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Zhou Yongjun, 42, faces a third prison term in China after being handed over to the mainland by the police in Hong Kong. Mr Zhou, who has lived in the United States since seeking political asylum in 1992, was arrested last September. His subsequent transfer to the authorities in China, who have accused him of travelling on a false passport, has ignited fury in Hong Kong, which remains regulated by British law. Mr Zhou's lawyer, Chen Zerui, said the charges were without foundation. Mr Zhou emerged into the spotlight when he and two other students knelt on the steps of...

The international press finally reports on Castro's violence. Perhaps because the victim is a darling of the left as well as the right. ---------- Yoani Sanchez is a blogger who persists in offending Cuba’s dictatorial masters by continuing to think freely. For this reason, Time called her one of the most influential people in the world. I call her the most dangerous woman in Cuba, because the gravest offense a Cuban resident can commit is to think and act independently. On November 6, Sanchez — who writes about the absurdity of life in the “workers’ paradise” at a blog called...

Regulators close two Florida banks and on in California, costing the FDIC $986.4 million. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two Florida banks and one in California failed Friday night, bring the 2009 national tally to 123. Regulators closed Century Bank, Federal Savings Bank in Sarasota, Fla., Orion Bank in Naples, Fla., and Pacific Coast National Bank in San Clemente, Calif. Customers of all the failed banks are protected, however. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has insured bank deposits since the Great Depression, currently covers customer accounts up to $250,000.

H1N1 swine flu killed an estimated 3,900 Americans from April to October, U.S. health officials said Thursday. Better estimates show that the pandemic of flu has infected an estimated 22 million Americans and put 98,000 in the hospital, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Of these totals, children account for 8 million of the infected, 36,000 of those in hospital and 540 deaths.

A prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations, cops said yesterday. Police busted Lionel McIntyre, 59, for assault yesterday after his bruised victim, Camille Davis, filed charges. McIntyre and Davis, who works as a production manager in the school's theater department, are both regulars at Toast, a popular university bar on Broadway and 125th Street, sources said. The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about "white privilege" with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also...

A prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations, cops said yesterday. Police busted Lionel McIntyre, 59, for assault yesterday after his bruised victim, Camille Davis, filed charges. McIntyre and Davis, who works as a production manager in the school's theater department, are both regulars at Toast, a popular university bar on Broadway and 125th Street, sources said. The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about "white privilege" with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also...

Unemployment, now in the double digits, may remain "high" for several years and dampen economy recovery from a brutal recession, a regional central bank official warned on Nov. 10. The U.S. has experienced jobless recoveries following the previous two recessions in 1991 and 2001, when job creation remained weak for several years following the business cycle trough. "In both cases, output growth was less robust than in the typical recovery and, unfortunately, things seem to be shaping up similarly this time around," said Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Unemployment jumped to double digits in...

Clueless Chris Matthews: "See - we have a problem," Matthews said. "How do we know when someone like Hasan is going to make his move and do we know he's an Islamist until he's made his move? He makes a phone call or whatever, according to Reuters right now. Apparently he tried to contact al Qaeda. Is that the point at which you say, ‘This guy is dangerous?' That's not a crime to call up al Qaeda, is it? Is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?" [VIDEO AT SITE]I love it how Dr. Jasser is trying to...

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - As if going off to war, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan cleaned out his apartment, gave leftover frozen broccoli to one neighbor and called another to thank him for his friendship—common courtesies and routines of the departing soldier. Instead, authorities say, he went on the killing spree that left 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, dead. Investigators examined Hasan's computer, his home and his garbage Friday to learn what motivated the suspect, who lay in a coma, shot four times in the frantic bloodletting that also wounded 30. Hospital officials said some of the wounded had...

Plus, Ron Reagan couples "tea baggers" with Murderer Nidal Hasan. In 2008 The George Washington University Homeland Security Institute (HSPI) initiated a transition task force to help craft homeland security policies during Obama's transition period. In May of 2009 HSPI finished its report titled, "Thinking Anew-Security Priorities for the Next Administration." One of the members of this Obama transition project was none other than the Muslim murderer Nidal Hassan. Nidal is listed in Appendix C, Page 29 of the HSPI report as having served as a "Task Force Event Participant," in his position with the Uniformed Services University School of...

