Free Republic

The organization for truckers serving California harbors supports a Bush administration plan to check the backgrounds of port workers as long as it doesn't interfere with their livelihood, an official said Tuesday. However, a longshore union official called the plan "harassment." The government envisions looking into the backgrounds of hundreds of thousands of workers in the most sensitive areas of the nation's ports, and also issuing tamper-proof identification cards. Stephanie Williams, vice president of the California Trucking Association, said she supported background checks if they are quick and don't interfere with the work of the nearly 12,000 truckers at the...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - Salvadoran police have arrested the mother-in-law of a U.S. Teamster gunned down in El Salvador last month, along with five other suspects, describing the slaying as a contract killing that was the result of a family dispute. Jose Gilberto Soto, 49, a U.S. citizen of Salvadoran origin from Cliffside Park, N.J., was shot in the back on Nov. 5 outside his family's house in Usulutan, 70 miles southeast of San Salvador. Soto had arrived in El Salvador on Oct. 30 to meet with the country's trade union leaders and port drivers. Rosa Elba Ortiz,...