Free Republic

Anyone would consider it a stroke of bad luck to be pulled over for driving six miles per hour over the speed limit, but Roy Caballes had an additional reason to curse his ill fortune. On the November afternoon in 1998 when an Illinois state trooper stopped him, Caballes was carrying 282 pounds of marijuana in his trunk. At first it looked like he’d get off with just a warning. Then another officer pulled up and swept his car with one of the most advanced pieces of technology then available to law enforcement: a drug-sniffing dog named Krott. The pooch...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Provide free preschool for all California children, tax the rich to pay for it, and get a famous Hollywood director to sell it. A measure on Tuesday's ballot to create universal preschool in the nation's most populous state seemed like a can't-miss idea in heavily Democratic California. But the $2.4 billion-a-year plan has been a tough sell. The Preschool for All initiative's best-known supporter, "When Harry Met Sally" director Rob Reiner, ducked out of the campaign spotlight this spring after a state education commission he headed was accused of improperly using taxpayer money to run TV commercials...