, his former court reporter, Lisa Foster, testified that she saw Thompson expose himself at least 15 times during trial between 2001 and 2003. Prosecutors said he also used a device known as...

TV reporters 'helped protester burn himself to death' By Rahul Bedi in New Delhi (Filed: 18/08/2006) Indian police are investigating a group of television journalists for allegedly helping a man to burn himself to death and filming his agony for broadcast. Pictures of Manoj Mishra writhing in pain with his back on fire were shown in Bihar state on Tuesday. Mr Mishra later died in hospital from severe burns in the town of Gaya. "We have seized footage clearly showing a group of journalists handing over matches and some inflammable substance, which we later verified to be diesel, to the...

8/7/2006 - FORWARD OPERATING BASE TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- When a suicide bomber slammed and ignited his missile-laden vehicle into the Humvee in front of Staff Sgt. Eric Mathiasen, the Air Force medic exploded into action. He did not think about his wife or two children, or that there was unexploded ordnance lying about. He just grabbed his medical bag and sprinted toward the blast area. "While I was running to the wounded guy, I just hoped I could help him," Sergeant Mathiasen said. "I just hoped I wouldn't screw anything up." He had questioned his abilities before this...

Pfc. Kenneth Dickerson, a 19-year-old Marine from Clive, Iowa, assigned to the Hawaii-based Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, hands out candy to two girls in Barwanah, Iraq, July 29, 2006. The 19-year-old U.S. Marine from Clive, Iowa, has spent the past four months of his deployment in Iraq teaching himself Arabic, and uses it to help his fellow Marines by serving as a translator during the unitÂ’s daily patrols through Barwanah, Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Roe F. Seigle U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Kenneth Dickerson Deployed Marine Teaches Himself Arabic By U.S. Marine Sgt. Roe...

SAN FRANCISCO - The man who revealed himself as Watergate's "Deep Throat" says in a new memoir that he saw himself as a "Lone Ranger" who could help derail a White House cover-up. In the memoir, which hit bookshelves Monday, former FBI second-in-command W. Mark Felt explains what motivated him to become the key source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during the Watergate investigation. Felt said he was upset by the slow pace of the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in and believed the press could apply some much-needed pressure on the administration to cooperate. "From...

NEW YORK -- An Indonesian man found dead in the blood-spattered basement of his country's consulate on the Upper East Side took his own life by repeatedly stabbing himself with various knives in a gruesome fashion, authorities said Monday. The man, identified by officials in Indonesia as Bambang Welianto, 36, of Jakarta, was found Sunday with a kitchen knife in his chest and his left wrist almost severed. Several more knives, including a meat cleaver, were found around him inside the four-story Beaux-Arts mansion on East 68th Street, off Fifth Avenue. A spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office, Ellen Borakove,...

Straight-talking McCain reveals himself as a leader in waiting By Alec Russell (Filed: 12/11/2005) Senator John McCain has all but launched a campaign to succeed President George W Bush, calling for a new approach to the war in Iraq and savaging the Pentagon's record there. With the White House struggling to regain the initiative after a series of damaging blows and the Democrats lacking a leader, the maverick Republican has effectively taken charge of the political debate. Sen John McCain: 'We should be ramping up' In a hard-hitting speech, reminiscent of his 2000 bid for the White House when he...

BEDFORD, N.H. - Howard Dean is not the Democratic Party's spokesman, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the latest party leader to distance himself from the outspoken chairman, said Tuesday. "I believe Governor Dean is a good chairman. He's doing a good job," Richardson, the head of the Democratic Governors' Association, told reporters at the start of a two-day visit to New Hampshire. "He's not the spokesman for the party. It's governors, it's senators, it's party leaders." Last weekend, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards criticized Dean for his recent remarks. Dean told a group of...

LANCASTER, Pa. - Tristan Egolf, a political activist and author whose first novel at age 27 won him comparisons to William Faulkner and John Steinbeck, has died. He was 33. Egolf died May 7 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Lancaster apartment, said G. Gary Kirchner, Lancaster County coroner. Egolf had shown signs of depression over the past 18 months, said Michael Hoober, a family therapist in Lancaster and friend of Egolf. "He pushed the envelope wherever he went," Hoober said. "His creativity was always right in front of him, but somewhere in there it started to fall apart."...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

A Falls Church man who worked as a federal informant on terrorism set himself on fire in front of the White House yesterday, hours after announcing his suicide attempt and citing his growing despondency over how the FBI managed his case. Mohamed Alanssi, 52, approached the northwest guardhouse on Pennsylvania Avenue about 2:05 p.m. and asked the security detail to deliver a note to President Bush. When uniformed Secret Service officers turned him away, he stepped about 15 feet from the guard post and used a lighter to ignite his jacket, according to the U.S. Park Police.

Senator John Kerry is once again making claims that he cannot substantiate. He charges that President Bush’s “misjudgments” led to the disappearance of 380 tons of explosives from the Iraqi al-Qaqaa facility, and that these explosives have been used against U.S. troops -- even though there is no proof for such accusations. While the Kerry campaign has already released a television ad making such allegations, they simultaneously have backed off from the same charges. Senator Kerry’s TV ad states: The obligation of a Commander in Chief is to keep our country safe. In Iraq, George Bush has overextended our troops...

One reason Sen. John Kerry isn't gaining traction in his presidential bid is that he keeps contradicting himself. Speaking in Cincinnati on Wednesday, he attacked President Bush's Iraq policy. He's running a TV ad voicing the same theme. "George W. Bush's wrong choices have led America in the wrong direction on Iraq and left America without the resources we need here at home," he said in Cincy. "I call this course a catastrophic choice that has cost us $200 billion because we went it alone, and we've paid an even more unbearable price in young American lives ... $200 billion...

Bank president fights for soldier after robbery Published Monday, June 14, 2004 FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - Seven hours from his Army post and thousands of miles from the Iraq war he left behind, Master Sgt. Kenneth Schweitzer confessed to walking into an Iowa bank, firing shots into the ceiling and walking out with a bag of cash. He drove straight to a police station and turned himself in, saying he didn’t need the money, he just wanted to live in an 8-by-8-foot cell, authorities said. The case has baffled police and acquaintances of Schweitzer, a 38-year-old father and decorated...