Free Republic

As the time for afternoon prayers approaches, Onder Soy puts on a white robe and cap and switches on the microphone in a small 19th century room adjoining the Hagia Sophia. Soon, Soy’s melodic call to prayer rings out over a square filled with tourists hurrying to visit some of Turkey’s most famous historical sights before they close for the day. The room Soy is in — built as a resting place for the sultan and now officially called the Hagia Sophia mosque — fills up with around 40 worshipers, drawn not by the modestly decorated space itself, but by...

A muezzin’s call to prayer reverberated inside the sixth-century Istanbul landmark Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years on July 1. The building in the city’s historic Sultanahmet district broadcast the azan from its minarets following July 1’s Laylat al-Qadr, or night of power, marking the first revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. The broadcast of the morning call to prayer from within Hagia Sophia is likely to reignite controversy over the use of the building, which was designated a museum in 1935 under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic. Although the...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Plans to close Guantanamo are not sitting well with the Sept. 11 victims' relatives who sat stunned while two alleged terrorists declared they were proud of their role in the plot.

The Internal Revenue Service announced new steps to improve reporting and disclosure by tax-exempt "section 527" political groups. The new initiative will include contacting section 527 political groups whose filings appear to be incomplete, were filed late, or were amended and are materially different from the original filing. The initiative's launch is timed in advance of key upcoming filing dates so that correct information is available to the public as intended by Congress. "This effort will help improve the completeness and accuracy of these important public disclosures," said Steven T. Miller, Commissioner of the IRS Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division....

In late March, the RNC asked the Federal Election Commission to dismiss its complaint about the activities of so-called "527s" - political entities outside the McCain Feingold law that can take unlimited donations without disclosing their donors. The Republican's strategy is to take the 527 issue out of the hands of the FEC and put it directly in the hands of the federal courts. The RNC is hoping to get a court order to stop the 527s dead in their tracks. The FEC is set to act on the RNC's complaint soon. But a high-ranking member of the FEC recently...