Free Republic

N. Korea enriching uranium as leader's health may be relapsing: S. Korea SEOUL, June 30 (Yonhap) -- North Korea appears to be "definitely" pressing ahead with uranium enrichment that would give it another means to build nuclear arms, South Korea's defense chief said Tuesday. Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee also said in a parliamentary hearing that recent outside observations concerning North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could suggest he is experiencing a relapse in his health. Kim, 67, reportedly suffered a stroke in August last year but has since recovered enough to reassert control over his secretive regime. Health experts say the...

Eliot Spitzer has departed the national stage in ignominy, but the damage he did as an unrestrained state Attorney General lives on, notably in a dubious 5-4 victory yesterday before the Supreme Court. The case is Cuomo v. Clearing House Association, but it was Mr. Spitzer, New York AG Andrew Cuomo's promiscuous predecessor, who brought the suit in 2005. At issue was whether New York's AG could demand mortgage data from federally chartered banks to fish for evidence of discrimination under the state's fair lending laws. Mr. Spitzer was running for Governor, and he wanted to play the racial lending...

Sitting in a Durham County jail cell, Frank M. Lombard, the Duke University researcher accused of offering his adopted 5-year-old son for sex, awaits a trip to Washington, D.C., this week to face federal criminal charges. After waiving an extradition hearing Friday morning, he was locked in the Durham jail Saturday without bail. Federal authorities say Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail, performed sexual acts on his son and invited an undercover investigator online to fly to North Carolina and do the same. Lombard owns the home with another man, according to Durham County property records. The pair bought...

GM to pull out of joint venture with Toyota at California plant General Motors says it and Toyota can't agree on what vehicle to build at the NUMMI plant in Fremont. The move jeopardizes the future of the last vehicle assembly plant in California. By Ken Bensinger and Julie Strack June 30, 2009 Reporting from Los Angeles and Fremont -- America's auto crisis has stretched beyond the Midwest all the way to California. The state's last automobile plant is facing potential closure after General Motors Corp. said Monday that it would drop out of the joint venture with Toyota Motor...

President Barack Obama said Monday he is confident the U.S. and Colombia ultimately can reach a deal on a stalled trade agreement, despite continuing differences about the killings of labor leaders in Colombia. "It is important that Colombia pursue a path of rule of law," Obama said after White House meetings with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Obama said more progress is needed in the world's most dangerous country for union organizing, but noted that the number of labor deaths is on a "downward trajectory" while the number of those prosecuted for the "blatant human rights offenses" has gone up. Of...

    Speaker Pelosi's National Energy Tax: More Mandates, More Regulations, More Costs Posted by Jessica R. Towhey on June 26, 2009 Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax is going to raise electricity prices, increase gasoline prices, and ship American jobs overseas to countries like China and India.  This, we know.  It would be a bureaucratic nightmare overseen by a confusing web of government agencies that would take and redistribute trillions of dollars from family budgets and workers payrolls.  This, we also know.  Even Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) admitted in the Washington Post this morning that: “The truth is, nobody knows for sure...

Time is running out for the legislatures in Arizona, California, Indiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania to solve budget gaps. The last time Indiana missed its deadline for passing a budget and had to shut down the government was during the Civil War. But on Monday... Indiana is one of five states -- along with Arizona, California, Mississippi and Pennsylvania -- bracing for possible shutdowns this week as time runs out for lawmakers to close billion-dollar gaps in their fiscal 2010 budgets. Of the 46 states whose fiscal year ends today, 32 did not have budgets passed and approved by their governors...

Expect Congress to seriously consider a value-added tax. Only five months after Inauguration Day, the focus of Washington's economic and domestic policy is already shifting. This reflects the emergence of much larger budget deficits than anyone expected. Indeed, federal deficits may average a stunning $1 trillion annually over the next 10 years. This worsened outlook is stirring unease on Main Street and beginning to reorder priorities for President Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership. By 2010, reducing the deficit will become their primary focus.

A local bakery chain in St. Louis County had words for liberal Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-MO) today after he voted for the largest tax increase on small business in US history on Friday- the Cap and Trade bill. The owner of McArthur's Bakery in St. Louis called into The Jamie Allman Show this morming on 97.1 FM and said that the enormous costs that this bill will heap on small business will cause his chain of bakeries to close shop. He later posted this message for drivers on Lemay Ferry Road in South St. Louis County. "Russ Carnahan voted to...

Islamic seminary Deoband's condemnation on Monday of moves to repeal Section 377 of IPC to legalise same sex liaisons -- by calling it a wish of an "ungodly few" -- set off fears that conservative religious opinion could dilute the resolve of the government to "decriminalise homosexuality". The seminary, reacting to statements from government circles that there was a case for scratching Section 377, called it a "contemptible move likely to corrupt the gullible in society". The strong criticism may well increase the wariness that has marked the reactions of ministers after initially signalling a preparedness to legalise homosexuality. While...

