Free Republic

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - A 28-year-old Panamanian accused of killing a judge was eaten by a crocodile as he swam across a river after escaping from prison, police said on Thursday. Oswaldo Martinez, accused of murdering judge Harmodio Mariscal on June 5 during a failed robbery in Panama City, was captured last week by police after fleeing to neighboring Costa Rica. After being held in custody in Costa Rica, Martinez broke out of jail at the weekend and was aiming to reenter Panama through the dense jungle that divides the two Central American countries. Martinez was eaten alive by the...

<p>June 30, 1972 is a date that lives in junk science infamy. That’s when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the insecticide DDT. The ban survives 30 years later, even as it has helped kill millions of people, mostly children.</p>

<p>THOUGH Al Gore has his faults, not even his most unsparing critic thinks he might take it into his head to hijack an airplane. But that didn't stop airport screeners from pulling him out of line as he was preparing to board a flight from Washington to Milwaukee last week and running him through the full ``security'' check: body scanned, briefcase rifled, underwear pawed through. And it didn't stop them from doing it to him again the next day when he flew to New York.</p>

By JIM KRANE, AP Technology WriterNEW YORK - At an arms trade fair in Paris this week, Israel showed the world's military shoppers fruits of its high-tech arms industry, including its Merkava tank, unmanned spy planes and the planet's most sophisticated missile defense system. With its tourist industry all but shuttered by a 21-month Palestinian uprising and high-tech in a slump, the Jewish state depends deeply on the foreign currency earnings of its weapons industry, now the world's 10th largest.Deftly marketed missiles, radar and other products from Israeli companies now compete with those of top-tier arms producers including the United...

An old Russian joke tells the story of a peasant with one cow who hates his neighbor because he has two. A sorcerer offers to grant the envious farmer a single wish. "Kill one of my neighbor's cows!" he demands.Research by two British economists, Daniel Zizzo of Oxford University and Andrew Oswald of Warwick University, suggests there is a good bit of truth behind that joke. In a recent study, Zizzo and Oswald ask, "Are People Willing to Pay to Reduce Others’ Incomes?" "The short answer to this question is: yes," they report. "Our subjects gave up large amounts of...

It's a beautiful love story - and you're in it. In ancient Israel, a Hebrew maiden would grow up longing for the day of her wedding. It was a big affair. The maiden would be dressed like a beautiful queen. She was called the Calah, the Bride. The Hebrew man was dressed like a king. He was called Khatan, the Bridegroom. The preparation would generally take a year and the wedding celebration itself would last 7, 8, sometimes 14 days.The Bible is about a love story with a Jewish wedding at the end. And God is the Khatan, the Bridegroom....

<p>SACRAMENTO - Now that state lawmakers have wrapped up their two-month examination of the Oracle software deal, Attorney General Bill Lockyer is ramping up his criminal investigation of the scandal.</p> <p>Lawyers with the state Department of Justice have begun to set up meetings with key figures involved with the disputed contract, to pore over thousands of pages of testimony and to piece together evidence they have been gathering over the last few weeks.</p>

June 21, 2002Memorial of Aloysius Gonzaga, religious Psalm: Friday Week 28 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading I2 Kgs 11:1-4, 9-18, 20 When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah,saw that her son was dead,she began to kill off the whole royal family.But Jehosheba, daughter of King Jehoram and sister of Ahaziah,took Joash, his son, and spirited him away, along with his nurse,from the bedroom where the princes were about to be slain.She concealed him from Athaliah, and so he did not die.For six years he remained hidden in the temple of the Lord,while Athaliah ruled the land. But in the seventh...

<p>SANTA MONICA — A Santa Monica elementary school has banned the game of tag, once synonymous with youth and innocence, because they say it creates self-esteem issues among weaker and slower children.</p> <p>"We had some children who were not playing 'it' appropriately. How do you differentiate between those that are playing correctly and those that aren't?" asked Franklin Elementary School Principal Pat Samarge.</p>

Attorney slain in 100 North Main parking garage June 21, 2002 An attorney was shot to death just before 9 a.m. today as he was getting out of his car on the fourth floor of the parking garage of the 100 North Main Building. Early reports said he was shot four times by a well dressed man sporting braids. The shooter then fled on foot and got onto a Memphis Area Transit Authority bus.

EDUCATION WEEK - NEWS CLIPPINGS: Chicago Seeks Soldiers For Schools From The Washington Post: June 21. Chicago Public Schools officials are advertising in military magazines and visiting bases in a push for new principals and teachers, particularly young men who might not otherwise consider the profession. It's an idea President Bush embraced during his campaign that has been catching on across the nation. To read the full text of the Washington Post article summarized above, click HERE.