Egypt (AINA) -- On October 24, 2009 Egyptian State Security arrested a Christian Copt in the village of Deir Samalout, Samalout, Minia province, for praying "without a license." He was held in prison for two days before being released on "compassionate grounds." Maurice Salama Sharkawy, 37 years old, had invited Pastor Elia Shafik, to conduct the sacrament of the 'Anointing of the Sick' for his sick father, who had suffered a stroke. State Security broke into his house while the prayers were ongoing, handcuffed Maurice, put him into a police car and took him to a police station for interrogation....

FOX is getting testimony from officer that he heard the shooter make several anti-American, pro-Muslim/jihad-like statements about Muslims need to rise up against the Western agressors and engage in violent attacks against the military like the shooter in Little Rock, AR. This dude was reported concerning his threatening statements and was still walking around. Don't you just love our politically correct Army. I'm talking about some of those libs at the top, not the real soldiers who are fantastic.

Stunned and angry, national gay rights leaders Wednesday blamed scare-mongering ads — and President Barack Obama's lack of engagement — for a bitter election setback in Maine that could alter the dynamics for both sides in the gay-marriage debate.

Republican Bob McDonnell easily won the Virginia governor’s race last night just a year after the state went overwhelmingly for President Obama and the Democrats. Unofficial results showed the former state attorney general defeated his Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds. The state had a Republican governor for the past eight years. The Virginia race and the contest for governor of New Jersey are viewed as the first referendum on Mr Obama and the Democratic Congress before the 2010 mid-term elections. A year ago, Mr Obama became the first Democrat in 44 years to carry Virginia in a presidential race. This time...

U.S. President Barack Obama and European Union leaders pledged on Tuesday to redouble efforts for a deal on climate change at a summit in Copenhagen, but gave no details of how to reach that ambitious goal. "We discussed climate change extensively and all of us agreed that it was imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to ensure that we create a framework for progress," Obama told reporters. The U.N. conference to fight climate change will be held in Copenhagen from December 7 to 18, pitting emerging economic powerhouses China and...

NJ: 8,519 Christie [R] 4,019 Corzine [D] 1,125 Daggett [I]

TONIGHT: RESULTS... REPUBLICAN TAKES VA: 656,124 McDonnell [R] 427,075 [D] NJ: 11,652 Christie [R] 7,930 Corzine [D] 1,894 Daggett [I] NY: 9 PM Hoffman [C] Owens [D] ABCNEWS: Vast Economic Discontent Spells Trouble for Dems in 2010...

Fox News just called the Virginia gubernatorial race for Republican Bob McDonnell. Exit polls show him defeating Democrat Creigh Deeds in a landslide. Republicans also have captured the Lt. Governor and Attorney General spots, making it a clean sweep.

Now that the Obama administration is attempting to take a victory lap on the U.S. economic recovery, claiming the $787-billion stimulus passed earlier this year was what did the trick, despite a cost of $160,000 per 'stimulus' job, as ABC's Jake Tapper pointed out, it has come at the cost of the U.S. dollar. Since then, the stock market has rebounded nicely. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is off a March low of 6,547 points, even topping the 10,000-mark recently. But what has caused this nearly 50-percent jump? According to CNBC's Larry Kudlow - loose monetary policy by the...

Steven MalangaFeral Detroit Nature is reclaiming the Motor City. Autumn 2009 We usually apply the word “feral,” which means “reverting to a wild state,” to domesticated animals that are abandoned and must survive on their own. But in rapidly shrinking Detroit, where tens of thousands of structures have sat empty for years, people are starting to describe houses and neighborhoods as feral—that is, as places where human activity ceased so long ago that nature has reclaimed them. Two Detroit residents writing for the blog Sweet Juniper describe these feral houses as places that “for a few beautiful months during...

