Free Republic

VIENNA (Reuters) - China says its one-child policy has helped the fight against global warming by avoiding 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the United States. But delegates at U.N. climate change talks in Vienna said on Thursday birth control is unlikely to find favor as a major policy tool, partly because of opposition by the Catholic Church and some developing nations trying to increase their population. Some scientists say that birth control measures far less draconian than China's are wrongly overlooked in the fight against climate change, when the world population is projected to soar to...

Planet formation is a story with a well-known beginning and end, but how its middle plays out has been an enigma to scientists-until now. ADVERTISEMENT A new computer-modeled theory shows how rocky boulders around infant stars team up to form planets without falling into stars. "This has been a stumbling block for 30 years," said Mordecai-Marc Mac Low, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, of planet formation theories. "The reason is that boulders tend to fall into the star in a celestial blink of an eye. Some mechanism had to be found to...

Statement of Attorney General Bob McDonnell on Republican Immigration Proposals For Release: August 29, 2007 Contact: J. Tucker Martin or David Clementson Website: www.vaag.com Phone: 804-786-2071 Email: Tucker.Martin@oag.state.va.us or dclementson@oag.state.va.us Richmond- Attorney General Bob McDonnell issued the following statement regarding today's immigration proposals announced by the Republican leadership in the General Assembly: "Today, the Republican leadership in the General Assembly announced the outline of a broad set of proposals to combat illegal immigration in Virginia. It has become all too clear that the federal government has failed to adequately secure our borders, failed to enact meaningful immigration reform, and failed...

Richard Jewell has passed away.

BRANDON, S.D. (AP) Mom's brownies and other homemade goodies have been banned from grade schools in the Brandon-Valley School District. The ban is intended to protect kids who are allergic to nuts. The "no shared treats" policy means no more suckers, cookies or even apples. And it means shared treats will not be allowed at Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's parties in grade-school classrooms. School district officials say the ban will be strictly enforced. Although the district no longer allows shared treats in elementary schools, students may bring their own snacks from home. The ban does not apply to Brand Valley...

Ensnared in a Texas law that makes accomplices subject to the death penalty, Mr. Foster, 30, is to become the third death row inmate this week, and the 403rd since capital punishment resumed in Texas in 1982, to give his life for a life taken. But unlike most others condemned to death in this state, Mr. Foster, a former gang member and aspiring musician and now a prison poet from San Antonio, is not a murderer in the usual sense. He was convicted and sentenced to die for abetting a killing — 80 feet away — that he might, or...

CLEVELAND The retired bishop of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese testified Wednesday in federal court that he felt betrayed by a trusted top aide when he heard about alleged kickbacks in the church. Former Bishop Anthony Pilla, 74, testified in the trial of Anton Zgoznik, a former church accountant charged with paying kickbacks to his old boss, the top-ranking lay executive of the diocese. Pilla testified that he was unaware of any extra money paid to the diocese’s former chief financial officer, Joseph Smith, who faces trial later. The prosecution has alleged that Zgoznik funneled $785,000 in kickbacks to Smith, through...

Food agency studies request to lift ban designed to keep out diseases. China, the nation that has been battling scandals over contaminated exports ranging from pet food to toys, wants to export chicken that was raised, processed and cooked in China, to Canada. As it stands, Canada does not allow imports of any poultry from China. Fresh poultry is banned because of concerns about avian flu and Newcastle disease -- the first because it can affect humans, and the latter because it could affect Canada's chickens. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has begun studying a Chinese request to re-examine Canada's...

For decades, God has lavished his followers with linguistic grace regarding what could be considered an epidemic in the prayer world – the use of the word "just." Usually found in a pattern similar to "God, please just [insert petition] and just [insert another petition]," the word "just" has made answering prayers a confusing and tedious process for the Almighty. In response, God declared earlier this month that Christians everywhere may no longer use the word "just" during intercessory prayer, effective immediately.

More than four in 10 French and Germans would like to see Democratic candidate and former first lady Hillary Clinton elected US president in 2008, a survey by a Canadian pollster showed on Wednesday. The Angus Reid institute also found Clinton to be the preferred candidate of British, Italian and Canadian respondents to its poll, which asked them to choose between eight of the US politicians running for the nomination. The New York senator, who also leads the domestic polls for her party's nomination to run for the White House -- aiming to become the first female US president ever...