PHOENIX — Saying it will make people safer, state senators voted Friday to let people with concealed weapons permits carry them onto college and university campuses where they are now forbidden. The 15-6 vote on the provision in HB 2439 came after backers said they believe that having people who are licensed by the state to have weapons should cut down on the number of massacres that occur on campuses. And Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, said that has happened in Arizona. He did not refer by name to the 2002 incident at the University of Arizona where three instructors at...

Martin Luther King can rest easy. His dream is being protected by the Supreme Court - against and over the opinion of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The high court's landmark decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven, Conn., firefighters case, is a dramatic stride toward the cherished goal of achieving a colorblind society. In Ricci, the court told us that people of ability can succeed regardless of skin color, and government bureaucrats seeking racially biased outcomes can be thwarted in their racist designs.

Hondurans awoke Monday in a country with two presidents. One, adjusting to his second day of exile, is still recognized by countries around the world. The other, who enjoys the strong backing of all of Honduras's major institutions, has quickly become a diplomatic pariah. Roberto Micheletti, a 63-year-old businessman and stalwart Liberal Party member, took the oath of office Sunday to replace another Liberal politician, Manuel Zelaya, 56, a rich rancher who was deposed in a predawn raid that day and exiled to Costa Rica. Mr. Zelaya is a tall man who sports a trademark Stetson. He studied industrial engineering,...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her plan to cut taxes despite the country's soaring budget deficit as she introduced her conservative alliance's manifesto ahead of national elections in September. Lower incomes taxes would "provide motivation" and encourage economic growth, Ms. Merkel told a conference of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. "It would be wrong not to do what is right and necessary for growth, and so prevent ourselves emerging quickly from this crisis," Ms. Merkel said in her conference speech. ANGELA MERKEL The conservative parties' election platform promises tax cuts...

Senior judge suspended over allegations about scandalous affair with 25-year-old rent boy By STEVE DOUGHTY 30th June 2009 Judge Gerald Price has been suspended over accusations regarding his relationship with a rent boy A senior criminal judge has been suspended following allegations surrounding an affair with a male prostitute. Judge Gerald Price QC was stood down until an investigation is completed into his conduct during a relationship with a rent boy 35 years his junior. The judge, who is married, was said to have invited the prostitute to sit beside him during court hearings, to have taken him along on...

The Lower Mainland in British Columbia has become a playground for up-and-coming gangsters in the drug trade. The innocent who get caught in the crossfire are often young too.The latest mayhem started at the end of March, when 21-year-old Sean Murphy, a popular former high school hockey player, drove into a withering blast of gunfire near Bateman Park. He was probably dead before his car coasted to a stop in the weeds. That same night, Ryan Richards, 19, abruptly left a friend's house after getting a cellphone call. His body was found the next morning behind a rural produce store....

Fauquier County is working to get funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The latest information says that they're seeking a grant of $2 million with which to purchase foreclosed homes. They also acknowledge that they're more likely to get only $1 million. There are certainly still a fair number of foreclosed homes around. Out of the 75 homes sold in Fauquier last month, 28 of them were foreclosures. Out of those 28, 15 would fall into the price range (130K to 250K) that the county is looking at. But the number of foreclosures in the lower price ranges is shrinking...

June 30, 2009                             Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week                                     in Ordinary Time       Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Gn 19:15-29 As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, "On your way!Take with you your wife and your two daughters who are here,or you will be swept away in the punishment of Sodom."When he hesitated, the men, by the LORD's mercy,seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughtersand led them to safety outside the city.As soon as they...

Syrian officials reiterated their threat to forcefully take the Golan Heights from Israel unless an agreement between the two countries is reached soon. During a ceremony Saturday inaugurating a new communications center in Kuneitra, the Syrian town closest to the border with Israel, the Syrian Committee for the Liberation of the Golan threatened to take practical measures to return the Golan to Syrian control, adding that Israel was not showing any willingness to negotiate the return of the territory in peace talks. Syrian President Bashar Assad was also present at the ceremony. Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said that the...

HOUSTON — A 50-year-old woman watching the annual Pride Houston Parade was kicked and stomped by a police horse and will likely need plastic surgery. Kirste Reimers didn't notice mounted police officers approaching, trying to keep pedestrians from spilling off the sidewalks into the street during Saturday night's parade, according to a Houston Chronicle report. She found herself being trampled, and suffered bruising over most of her body. Her chin was split open, teeth were knocked and her head was slammed on the asphalt. She spent the night in an emergency room. ... Police said the officers and their horses...