Free Republic

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner was arrested at City Hall on federal bribery charges early this morning – two days after his fellow lawmaker disgraced state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson was indicted for selling Beacon Hill influence for $23,500 in bribe monies, the Herald has learned. Turner was arrested on charges that are connected to the Wilkerson probe, said FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz. Turner, who lives in Roxbury, was arrested just after 7 a.m. at City Hall, said Marcinkiewicz. Authorities said they first attempted to arrest him at his home, but he wasn’t there. U.S. Marshals are transporting Turner to Worcester...

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness. The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow....

Curt Schilling expressed no emotion yesterday after being informed that attorneys representing slugger Barry Bonds may be targeting the Red Sox [team stats] pitcher for comments he made about the San Francisco Giants to HBO’s Bob Costas. In a joint statement, attorneys Todd Schneider and John Burris said they are representing Bonds “in connection with legal issues arising from the myriad of false statements attributed to him by players, the media and others.” Attorney Michael Rains, who has represented Bonds in the slugger’s ongoing BALCO steroids case, told the San Jose Mercury News, “This is directed at Schilling more than...

Nonetheless, people who have lived in Beeston for years say that until the drug dealers moved in five to ten years ago, the appeal of the area was its strong sense of community. But after hard drugs arrived, neighbourliness was abandoned as people scurried home past the crack dens and wrecked houses. Heroin and crack helped to sustain a certain level of racial segregation too—it's hard to be nice to strangers when you're living in a drugs warren. I had come to Beeston in September 2005 on assignment with the BBC. Jim Booth, a producer with the Manchester news and...

Memo to the Globe: From now on, stick to stories you know, or care, something about. Like gay marriage. Now the Boring Broadsheet has run what appears to be another very badly reported fake news story. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Is Dan Rather available for damage control? I can hear him now: “This story is true!” Mary Mapes could not be reached for comment. Memo to the Globe: This newspaper is no longer your competition. You are now going head to head with The Onion, and Scrappleface. We used to call the people who worked for...

An explosive memo warning of a potential tunnel-ceiling collapse was “fabricated,” says a key Big Dig contractor, casting a long shadow over the Boston Globe, which first published it last week. Officials at Modern Continental say virtually every claim made by safety inspector John Keaveney in the Globe’s July 26 story and in the alleged May 17, 1999, memo is refuted by the company’s internal documents. The alleged 1999 memo warned of a collapse in the Interstate 90 Seaport connector tunnel, the same tunnel where a Jamaica Plain woman was killed July 10 when a section of the concrete ceiling...

The war in Lebanon must not end short of its logical conclusion. Its logical conclusion is not the successful use of human shields by Hezbollah to hamstring the Israeli Defense Forces. Its logical conclusion is the destruction of Hezbollah as a military and political force that will always remain a threat to peace and stability of the region. Hezbollah has gotten a pass from the international community at Qana, as it did when it targeted UN peacekeepers for death by placing Hezbollah fighting positions within meters of the doomed UN observation post, as it has in numerous other tragedies in...

Bruce Willis has jumped to the defense of controversial author James Frey, declaring he was unfairly attacked on Oprah Winfrey's TV show last month. Frey has been criticized for embellishing parts of his best-selling book, A Million Little Pieces, which was originally billed as a memoir. The Die Hard star says on TV show Access Hollywood, "Look at what happened to James Frey in the last two weeks. That's a great book and so is the follow-up book. And just because his publisher chose to say that these were memoirs, it took it out of being a great work of...

Newton officials are calling their refusal to allow FBI agents access to library computers without a warrant during a terrorist threat last week “their finest hour.” Law enforcement officials say it’s a “nightmare.” Police rushed to the Newton Free Library after tracing a terrorist threat e-mailed to Brandeis University to a computer at the library. But requests to examine computers Jan. 18 were rebuffed by Newton library Director Kathy Glick-Weil and Mayor David Cohen on the grounds that they did not have a warrant. Cohen, defending the library’s actions, called the legal standoff one of Newton’s “finest hours.” “We showed...