PANAMA, Aug. 29 (Reuters) — The governing party has nominated a lawmaker who was indicted for the drive-by killing of an American soldier in the 1990s as its candidate to head Congress, in a vote likely to upset Washington. The Revolutionary Democratic Party backed the lawmaker, Pedro Miguel González, on Tuesday night, making him almost certain to win the post in a vote Saturday. Mr. González, 42, was indicted in the United States on charges that he shot dead Sgt. Zak A. Hernandez of the Army in June 1992, a day before a visit by President George Bush. At a...

DANBURY, Conn., Aug. 30, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NasdaqGM:FCEL - News), a leading manufacturer of ultra-clean power plants using a variety of fuels for commercial, industrial and utility customers, today announced that Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F - News) will purchase a DFC300MA(tm) fuel cell for its Oakville, Ontario, facility to reduce paint solvent emanating from automotive painting operations by turning fumes from those compounds into 300 kilowatts (kW) of green electricity. The Direct FuelCell(r) (DFC(r)) unit can transform into fuel the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that emanate from enamel base paints and clear coat finishes used in...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve is not rushing to cut benchmark interest rates because it wants to break investors of the view that the central bank is there to bail them out, an article in the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday. Fed watcher Greg Ip, without quoting specific sources, said Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was keen to draw a distinction between keeping financial markets ticking over and ensuring a sound economy. Video More video Hans Redeker of Global Forex Strategy joins CNN to talk about consumer confidence and global interest rates. Play video The article said there...

Can you guess the party affiliation of the following Beltway Bigshots? All of them behaved badly, and none of them had significant members of their own party demanding they resign!Score yourself one point for getting the party affiliation correct...score yourself TWO points for identifying the person described! Answers below...Parties of: 1-a senator who drove off a bridge, killing a young woman not his wife. 2-a senator who used the term "white n-word" twice in a nationally televised interview. 3-a senator who praised a former Klan member, saying he would have made a fine President. 4-a member of the House of...

...beyond my ability to shoot and think, I would be a burden on any infantry force in a desperate situation in which everyone needs to pull his own load and assist others with theirs. I think this is true for most war correspondents, though many would never admit it. Infantry campaigning is difficult, and it has been ever since man first picked up a few stones, shouldered a club, and moved against a neighboring tribe. And despite modern weapon-systems and many of the new modes of delivery — helicopter, various ground conveyances — that difficulty has not changed. Of course,...

Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the only officer to face trial over the Abu Ghraib detainee-abuse scandal, was issued a reprimand yesterday by a military jury, a punishment that spares him all prison time after he was convicted this week on one count of disobeying an order. The jury could have sentenced Jordan to as much as five years in prison and ordered his dismissal from the Army. Instead, he received one of the lightest punishments available. Jordan was convicted for contacting other soldiers about the military's 2004 investigation into the Abu Ghraib abuse after he was ordered not...

Houses abandoned to foreclosure are beginning to breed trouble, adding neighbors to the growing ranks of victims. ... Chris Ragsdale, the Los Angeles Police Department's senior lead officer for Westwood and Bel-Air, recalled one case from the end of that era, when a group of men moved into a foreclosed house in Pacific Palisades. The squatters changed the locks, turned on the electricity and brought in furniture. When the agent trying to sell the place showed up, they maintained that they had a lease. "If you know what you're doing, you can get six months in a place with a...

A huge number of Americans own stocks and bonds, but some of the largest investors are company, state and federal pension plans. With the financial power of these pension plans exercised by a few experts, most people have been unaware that the pension plan on which they rely -- or in which their state government invests -- may be supporting terrorist governments. US law prevents direct investment in terrorist states, but companies that do business with those countries are lawful investments for US pension plans. To reverse that, Missouri, Louisiana, California and other states are leading a national effort to...

Usefulness or Relationship? " Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven" —Luke 10:20 Jesus Christ is saying here, "Don’t rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service— rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If...

TORONTO (CP) - Canadians can expect near normal temperatures and precipitation as the days get shorter and the kids go back to school. The Weather Network's fall forecast says it expects slightly below temperatures for most of the country in the upcoming months. It says summer began with above normal temperatures, but by August temperatures dropped slightly, balancing out values to near normal from coast to coast. Looking ahead, the Weather Network says the current near normal temperature trend should continue into the start of fall. Meteorologist Jose Varela is then calling for slightly below normal temperatures for most of...