It's been another dreadful week in the war of civilizations. On Sunday, 153 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in back-to-back car bombings in Baghdad. On Tuesday in Kabul, five UN staffers and three Afghans were killed in an attack on a UN guesthouse. And on Wednesday in Pakistan, 100 people - mostly women and children - were killed and 160 wounded in a shopping district bombing in Peshawar. The week also saw 24 American service personnel killed in Afghanistan, making 58 fatalities for the month - the deadliest since 9/11. This is a war of civilizations in...

Robert Kagan wondered this morning if The One will ever be prepared to play hardball with Iran or if the “plan” is, in fact, eternal negotiation while they perfect their bombmaking technique. We’ll know soon. The proposal would have depleted Iran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel below the threshold necessary for making a single nuclear bomb, possibly creating diplomatic breathing room for a broader agreement between Tehran and those worried about its atomic research program. But according to the diplomat, Iran wants to send its uranium abroad in smaller batches over an undetermined stretch of time rather than the lump transfer...

President Barack Obama traveled overnight to receive the remains of fallen soldiers whose bodies were returning from Afghanistan. Obama made a midnight trip to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first stop back in the U.S. for soldiers who are killed in combat, where he awaited an Air Force C-17 transporting the remains of 15 U.S. soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Agency agents killed in Afghanistan this week. Obama met at a chapel on-base with family members of the fallen Americans, and boarded the C-17 for a short ceremony to witness the "dignified transfer" of the soldiers' remains. The...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a big number that only tells part of the story. The number of banks that have failed so far this year topped 100 on Friday — hitting 106 by the end of the day — the most in nearly two decades. But the trouble in the banking system from bad loans and the recession goes even deeper. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other banks remain open even though they are as weak as many that have been shuttered. Regulators are seizing banks slowly and selectively — partly to avoid inciting panic and partly because buyers for bad...

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BERLIN -- Midway through a propaganda video released last month by a group calling itself the German Taliban, a surprise guest made an appearance: a cleanshaven, muscular gunman sporting the alias Abu Ibrahim the American. The gunman did not speak but wore military fatigues and waved his rifle as subtitles identified him as an American. The video contained a stream of threats against Germany if it did not withdraw its troops from the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan... U.S. and European counterterrorism officials say a rising number of Western recruits -- including Americans -- are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to...

Bright, eager—and unwanted. While unemployment is ravaging just about every part of the global workforce, the most enduring harm is being done to young people who can't grab onto the first rung of the career ladder. Affected are a range of young people, from high school dropouts, to college grads, newly minted lawyers and MBAs across the developed world from Britain to Japan. One indication: In the U.S., the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds climbed to more than 18%, from 13% a year ago. For people just starting their careers, the damage may be deep, long-lasting, potentially creating a...

War Strategy: When Bush and Petraeus proposed the surge in Iraq, Democrats demanded that the general testify before Congress. So why has the Senate blocked a similar invitation to our commander in Afghanistan? Those with memories longer than the 24-hour news cycle recall that in the dark days of the Iraq War, David Petraeus was summoned to Washington to explain the surge strategy that would eventually lead to victory in Iraq. Democrats hoped for a show trial. MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times labeling the commanding general of our efforts in Iraq "General Betray-us." Then...

A woman was charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition and battery after reportedly exposing herself this weekend to teen football players in Ocala, a Web site is reporting. An intoxicated Venus Lewis, 41, is accused of pulling her pants down in front of two 16-year-old boys at the E.D. Croskey Recreation Center on Saturday and performing a sex act on herself, according to Ocala.com.

A murder victim in a home invasion had just gotten out of the hospital when she was dragged by her hair, at gunpoint, through the house to wake up family members and show the robbers where the family's treasures were hidden, her uncle told the Post-Dispatch today. Whitrock says he thinks he knows why the family was targeted. "They have a very nice home and I think they are one of the only white families on that block," he said. Whitrock said there had been other problems with criminals at the Hickory Street family home. He said his brother, Stallis'...

If you’ve seen the movie Thelma and Louise, you’ll never forget the ending: In the last scene, the two main characters head down a dirt road in their top-down convertible. The road dead-ends at a very high cliff. The last picture of the movie shows the car in a dramatic free-fall off the cliff. That ending is a perfect metaphor for the fate of the United States dollar. Our currency is headed for a free-fall off a cliff in the international foreign-exchange markets. Why is this almost a certainty? Consider the following: At no other time in our nation’s...

