Free Republic

LEWISTON - No federal charges will be lodged against the city man who rolled a pig's head into a local mosque last year. "We're not going forward with our prosecution," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Halsey Frank said Friday. Brent Matthews, 33, said the frozen head slipped from his hands one night last summer and rolled through the open door of the Lisbon Street storefront that serves as a mosque for members of the Somali community. He was later arrested and charged with the misdemeanor of defacement and desecration of a place of worship. The Maine Attorney General's Office was successful...

The imam of the Taipei Grand Mosque complained to Taiwan's foreign minister for sending him a greeting card for the Chinese New Year showing four pigs, a newspaper said on Saturday. After receiving the New Year card, Imam Ma Hsiao-chi pointed out to the Foreign Ministry that the card was offensive to Muslims, the Liberty Times reported. Muslims do not eat pork and regard pigs as unclean animals. But the ministry defended Foreign Minister Huang Chih-fang's sending out the greeting cards, which were printed because 2007 is the Year of Pig according to the Chinese lunar calendar. "Sending New Year...