Free Republic

Austin Mother Convicted Of Trying To Kill Her Children A jury finds an Austin woman guilty of trying to poison her two young boys with pesticide. It only took one hour for jurors to find Sailaja Hathaway guilty of two counts attempted capital murder. In the sentencing phase, the prosecution called Hathaway's former psychologist to the stand who testified that she had homicidal thoughts about her children since at least April 2000. Defense attorneys say, when it's their turn, they will show jurors that Hathaway has been suffering from a mental illness. However, they say they're not surprised Hathaway...

<p>Lawmakers investigating intelligence failures before September 11 have not yet examined in closed hearings whether sensitivity to racial profiling prevented federal agents from pursuing Middle Eastern men.</p> <p>"It's never been raised," said a lawmaker who has attended the secret joint hearings by the House and Senate intelligence committees. "I've never heard the issue raised once."</p>

<p>A Republican appointee was one of three federal appeals court judges who yesterday ruled it is unconstitutional to ask school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and vow loyalty to one nation "under God."</p> <p>Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, who wrote the 33-page opinion, was appointed to the bench by President Nixon in 1971 and is listed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals records as a senior member of the court.</p>

No lunch for you By: Randy Yohe, WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Jackson, Oh, June 25 - When you work a full day, You expect to get a lunch break. But when one local food plant recently cut out lunches, hundreds of union workers complained. Then, a lunch break battle turned into a labor-managment war. Luigino's Jackson, Ohio food processing plant is a good sized facility. 850 union employees work around the clock shifts. This is a plant trying to correct what the union says are some health and sanitation issues. It's a plant that found out there are not enough...

<p>HOUSTON — The chief U.S. Border Patrol agent said yesterday that the government has a responsibility to protect Mexican citizens who are illegally crossing into the United States.</p> <p>Speaking at a forum at the 73rd annual convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), David V. Aguilar said that the recent deaths of illegal migrants in Arizona presented a "challenge" to both the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, which is an agency of the INS.</p>

<p>The widening political warfare over the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law — known in some First Amendment circles as the Anti-Free Speech Act — has moved to the Federal Election Commission.</p> <p>In a series of politically split 4-to-2 votes last week, the FEC approved a number of rules to implement the vaguely worded statute. Reformers complain that these rules will open the door to large, unrestricted contributions known as soft money that the law seeks to ban from federal campaigns.</p>

<p>Future terrorist attacks in the United States — which government officials claim are imminent and inevitable — will undoubtedly victimize workers in this country. As such, there is a need to review terrorism's previous impact on labor-management relations so we can better assess how to respond to this menace. Since September 11, there are several initial lessons that can be gleaned in this regard, such as the reality that labor is a potential victim and an important partner in reducing the risk, and that management faces new responsibilities and more lawsuits as it deals with its work force.</p>

<p>Under increasing pressure to do something about the Middle East, the president of the United States has done what any realistic political leader under pressure would do about an intractable problem: He pretended to do something.</p> <p>It was quite a challenge.</p>

<p>Democrats fail and Republicans make the honor roll when it comes to reducing illegal immigration.</p> <p>The end of the school year is a great time to look at congressional members' grades on an important issue heading into the first post-September 11 election year.</p>

<p>CALGARY, Alberta — President Bush said the United States will not accept Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader even if he wins the January elections, for which he announced his candidacy yesterday.</p> <p>"I meant what I said, that there needs to be change. If people are interested in peace, something else has got to happen," Mr. Bush said yesterday after a meeting at the summit of the Group of Eight in Canada. "The status quo is simply unacceptable, and it should be unacceptable to them."</p>

FAA using biometrics to enhance travel safety; smart cards to be available later to public by John Rhea BALTIMORE — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is completing a security program that will provide all transportation workers with smart cards based on their individual biometric characteristics — and the cards will later be available to the traveling public — says Michael Brown, director of information systems security at FAA headquarters in Washington. Brown stressed that all the necessary supporting technology is readily available from commercial sources. The first prototypes were completed last month, he says, and the FAA expects to begin...

<p>Two years ago, politicians and bureaucrats at the European Commission announced their intention to turn the 15 nations of the European Union into "the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010." This is a tall order. Smothered by oppressive tax rates and burdensome regulations, Europe trails the United States by a wide margin.</p>

U.S. MARINES, ISRAEL EXAMINE W. BANK OPERATIONS WASHINGTON [MENL] -- U.S. and Israeli military commanders are studying the massive search-and-destroy operation for Palestinian insurgents in the West Bank. The examination involves the Israeli Defense Forces and the U.S. Marine Corps. The marines want to learn from the Israeli experience in urban warfare. The focus of the joint effort was a review of Israel's capture of the Palestinian refugee camp outside the West Bank city of Jenin. The three-day battle left 23 Israelis and more than 50 Palestinians dead. The military talks took place in both Israel and the United States....

<p>One can agree (or not) with last week's 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court that the death penalty should not apply to retarded citizens because it violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment," and still be troubled by the twisted road the court took to reach its destination.</p>

<p>A federal appeals court in San Francisco yesterday declared the Pledge of Allegiance an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and ruled that California no longer may require its recitation each morning in public schools.</p> <p>"The statement that the United States is a nation 'under God' is an endorsement of religion," two of the three judges of a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. "It is a profession of a religious belief, namely, a belief in monotheism."</p>

<p>The need to be geographically literate is arguably greater today than it has ever been. Yet the results from the geography exam of the 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — more commonly known as the nation's report card — demonstrate that America's children today are as lacking in knowledge of this important subject as they have been for years.</p>

<p>Members of the world's most exclusive club — the developed, democratic Group of Eight — will shortly be travelling to the rural outpost of Kananaskis, Alberta, to meet with each other.</p> <p>Their agenda is full to bursting. Security is paramount — counter-terrorism, Afghan-istan, India and Pakistan, the conflict in the Middle East, nuclear disarmament. The global economy remains fragile; the trajectory of the dollar, the euro and the U.S., French and German stock markets will be feverishly discussed.</p>

<p>Education, my father the grateful immigrant would say, was the glorious prize for growing up in America. He quit school in the eighth grade and always regretted it. He believed education was the passport to understanding the values of this country.</p>

<p>A U.S. law authorizing the State Department to designate groups as "terrorist" and which allows those who support them to be prosecuted has been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge, throwing U.S. anti-terrorism strategies into disarray.</p> <p>A U.S. official who has been dealing with the issue said yesterday there will be "serious problems" if the decision stands on appeal. The U.S. government could no longer use the existing law to prosecute those who give "material support" to groups on the list such as Hamas, al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.</p>

<p>Anthrax fears are still in the air, and no wonder. Despite the search of the home of a researcher from Fort Detrick, investigators are apparently nowhere close to finding out who sent the anthrax-laden letters that killed five persons and sickened at least 13 others last fall.</p>