Hiding Behind Synonyms: Obama Begins Campaign to Throw Gen. McChrystal Under the Bus Erick Erickson Monday, October 5th at 11:33AM EDT If they had gone to the New York Times, the nation would see it as just another example of the Gray Lady’s unrepentant sixties bra burning hysteria against war. Instead, the Obama administration has gone to the Washington Post to begin the process of getting rid of their troublesome General who dares to think winning in Afghanistan is possible.To understand why and how, we must refer to Jonah Goldberg and his important work Liberal Fascism. This book is necessary...

Here is video of Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying in a speech that whatever decision President Obama makes about what to do in Afghanistan, the military will "salute" and fall in line to implement his decision. Gates said Obama's decision will be one of the most important of his Presidency. . . . (VIDEO)

The government said the fund that protects consumer bank deposits has fallen into the red and will remain there into 2012, a pointed symbol of how the aftershocks of the financial crisis will reverberate for years as banks continue to fail at a high rate. The negative balance is a headache for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which runs the fund. On Tuesday, it proposed the unprecedented step of having the banking industry prepay $45 billion in fees by the end of the year to give the government more breathing room to handle future failures.

Three Essex teenagers were charged Friday with first-degree murder in the strangulation last week of a 25-year-old man in a wheelchair. Baltimore County police identified the three suspects as Keon Torone Samuels, 18, of the 700 block of Walnut Grove Road; Andrew Minh Nguyen, 18, of the 1300 block of Kelly Case Lane; and Marlon Geovany Montes, 19, of the 1300 block of Elsing Road. The victim, Marin Jonathan Lendosky George, was found dead Sept. 18 in his Essex apartment by a maintenance man. Homicide detectives said he had been targeted by the three suspects and murdered in the course...

The U.S. government failed to send promised college tuition checks to tens of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars before they returned to school this fall, even after being warned that it was inadequately staffed for the job. The Veterans Affairs Department blamed a backlog of claims filed for GI Bill education benefits that has left veterans who counted on the money for tuition and books scrambling to make ends meet. Veterans like American University student John Kamin, who received a letter Wednesday from the Army. He was hoping it contained news that his overdue GI Bill...

The sun is setting on the US dollar as the ultra-loose monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve forces China and the vibrant economies of the emerging world to forge a new global currency order, according to a new report by HSBC. The dollar looks awfully like sterling after the First World War," said David Bloom, the bank's currency chief. "The whole picture of risk-reward for emerging market currencies has changed. It is not so much that they have risen to our standards, it is that we have fallen to theirs.

Exhaustion Rate Hits New Record: More Than Half Of Unemployed Exhaust Benefits Before Finding A Job Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/24/2009 11:01 -0500 According to the BLS, the exhaustion rate, or the number of people who have used up their benefits, and will no longer be receiving unemployment checks, has hit an all time high of 52.40% for August. This is a staggering number, and whats worse it was grown in practically a linear fashion with not even a hope of a second (third or fourth) derivative green shoot in sight.

KENT, Wash. – Police say a woman with a history of driving infractions, including vehicular homicide, intentionally tried to run down another woman in a grocery store parking lot and then blew a kiss to the victim before driving away. Prosecutors have now charged Shannon Lee Doyle, 35, of Des Moines with Second Degree Assault. The incident happened on December 4, 2008 at the Albertson's at 20600 108th Avenue Southeast in Kent. According to probable cause documents, detectives say the victim had a just parked her car and she and her daughter got out to go into the store. A...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Counterterrorism officials have issued security bulletins to police around the nation about terrorists' desire to attack stadiums, entertainment complexes and hotels—the latest in a flurry of such internal warnings as investigators chase a possible bomb plot in Denver and New York. In the two bulletins—sent to police departments Monday and obtained by The Associated Press—officials said they know of no specific plots against such sites, but urged law enforcement and private companies to be vigilant. These two bulletins followed on the heels of a similar warning about the vulnerabilities of mass transit systems.

