Free Republic

"Six arrested over hotel terror plot" (UKPA) – 1 day ago SNIPPET: "Pakistan police have arrested six suspected Taliban militants with a suicide vest and hand grenades allegedly on their way to attack a five-star hotel and kill Americans in the country's cultural capital. The militants arrested on the outskirts of Lahore included a 14-year-old boy and a prayer leader from Pakistan's Khyber tribal area near the Afghan border, said police official Zulfikar Hameed. The prayer leader was wearing a vest packed with explosives. They told police they were targeting Americans at the Pearl Continental hotel, he said."

Sgt. Frank Lugo leads a double life. In the United States, he was a successful hedge fund trader with condos in New York and South Beach, Fla. Now he is in an unlikely spot -- Iraq, where he lives in the sprawling slum of Sadr City. "My lifestyle's obviously drastically different back home than it is here," Lugo said. "But there are things that can't be replicated back home that are here. This belief that we're trying to accomplish something that's greater than oneself." Lugo is an Army reservist. At 36, he has re-enlisted four times, swapping fast cars and...

MONACO Jan. 22 — An American male nurse convicted in the arson death of billionaire banker Edmond Safra escaped from prison overnight, police said Wednesday.Ted Maher, originally of Auburn, Maine, was convicted of arson in a 1999 fire in Monaco that also killed one of Safra's other nurses, Vivian Torrente.Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.