Free Republic

Missteps by corrections officials handling releases from state prisons are fueling fears in some California counties that thousands of inmates eligible for early release will spread the coronavirus in their communities. Across the state, county probation officials and others on the front lines of the release of as many as 8,000 inmates by the end of August have complained that prisoners were recently freed with little notice to local authorities and without appropriate transportation or quarantine housing — and in some cases, no clear indication they were virus-free. County officials also have expressed alarm about potentially infected inmates who were...

Sequester cuts Obama Tax Increase DHS Janet Napolitano Related Ads Criminal Law Theft Obama Illegal Immigration Income Tax Taxes Aliens UFO Advertisement On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the Obama administration will continue to release criminal aliens from local jails and detention centers, claiming that the recent sequester cuts demand such action. She made the remarks at an event hosted by the left wing website Politico. Napolitano said: We’re going to continue to do that … for the foreseeable future. We are going to manage our way through this by identifying the lowest risk detainees, and putting...

Scientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere. The methane has been trapped by ice, but is able to escape as the ice melts. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this ancient gas could have a significant impact on climate change. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and levels are rising after a few years of stability. There are many sources of the gas around the world, some natural and some man-made, such as landfill waste disposal sites...

The chief of the secretive US special operations command has lobbied against the release of names of American commandos killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday. Thirty US troops were killed on Friday when their Chinook helicopter was shot out of the sky in a remote Afghan valley, but in a break with Pentagon practice, the identities of the dead service members have not been released. The dead included 22 members of the elite Navy SEAL commandos and three Air Force special operators, and senior officers overseeing the special forces are reluctant to publicly identify the slain...

The Justice Department has announced the release from Gitmo of a terrorist who conspired to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in the 2000 Millennium plot. Hassan Zumiri, who was part of an al-Qaeda affiliated terror cell in Montreal, has been repatriated to his native Algeria — a country so rife with terrorists that it was recently placed on the list of 14 countries whose travelers warrant enhanced screening at airports. Worse, the Justice Department won't say whether the terrorist, Hassan Zumiri, and another Gitmo detainee who was also sent to Algeria will be in custody there. They may be free...

BAGHDAD, Feb. 3, 2009 – Coalition officials in Iraq have started to release detainees in accordance with the security agreement that took effect Jan. 1. The agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi governments requires all detainees to be released in a safe and orderly manner or transferred to Iraqi custody pursuant to a judicial order. Multinational Force Iraq is scheduled to release up to 1,500 detainees a month, or about 50 a day. Those being released this month represent the first group of case files that were reviewed by Iraqi authorities under the security agreement, officials said. “These are fair...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing the early release of more than 20,000 low-risk prison inmates as a way to save money amid a worsening budget crisis. The Sacramento Bee reported on its Web site Thursday that the governor will ask California lawmakers to authorize the release of certain non-serious, nonviolent offenders. The prisoners would have less than 20 months to go on their terms. Sex offenders would not be eligible for release under the proposal. The plan would cut the prison population by 22,159 inmates and save the state $256 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, the...

SEOUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban has decided not to free any of 21 South Korean hostages despite earlier saying two women could go, the Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Sunday citing an insurgents' spokesman. Yonhap quoted Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi as saying: "Our leaders have changed their minds and decided not to free two female hostages." South Korean officials refused to confirm the report. After face-to-face talks between the Taliban and a South Korean delegation, Ahmadi told AFP late Saturday that the two women, who are reported to be ill, were being released unconditionally as a "gesture of goodwill." The...

WHEELING -- "Ud tiene el derecho de permancer callado." Those were the first words spoken by Ohio County Sheriff's Deputy C.R. Bise recently as he placed an illegal immigrant under arrest. The words are familiar to law enforcement here in the Northern Panhandle. "It means, 'You have the right to remain silent,' in Spanish," explained Ohio County Sheriff Tom Burgoyne, who worked for 27 years as an FBI agent before taking office in 2000. "It's the beginning of the Miranda Warning translated, and every one of our 26 active deputies have been given a copy." "We're covering all our bases...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Whether by necessity or design, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget plan due out Monday will propose cuts in spending next year that will touch all corners of state government - even public schools. Bound by promises not to raise taxes and more recently not to paper over debts with accounting maneuvers, the Republican governor appears to have little choice but to cut vigorously in closing the $8 billion shortfall. And interest groups from schools to health care to transportation are nervously awaiting what they expect to be plans for them to receive far less money than they had...