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) -- Israelis from the West Bank settlement of Itamar returning from funerals killed a Palestinian on Friday during a rampage in the village of Hawara, shooting randomly in the streets and burning cars and a home, Palestinian villagers and a hospital official said. Israeli police said they knew of a wounded Palestinian in the area and were checking the circumstances and reports of a settler rampage. Itamar settlers could not immediately be reached to comment on the report. The Jewish settlers attacked the village a day after Palestinian infiltrators entered a home in the settlement, killing...

Americans in Saudi Arabi warned to check cars before starting ABU DHABI — The U.S. embassy has quietly warned its nationals to stay off the streets and check their cars before traveling. Prominent executives working in Saudi Arabia have been alerted to the prospect that they could be under surveillance by Islamic insurgents, Gulf sources said. The warning came in wake of a car bombing in northern Riyad on Thursday. A bomb attached to the car of a British national exploded and killed him. A similar warning has been issued by the British embassy. "This provides a good opportunity to...

The principal of a Catholic school in Ozone Park, Queens, whose pastor is under investigation by the Queens district attorney's office has filed a sexual harassment suit against the Diocese of Brooklyn, charging that for more than 18 months church officials did not respond to her complaints that the pastor intimidated and verbally abused her with sexually explicit language. The complaint, filed yesterday morning in State Supreme Court in Queens, alleges that the pastor, the Rev. John Thompson of St. Elizabeth's parish, continually boasted of his homosexual relationships, describing in detail his activities with an 18-year-old man who lived in...

I.That investment in education is critical for economic growth, improved health, and social progress is beyond question. That poverty is a scourge that the international aid community and industrialized countries should work to eradicate is also beyond question. There is also no doubt that terrorism is a scourge of the contemporary world. What is less clear, however, is whether poverty and low education are root causes of terrorism.In the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, several prominent observers and policymakers have called for increased aid and educational assistance as a means for ending terrorism. "We fight against poverty,"...

WORLD IN FOCUS Interview with Martin van Creveld Broadcast: 20/03/2002 Interviewer: Jennifer Byrne Professor Martin van Creveld, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israel's most prominent military historian. In this interview with Jennifer Byrne he claims that despite the recent increase in Israel's military operations, the huge Israeli defence forces will inevitably lose to the Palestinians. Transcript: Byrne: Thanks for joining us tonight on Foreign Correspondent. How has it come to this, Martin... how is it that the mighty Israeli army – one of the world’s most powerful - with its helicopter gunships, with its tanks, with it’s missiles,...

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - A 28-year-old Panamanian accused of killing a judge was eaten by a crocodile as he swam across a river after escaping from prison, police said on Thursday. Oswaldo Martinez, accused of murdering judge Harmodio Mariscal on June 5 during a failed robbery in Panama City, was captured last week by police after fleeing to neighboring Costa Rica. After being held in custody in Costa Rica, Martinez broke out of jail at the weekend and was aiming to reenter Panama through the dense jungle that divides the two Central American countries. Martinez was eaten alive by the...

<p>On Tuesday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon kicked off his television ad campaign for the Nov. 5 election. The 30-second spot -- which criticizes Gov. Gray Davis' education record -- is entirely in Spanish, and will run for two weeks on Univision, Telemundo and Galavision affiliates across the state. Following is a text of the ad and an analysis by Emily Bazar of The Bee Capitol Bureau.</p>

Chinese fighter jets dropping like fliesBy Brian HsuSTAFF REPORTER Four Su-27 fighter planes of the Chinese air force have crashed or have been severely damaged during flight training over the past six months, Taiwanese defense sources said yesterday, attributing the poor performance to human error. Two of the four planes were damaged while their pilots were trying to land, the sources said. The other two also crashed as a result of human error, they said, without giving further details. It is not known whether any of the pilots were killed. The accidents bring to 15 the number of Chinese air...

Al Qaeda terrorists fleeing Afghanistan are using Iraq as an escape route, and an unspecified number remain in Saddam Hussein's country while looking for new bases of operation. Administration officials, citing intelligence reports, said there is insufficient evidence to confirm that the Iraqi dictator has created a safe zone for al Qaeda remnants. Neighboring Iran's hard-line Islamic regime has welcomed al Qaeda fighters to cross the border from Afghanistan and either remain in the country or move on. Some analysts believe Saddam has to know, and that the presence of al Qaeda fighters in Iraq is one more argument for...