Everyone seems to think we're coming out of the recession, but a report due Monday suggests the much-ballyhooed recovery is still far away. Chicagoans put the brakes on shopping in the first half of the year, cutting back more dramatically than in previous recessions and signaling a bleak holiday shopping season ahead, according to the report from Chicago-based Melaniphy & Associates Inc. Retail sales in the metropolitan Chicago area fell a record $5.8 billion, or 11.5 percent, to $44.8 billion in the first six months of 2009 from the same period a year ago, said the report, based on recently...

BELLEVILLE -- Two Belleville West High School students were charged under the juvenile code today with felony counts of aggravated battery stemming from the violent beating of a 17-year-old student on a school bus earlier this week. VIDEO OF BEATING The incident grabbed national headlines and incited a heated debate about race when police said the incident, involving a white victim and black assailants, may have been racially motivated. They later recanted that claim. The two teenagers—who are 14 and 15 years-old—were charged as juveniles because they are under the age of 17. Illinois law shields the disclosure of their...

A computer belonging to alleged al Qaeda suspect Najibullah Zazi showed he had researched baseball and football stadiums and sites used in the recent Fashion Week event in New York City, law enforcement officials tell ABCNews.com. As the 24-year-old was being questioned for a fourth straight day by FBI agents about his alleged ties to al Qaeda, law enforcement officials said the Denver man's computer showed he had researched baseball and football stadiums and sites used in the recent Fashion Week event in New York City. Zazi, 24, was scheduled to be questioned for a fourth straight day today by...

Forty-two states lost jobs last month, up from 29 in July, with the biggest payroll cuts coming in Texas, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio. The Labor Department says 27 states saw their unemployment rates increase in August, and 14 states and Washington D.C. reported unemployment rates of 10 percent or above.

Just as the government's grip on the lending business for higher education tightens, the Department of Education is reporting that defaults on taxpayer-backed student loans surged in 2007 at the very beginning of the credit crisis, suggesting that more losses are baked in. The national student loan default rate increased to 6.7% in 2007, up from the 2006 rate of 5.2%, the agency reported Monday. "The economic downturn likely had a significant impact on the borrowers captured in these rates," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "The Department is reaching out to make sure current and prospective student borrowers...

An Iraqi man who witnesses said shouted abuse before throwing a shoe at a US army vehicle was shot dead on Wednesday in what the American military said was a suspected grenade attack. Residents told an AFP reporter in Fallujah that Ahmed Latif, 32, whom they said was mentally disturbed, insulted the soldiers as they patrolled in the centre of the city, and then hurled a shoe at them. The US military told AFP that a convoy in Fallujah had been attacked with a suspected grenade. "Positive identification of the attacker was made, and US forces fired in self-defence wounding...

Goodnight, America A Jihad Grows in Brooklyn byPaul L. Williams, Ph.D.thelastcrusade.org Bam! Bam! Bam!It’s 3:30 a.m. in Brooklyn and Mohammad Boota, a Pakistani immigrant, is beating his barrel drum along Coney Island Avenue and Foster AvenueBoota, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1992 from Pakistan, is joined by other drummers, other Pakistani immigrants, as the cries of muezzins ring out from loud speakers throughout the borough.The racket goes on every morning during Ramadan.The pounding of the drums, Boota explains, is necessary to wake believers so they can eat a meal before the day’s fasting must begin.“Everywhere they complain,” Boota...

Not sure what that means — were the Madrid bombings, for instance, “on the scale of 9/11″? — but an awful lot of people in the know are scrambling. Combine this with that ominous Journal piece from last night and it sure sounds like someone’s worried about WMD, probably of the chemical variety given the FBI warnings to cops about foul odors and large window fans.

NATO-led forces are investigating the death of four Marines in eastern Afghanistan after their commanders reportedly rejected requests for artillery fire in a battle with insurgents, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. Tuesday's incident was "under investigation" and details remained unclear, press secretary Geoff Morrell told a news conference. A McClatchy newspapers' journalist who witnessed the battle reported that a team of Marine trainers made repeated appeals for air and artillery support after being pinned down by insurgents in the village of Ganjgal in eastern Kunar province. The U.S. troops had to wait more than an hour for attack helicopters to...