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TRIPOLI, Libya -- Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli that killed one of his sons and three young grandchildren, a government spokesman said early Sunday. Hours later, Qaddafi's forces shelled a besieged rebel port in a sign that the airstrike had not forced a change in regime tactics. Though the deaths could not be independently verified, NATO's attack on a Qaddafi family compound in a residential area of Tripoli late Saturday signaled escalating pressure on the Libyan leader who has tried to crush an armed rebellion that erupted in mid-February.

Fighting government intrusion into our lives is becoming increasingly difficult for at least two reasons. The first reason is that educators at the primary, secondary and university levels have been successful in teaching our youngsters to despise the values of our Constitution and the founders of our nation -- "those dead, old, racist white men." Their success in that arena might explain why educators have been unable to get our youngsters to read, write and compute on a level comparable with other developed nations; they are too busy proselytizing students. Adolf Hitler had it right when he said, "How fortunate...

"I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country, and the least encroachment of those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil." --Ben Franklin Thank you Benjamin. We need more like you in today's day and age.

Reporting from Seattle — It seemed a straightforward case: A man with a string of convictions and a reputation as a drug dealer was going on trial in Montana for distributing a small amount of marijuana found in his home — if only the court could find jurors willing to send someone to jail for selling a few marijuana buds. The problem began during jury selection last week in Missoula, when a potential juror said she would have a "real problem" convicting someone for selling such a small amount. But she would follow the law if she had to, she...

Are you one of the 46 million Americans without health insurance? Well, you may not have that, uh, luxury for much longer. “A federal judge in Michigan on Thursday dismissed one of more than 15 legal challenges to the new health care law, becoming the first to rule that the law is constitutional,” reports The Times’s Kevin Sack. “The central question, which may ultimately fall to the Supreme Court, is whether the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to require citizens to obtain a commercial product, namely health insurance. Starting in 2014, the law will require most...

TORRANCE, Calif. – Toyota Motor Corp., hoping to solidify its standing as the top brand for Hispanic buyers in the U.S., is offering drivers a series of stickers that celebrates their Hispanic heritage. The decals contain the phrase "somos muchos," or "we are many," followed by cultures, regions and popular descriptors from all over Latin America, such as "somos muchos Mexicanos" and "somos muchos Hondurenos." The decals, designed to be stuck on bumpers or windows, come in more than 100 different versions and are available in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

MONTERREY, Mexico—A surge of drug violence in Mexico's business capital and richest city has prompted an outcry from business leaders who on Wednesday took out full-page ads asking President Felipe Calderón to send in more soldiers to stem the violence. The growing violence in Monterrey, long one of Mexico's most modern and safe cities, is a sign that the country's war against drug gangs is spreading ever further from poorer battlegrounds along the border and into the country's wealthiest enclaves.

Some Mexicans use the term "reconquista," which is Spanish for reconquest, to describe their desire to see California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas acquired by Mexico and named the new country of Aztlan. They are teaching their youth that the United States "stole" those areas from Mexico and that they should be "returned."

Bush Warns "Entire Economy Is In Danger" Media reports are casting President Bush's televised address last night as both a warning to the nation on the severity of the financial crisis and an attempt to push Congress into passing his proposed bailout. A number of the stories remark on Bush's stark warnings about the health of the economy. Roll Call, for example, says Bush "sketched a frightening view of the economic danger," and used "unusually blunt and even dramatic language." The New York Times reports Bush told the country that "'a long and painful recession' could occur if Congress does...

Test your intellect and ability to judge respectable sources of news. Are the following headlines from Fox News or the National Enquirer? Please write down your answers before linking to the page containing the actual headlines. Ready? 1. Woman Comes Forward in Child Abuse Case Involving Car Wash Hose 2. PGA Tour Golfer Isenhour Charged With Intentionally Killing Noisy Hawk With Golf Shot 3. Driving Instructor Accused of Being Drunk While Giving Lesson 4. Doctor Had Sex With Daughters 5. 'Possessed' Students Sent Home From School 6. 4-Year-Old Shows Up to Elementary School Drunk 7. Dad Who Burned Kids in...

Speaking to reporters on his plane before leaving San Antonio for Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama hinted at taking a tougher line against Clinton in the coming weeks, telling reporters that she must back up her experience argument with details, my colleague Carrie Budoff Brown reports.

A veteran Florida sheriff's deputy is in hot water after she was caught on video dumping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair while he was being booked on Jan. 29, MyFOXTampaBay.com reported. The video shows Brian Sterner, 32, out of his wheelchair and on the floor while Deputy Charlotte Marshall Jones is booking him into the Hillsborough County Jail, the Web site reported.

The West must be prepared to carry out pre-emptive nuclear strikes to halt the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new NATO by five of the West's most senior military officers and strategists. Calling for reform of NATO and a new pact drawing the U.S., NATO and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the U.S., Britain, Germany, France and The Netherlands insist a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there...

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton bashed rival Barack Obama on Sunday, suggesting that the black senator from Illinois was trying to prolong a race controversy that bubbled up after Clinton last week said it took a president like Lyndon Johnson to enact the vision presented by race rights fighter Martin Luther King, Jr. “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Clinton told FOX News last week in remarks that sparked the current conflict. “It took a president to get it done.”

The idea is to induce people to boost spending, especially on big-ticket items such as homes and cars, and revitalize economic activity. "The recession gorilla is there. The question is can the Federal Reserve do enough to avert a recession?" asked Brian Bethune, economist at Global Insight. "We think the odds are close to 50 percent that there will be a recession. It is high -- no question about it."

Before President Bush left Washington for the Mideast, he signed into law the first major federal gun control measure in more than 13 years. If the new law had been in effect last April, it might have prevented the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, from buying a weapon at a gun store.

LOS ANGELES — The stories were all written. The rats were jumping ship. The backstabbing and second guessing and told you so’s by the people who weren’t asked and included in the first instance was in full force. On television, everywhere you looked, another pundit was explaining how it was that the Clinton dynasty was over, the candidacy doomed, and the candidate flawed beyond salvation. Who would be fired and when she would exit and just how broke she was were the only questions left to be answered.

DALLAS — A man convicted of raping a woman in 1981 and sentenced to life in prison has been cleared by DNA evidence and will be released, according to attorneys who have helped free 14 other wrongfully convicted inmates in Dallas County. Charles Chatman, 47, is expected to be released Thursday after spending more than 26 years behind bars, said Natalie Roetzel of the Innocence Project of Texas. "I never lost hope," Chatman told The Associated Press. "I always believed I would get out. I didn't know when or how, but I kept believing."

We start the year in Britain with a challenge to our essential nature, for 2008 might turn out to be the year when we decide to rip up the Magna Carta. Among the basic civil rights in this country, there has always been, at least in theory, an inclination towards liberal democracy, which includes a tolerance of an individual's right to privacy. We are born free and have the right to decide what freedom means, each for ourselves, and to have control over our outward existence, yet that will no longer be the case if we agree to identity cards.

WASHINGTON -- Sales of new homes in the United States plunged last month to their lowest level in more than 12 years, a grim testament to the problems plaguing the housing sector. The Commerce Department reported Friday that new-home sales tumbled by 9% in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 647,000. That was the worst showing since April 1995, when the pace of sales was 621,000.