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Aggravated rape and kidnapping charges were filed against a former boyfriend accused of holding a Nashville woman against her will and raping her, sheriff's deputies reported. Esgardo Pinto-Torres, 29, of Nashville was charged after an investigation Saturday. He is being held for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The Department of Homeland Security is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records, according to several sources familiar with the efforts. Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals started in earnest in Houston about a month ago and has stunned local immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients' deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases. Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said Tuesday that the review is part of the agency's broader, nationwide strategy...

Bedbugs can be found in mattresses, furniture and clothing, and they feed off animal and human blood. Insect scientists say bedbugs are appearing on a scale not seen since before World War II. High-traffic areas such as hotels, airplanes and cruise ships are especially prone to infestations. Ohio has three cities in the top 10 — Cincinnati is fourth, Columbus is seventh and Dayton is eighth.

EAST POINT, Ga. - Video showed chaos unfolding in the city of East Point on Wednesday morning as hundreds of people waited for their chance to get federal housing assistance. Aerials from above the East Point Housing Authority showed a large group of people congregating around police cars and causing a scene as several people handed out applications. Mobs of people surrounded police cars, and FOX 5 has learned workers were handing out applications to the crowd, but they would only do so with police presence. Those in the crowd would receive an application, then fill it out and wait...

For five years, Bryan Corkle taught undocumented students at O'Neill High School and didn't know it. He coached some of them in wrestling, became friends with some of them. About 10 months ago, he learned about the plight of these students: After high school, they have limited options without citizenship. He's become so personally involved with these teens that he started advising an organization, and Wednesday he rallied with students for legislation that would give them a path to citizenship. Standing on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, Corkle preached this message: "Providing undocumented students with an opportunity...

A passenger in a routine traffic stop attempted to run from police three times before he was booked into the Chelan County Regional Justice Center Thursday, police said. When Wenatchee police stopped the vehicle at about 7:50 p.m. at South Mission and Ferry streets for having a broken mirror, the passenger jumped out and tried to run away, said Sgt. Cherie Smith. The officer tackled the 28-year-old Orondo man, then found a stolen pistol in the vehicle and took both the passenger and 18-year-old driver into custody. While under questioning at the station, the officer had to step away for...

They gather on statehouse steps with signs and bullhorns, risking arrest. They attend workshops on civil disobedience and personal storytelling, and they hold sit-ins and walk out of class in protest. They're being warned that they could even lose their lives. Students fighting laws that target illegal immigrants are taking a page from the civil rights era, adopting tactics and gathering praise and momentum from the demonstrators who marched in the streets and sat at segregated lunch counters as they sought to turn the public tide against racial segregation. "Their struggle then is ours now," said Deivid Ribeiro, 21, an...

For many in the GDR, the fall of the Berlin Wall and unification meant the loss of jobs, homes, security and equalityOn 9 November 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down I realised German unification would soon follow, which it did a year later. This meant the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the country in which I was born, grew up, gave birth to my two children, gained my doctorate and enjoyed a fulfilling job as a lecturer in English literature at Potsdam University. Of course, unification brought with it the freedom to travel the world and, for...

Archaeologists have found a cellar in the university town of Pécs in southern Hungary, which they believe to have belonged to Wallachian Duke Vlad III, more commonly known as ”Dracula.” Tamás Fedeles, tutor of medieval and early modern history at Pécs University said his research showed that Vlad III Tepes alias ”Dracula,” lived in a two-story town house on what is now the city’s central square. Fedeles says the Duke of Wallachia (modern-day southern Rumania) owned the house in the 1460s and this is confirmed by a 1489 document that refers to it as ”Drakulya House.” The document contains a...

Going back to Mexico is not an option, said the 43-year-old man, kneeling next to his wife's wheelchair.His wife, 45, lost her eyesight to diabetes. She also has high blood pressure. And her kidneys are failing. For years, he has taken her to a dialysis clinic attached to a public hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility that gave her free care plans to close Saturday. They are illegal immigrants with no health insurance and, they say they have nowhere to go for his wife's vast medical needs. The closing clinic offered to help return them to Mexico...the latest known case...

