Free Republic

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — After Jon broke up with Carla, he forgave a half-million-dollar mortgage loan he had given her. He also may have paid her kids' tuition and helped her with other expenses. All of this might have been merely a story about a boyfriend and girlfriend who broke up and managed to stay friends, except that Jon is Gov. Jon S. Corzine and Carla is Carla Katz, president of New Jersey's biggest state employee union. And the two have been on opposite sides lately during contract talks covering 40,000 workers.

Congressional Democrats, having just given their imprimatur to President Bush's new Iraq-theater commander, are about to declare that the officer shouldn't have the resources he needs to get the job done. Or, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday: "A resolution that in effect says that the general going out to take command of the arena" - that would be Lt. Gen. David Petraeus - "shouldn't have the resources he thinks he needs to be successful certainly emboldens the enemy and our adversaries."

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — For World War II veteran Sam Stia, a legislative proposal that would cease requiring New Jersey schools to teach about Veterans Day and Memorial Day can be summed up in two words. "That's wrong," Stia, 83, said Thursday from his Hamilton home, where he flies an American flag at half-staff to honor fallen soldiers. "We're just giving our flag away and our patriotism away."

In Iraq's bloody Ramadan, the forces of chaos lose.

The FBI says it's all part of an ongoing investigation into a group of Sri Lankans with terrorist plans. The FBI says there were no plans to attack Americans, but that the group, known as the "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" was targeting their home country of Sri Lanka. Officials say that terror group is responsible for assassinating a former prime minister of India. The Joint Terrorism Task Force raided the Amherst home. Neighbors say three men were taken out in handcuffs. They say the task force also removed files, a computer and suitcases. While it's not clear what role...

Three years ago tonight, smart bombs rained down on Baghdad. America had gone to war. Major combat ended within weeks, but the mission was far from accomplished. And the world today is divided on whether it was all worth it. We believed then strongly that it was.

I'M trying. I've been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine, a former Wall Street executive with a portfolio worth $261 million, has been giving some of his money to black churches, raising questions about whether it's generosity or politics. The Democrat, who is in a tight race for governor, donated or loaned more than $2.5 million last year to black churches. He has received the endorsement of more than two dozen black ministers.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) Egypt said Tuesday that a detained chemist wanted by Britain for questioning about the London bombings had no links to the July 7 attacks or to al-Qaida. Government spokesman Magdy Rady said in a statement that a Cabinet meeting Tuesday reviewed an Interior Ministry report that ``made clear that there is no link between Egyptian chemist Magdy el-Nashar with al-Qaida or the (London) bombings.'' El-Nashar, who obtained a doctorate from Leeds University in England, was detained last week by Egyptian authorities at the request of the British government, which suspects he had links to some of the...

NEWARK, N.J. -- She's 87, and "a nice lady." She's also facing a weapons charge after trying to enter the Essex County Courthouse with a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson. Rebecca Solomon of Newark was running late for a hearing at landlord-tenant court, and said she forgot to take the gun -- which was still in its original box -- out of her handbag last Wednesday. A metal detector at the courthouse flagged the weapon. "I asked the guard if he could just keep it until I got back from court," Solomon told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Monday's newspapers. "He...

FLORENCE, Colo. -- Three men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing sent letters from the Supermax federal prison in Colorado that are suspected of being used by a Spanish terror cell to recruit suicide bombers, NewsChannel 4's Jonathan Dienst reported Monday. Letters from one of those men, Mohammed Salameh were found on Mohamed Achraf, one of 17 people charged in October in Spain for an alleged plot to blow up that country's National Court, the network reported, citing confidential documents from a Spanish court. One of the letters to Achraf, the alleged leader of the plot, reads: "Oh...

"The extremists continue to plot to attack again. They are at this moment recalibrating and reorganizing. And so are we," the Pentagon chief told members of the House Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony. Offering his argument for President Bush's request for $419 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2006, Rumsfeld said the plan sets an ambitious course to "continue prosecuting the war and to attack its ideological underpinnings."

BERLIN (AP) — Two suspected al-Qaida members were arrested by German authorities Sunday, federal prosecutors said. Police arrested the pair on Sunday in Mainz and Bonn for allegedly breaking German laws forbidding membership in a foreign terrorist organization, federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities have arrested four people accused of having ties to suspected terrorists and blocked 12 more from entering the United States in the first two weeks of this year, according to government documents. Daily reports from the Homeland Security Operations Center do not contain classified information. But they are not distributed publicly and generally intended to remain secret.

A radical Islamic group once headed by the alleged leader of a Southeast Asian terrorist group has set up a relief operation in tsunami-stricken Aceh province, and one expert warned it might try to stir up sentiment against U.S. and Australian troops also distributing aid there. Separately, the South Korean government issued a warning Thursday that tsunami relief workers in Indonesia could become a target for terror attacks. It was the first terror warning since thousands of agencies and organizations _ including the U.S. military _ began rushing into the area to help it recover after the Dec. 26 disaster....

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Pollsters and pundits remained on the fence about which candidate would get the state's 15 electoral votes as an unusually close presidential race drew to a close in New Jersey. Polls in the days leading up to the election either showed John Kerry with the tiniest of edges over President Bush or had the two candidates deadlocked.

CLAREMONT — The Pentagon knows exactly where Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, it just can't get to him, a member of the 9/11 Commission said Thursday. Commissioner John Lehman's remarks echoed those made Tuesday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who asserted the al-Qaida terror kingpin was alive and operating in the western part of that country. Bin Laden is living in South Waziristan in the Baluchistan Mountains of the Baluchistan Region, Lehman told The San Bernardino Sun after delivering a keynote speech on terrorism at Pitzer College in Claremont to kick off the university's three- day writer's...

"While we are in the unusual position of doing so in the face of the candidacy of a native son, our choice was not a close call. "Certainly, both John Kerry and George Bush love this country. ... But only one would never sacrifice principle for political advantage. One of these men says he craves the respect of the world. The other by his words and deeds commands it. ... John Kerry, who has served this state well in the U.S. Senate is in his bid for the presidency simply the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong...

RIDGEWOOD, N.J. (AP) — One fact led President Bush to choose New Jersey, a Democratic presidential stronghold, as the backdrop for a homeland security campaign speech Monday: terror and the Sept. 11 attacks are as crucial for New Jersey voters as they are for Bush's re-election campaign.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — George Perez still feels the sweat between his toes when he exercises. He's still plagued with nagging cramps in his calf muscle. And sometimes, when he gets out of bed at night without thinking, he topples over.