Remember all those angry speeches Bob Dole and Jack Kemp delivered about Bill Clinton in 1997? Or the anti-Reagan orations of Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro circa 1985? Neither do we, because they didn't happen. Last year's losers, however, lack the dignity their predecessors possessed. "Kerry, Edwards Blast Bush Over Katrina" read an Associated Press headline yesterday, and one could be forgiven for wondering if Kedwards realize this is 2005 and not 2004. Here's a particularly rich line from the AP account: In a blistering critique, Kerry said former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown was to Hurricane Katrina...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A convicted child molester jailed in California may have committed sex crimes against thousands of victims, police said Thursday after finding computers, notebooks and meticulous, handwritten lists of boys' names and apparent codes for various sex acts. San Jose Police Lt. Scott Cornfield described 63-year-old Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller as "one of the most active child molesters we've ever seen." During a search of his bedroom in San Jose, police discovered binders full of child porn and numerous logs with lists of more than 36,000 children's names — mostly boys — and codes that appear to indicate...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Anti-war protests broke out at a Flag Day celebration in Cambridge Tuesday morning. NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that celebration was supposed to be a happy event on Cambridge Common to mark the U.S. Army's 230th birthday in the very place where George Washington took command of the Continental Army. At about 11 a.m. Tuesday, about 50 anti-war protesters were ordered to move from an area where a ceremony was set to take place. When they refused, police moved in and arrested three protesters. Most of the protesters are from the group Veterans For Peace. The protesters...

MOSCOW - Russia's security chief said Thursday his agency has uncovered spy activity that was being conducted under the cover of non-governmental organizations from the United States, Britain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev also suggested that foreign governments are using NGOs to fund and support changes of power in former Soviet republics. Patrushev's remarks reflected concern in President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin as it grapples with waning regional influence following the ascent of pro-Western governments in ex-Soviet states. The Kremlin is also worried about outside influence within Russia amid U.S. accusations of backsliding on democracy. "Along...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - The first openly gay Episcopal bishop says he is being deluged with angry messages after being falsely accused of suggesting that Jesus might have been homosexual. ``I can assure you with absolute certainty that was not my implication, and certainly not anything I ever said,'' Bishop V. Gene Robinson told the New Hampshire Union Leader in a story published Tuesday. ``I am furious for my remarks to be interpreted in a way as to mean something I never said.'' Religion writer David Virtue apparently was the first to suggest otherwise in a Web log entry based on...

SHERBORN, Mass. -- A soldier who was court-martialed for desertion after refusing to return to Iraq will be honored Tuesday night by a Massachusetts organization. The Peace Abbey in Sherborn will present Camilo Mejia with its Courage of Conscience Award. The former staff sergeant for the Florida National Guard served nearly a year in jail following his conviction by a military jury last spring. Mejia served seven months in Iraq in 2003, but did not return to his unit after a two-week leave. Five months after he went missing, Mejia surrendered to military authorities at the Hanscom Air Force base....

WASHINGTON — Two major American figures in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal worked together to ship humanitarian supplies to Iraq through a charity connected to celebrities, The Post has learned. According to documents recently obtained by the House International Relations Committee, Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt and Saddam Hussein's American oil spy, Samir Vincent, worked together to finance shipments of medicines and baby formula for Iraq in 1997 and 1998 through such charities as the Friendship Force Foundation, a group closely connected to former President Jimmy Carter, his wife, Rosalynn, and other luminaries.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Sobbing and clasping her hands, a kidnapped Italian journalist appeared on a video Wednesday, pleading for her life and calling on U.S.-led troops to pull out of Iraq. "You must end the occupation, it's the only way we can get out of this situation," Giuliana Sgrena said in the videotape, obtained by Associated Press Television News. There was no indication from the tape when it was made. Rocking back and forth, Sgrena appeared alone in the brief footage, only her shadow visible on a white background behind her. In the upper left corner of the image, the...

In a bizarre twist to a 15-year-old mystery, two Boston FBI agents are in Paris this week probing whether an indicted French media mogul knows the whereabouts of art heisted from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in March 1990, the Herald has learned. According to an American art dealer and historian, the agents want access to French legal records surrounding the arrest of Jean-Marie Messier, the embattled former CEO of the entertainment conglomerate Vivendi-Universal. The art expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was present for six hours on Tuesday when the FBI agents and a French prosecutor discussed whether...

BRIDGEWATER — Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorist czar turned outspoken critic of President Bush's anti-terror policies, said Thursday night the federal government is not doing enough to protect shopping malls, rail lines and chemical factories from terrorists. In a speech at Bridgewater State College, Clarke said the Department of Homeland Security, formed after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, "is not well run and is not accomplishing much. "The only thing that we've really fixed is passenger air security," Clarke said. "There is no leadership coming out of federal government," he said, to protect the "low hanging fruit" — shopping malls,...

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette admitted yesterday its New England Patriots beat reporter last Sunday lifted ``substantial portions'' of an article posted a week earlier by columnist Peter King on the widely read Sports Illustrated Web site. Veteran Telegram & Gazette sportswriter Ken Powers was reportedly ordered to leave Jacksonville, Fla., site of this year's Super Bowl, and return to Worcester on Monday. That's when the paper said it was alerted to Powers' plagiarism of the column by King, one of the most revered football writers in the country. Powers' articles from the past two weeks were removed from the...