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs. Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits. Grassley's amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote. The bill, authored by committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would require applicants to verify their names, places of birth and Social Security numbers. In addition, legal immigrants...

Social Connections, Political Savvy and Boundless Energy Have Made Heather Podesta The It Girl of a New Generation Of Lobbyists The chairman beams. So many people just dying to see him, the business guys, the pols, the lobbyists -- lots and lots of lobbyists. They circle Charlie Rangel -- birthday boy, Democrat and, of course, House Ways and Means chairman -- circles like rings on a tree planted in the party room here at Tavern on the Green. Simple math: the more powerful the pol, the more rings on the tree. This is a very thick tree. Not a problem,...

Because they don't differentiate between good workers and bad ones

Gainesville, Florida's first community hospital has been struggling since it was acquired by the Shands Healthcare system in northern Florida twelve years ago. But now the plug is being pulled from the 80-year-old, money-losing Shands AGH because of the recession. Its eight-hospital not-for-profit parent company will close the 220-bed hospital next fall. Patients and staff will be moved to a nearby newer, larger teaching hospital as part of an effort to conserve $65 million over three years throughout the healthcare system. Like many U.S. hospitals, Shands is being hit by higher borrowing costs, tight credit, investment losses and a spike...

For the first time since he arrived in the United States 27 years ago, Isidro Alvarado, a day laborer in Vista, says he's thinking about going home to Mexico. Alvarado said he is finding it increasingly hard to get work here. He's not alone. A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization, reported that Latino immigrants ---- legal and illegal ---- have been hit hard by the nation's struggling economy, and some are returning home. That's playing out locally. Officials with two North County day labor centers run by nonprofit agencies said they have seen a steady...

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said today that U.S. automobile companies are being put at a disadvantage by government in competing against Volkswagen’s new auto assembly plant in Chattanooga. The union leader questioned why government leaders in Tennessee are willing to provide assistance to the German-based Volkswagen while the state’s U.S. senators declined to back a federal loan to help the Big Three U.S. car makers. Mr. Gettelfinger said that trying to equalize UAW pay with what foreign car makers pay in the United States, as urged by U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., is like comparing apples to oranges. In its...

A report prepared by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) finds that illegal immigration costs Colorado about $1.1 billion a year. The report, "The Costs of illegal Immigration to Coloradans," looks at just three essential state services and programs: K-12 education, public health care, and incarceration from criminal illegal aliens. While the state spends more than $1 billion on services for illegal aliens, Colorado is faced with a $101 million budget shortfall for the current fiscal year. EDUCATION K-12: Education for the estimated 84,000 children of illegal aliens attending public schools costs taxpayers $925 million and an additional $68...

The state of Texas and local hospital districts spent an estimated $677 million to provide health care to illegal immigrants in a year, a new study says. The survey, issued by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, said that most of the money — $597 million — was spent by local hospital districts for the immigrants' care during the state's fiscal year that ended on Aug. 31, 2007. Lawmakers from both parties said they were not surprised by the millions spent and expressed hope that the report, required by the 2007 Legislature, will help prompt Congress to pass comprehensive...

Building a border fence, tougher immigration laws and resources that could allow local law enforcement agencies to target immigrants are all symptoms of a bias against Hispanics that must change, Rosa Rosales, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, said in El Paso this weekend. "One of our top priorities is civil rights. It was the same way before me," she said. "To this day, we feel there's still a lot of discrimination in employment, discrimination in housing, discrimination in the overall issues that pertain to minorities." Rosales, in El Paso for a quarterly LULAC...

Back when Mark Turetsky was an entrepreneur, building a business empire that sold pork rinds, cotton candy and beef sticks in bulk, he seldom worried about insurance. His only health hiccups were high cholesterol and acid reflux—common problems for a guy his age. So he had no qualms about coverage when he decided to take the plunge and retire early, at age 55. The qualms kicked in later, when Turetsky, still eight years away from qualifying for Medicare, looked into buying new health coverage. His insurer told him that now that he was buying on the so-called individual market instead...