Free Republic

Editor's note: This is the first story in an occasional series looking at Texas A&M University's efforts to recruit and retain minority students. Colleges and universities across the state are grappling with how to enroll 600,000 new students, mostly minorities, by 2015 to mirror the state's changing demographics. COLLEGE STATION - Jacob Tadesse arrived eight days before the start of classes at Texas A&M University and, like many freshmen, soon felt alone. So he left the sterile coolness of his dormitory room that first night without a destination in mind. Wearing a baggy T-shirt and shorts, with his black hair...

Congressional leaders and activist groups unable to agree on a message WASHINGTON - Liberal activists have been on the warpath this summer, with some camping out near President Bush's ranch and demanding the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq while others are pushing for the defeat of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. But these groups, whose views have been amplified by Internet bloggers and activist groups, often have been at odds with Democratic lawmakers who remain wary of alienating moderate voters. The tension between the liberal factions and the Democratic congressional leadership has hampered the party's ability to present a...

A Navy captain makes his claim same day Pentagon says the first one can't be confirmed WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Monday that Defense Department investigators had found no evidence to support allegations by a GOP congressman and others that a secret program had identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta more than a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ---- Monday, the Fox News channel broadcast a statement from the second officer, Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, contending Atta was identified in the first two months of 2000. "My story has remained consistent," he said in the statement. --- "The Pentagon's...

Statistics show their strikes cut nearly a third of white candidates DALLAS - Dallas County defense lawyers prefer almost any black juror over a white one, according to a newspaper investigation. The number of blacks on juries in Dallas County approximate their proportion of the population, but primarily because defense attorneys have struck whites from the panel to cancel prosecutors' strikes against blacks, according to a statistical analysis by the Dallas Morning News. The News reported its findings in Monday's editions. Defense attorneys used 6 percent of their peremptory challenges of potential jurors, or strikes, against blacks compared with 82...

Friendswood killer's attorney says the case was 'a trespassing that got ugly' HUNTSVILLE - There's little doubt that Robert Alan Shields had been in the house next door to his parents' home where a 27-year-old woman was found repeatedly stabbed with a kitchen knife and beaten with a hammer. His fingerprints and bloody shoeprints were in the laundry room of the Friendswood home where Paula Stiner's husband found her body in September 1994. She was covered with blood, lying near the washer and dryer. Shields used her credit card within two hours of her death to buy a suit. When...

Hotel is booked and the invitations are going out for a major fundraising gala in September WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to appear at a campaign event for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay at a Houston hotel in mid-September. A spokeswoman for Cheney said that security concerns precluded his office from releasing the vice president's schedule more than a few days in advance. "We are not making any announcements about events in mid-September," the spokeswoman said. DeLay's office also would not comment. However, the time and date of the event, 5-7 p.m. on Sept. 16, and location,...

Congresswoman calls for the U.S. to bring troops home CRAWFORD - U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee visited the anti-war inspired "Camp Casey" near President Bush's ranch on Monday, lending support and words of encouragement to several families whose loved ones died in Iraq. "It is time to bring our troops home," Lee said at the demonstration Cindy Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., started on Aug. 6. Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Army Spc. Casey Sheehan died last year in Iraq, is currently in Los Angeles to be with her mother, who had a stroke. But about 60 other people were spread between...

AUSTIN — Police are searching for a University of Texas student accused of the death of a 21-year-old Corpus Christi woman, whose body was found in a condominum in the West Campus neighborhood. Colton Aaron Pitonyak, 22, was charged by police Friday with first-degree murder. Police Capt. Kevin Buchman said no arrests had been made as of late Sunday afternoon. Police had found the body of Jennifer Cave late Thursday. Sid Smith, a family friend and retired Corpus Christi police officer, said the woman's body had been mutilated. Smith said Cave's parents, Jim and Sharon Sedwick, were in a daze....

GALVESTON — A 12-year-old boy was in fair condition today after being bitten by a shark on his left foot the day before. Julian Elizondo was walking in knee-deep water Friday along Crystal Beach, east of Galveston Island, when he felt something grab his foot, according to a statement released by his family. When he couldn't pull away, Elizondo "knocked the shark in the head" and it let go, the statement said. Unable to walk, he was taken by ambulance to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, where surgeons operated on his foot Friday evening. The wound also...

Schools hope to dispel the city's reputation as all cowboy boots and sprawl that lead prospective students to look elsewhere Sarah Simpson chose to attend Rice University despite Houston. Back home in San Marcos, a cozy college town south of Austin, Simpson had heard few kind words about the state's largest city. But she wanted to stay in Texas and study architecture at a top school. "The fact that it was in Houston was something I was initially willing to sacrifice," Simpson said. On the eve of her third year at Rice, the 20-year-old Simpson has a new view of...

DENVER (AP) - An Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel faces eight counts of criminal mischief for allegedly vandalizing cars at Denver International Airport with anti-President Bush messages over the last eight months, the Denver district attorney said Thursday. Alexis Fecteau, 42, was charged with seven misdemeanors and a felony for allegedly damaging eight cars in the airport's parking lot by painting and scratching them, the DA's office said in a statement. Police Capt. John Kostigan has said Fecteau spray-painted over pro-Bush stickers and often added his own message to the sides of the vehicles, including a vulgarity, between December and...

Measure calling for more testing of inmates likely to be enacted today CHICAGO - Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is expected to sign a bill today that would focus on preventing HIV among blacks. Believed to be the only legislation of its kind nationwide, the African-American HIV/AIDS Response Act targets the link between disproportionately high incarceration rates among blacks and the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The legislation aims to expand voluntary HIV testing in state prisons and county jails. It also commissions a Chicago State University study to investigate and quantify the correlation between imprisonment and HIV...

House majority leader keeps heat on federal bench NASHVILLE, TENN. - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay charged Sunday night in a rally at an evangelical church that the "out-of-touch" political left has dangerously and unduly influenced the U.S. Supreme Court. DeLay was among the dozen speakers at "Justice Sunday II: God Save the United States and this Honorable Court," organized by the Family Research Council and its leader, Tony Perkins. The event was broadcast nationwide by a Christian satellite service. To occasional shouts of "Amen!" from the audience, DeLay said arguments for same-sex marriage, for instance, have no basis in...

Biters who were nearly wiped out years ago seem more resistant to pesticides MILWAUKEE - Michael Potter isn't paranoid. There's a sound, scientific reason he strips the sheets from hotel beds and pillows and even rattles headboards loose from the wall before going to bed. As an entomology professor, Potter knows what could be crawling from the mattress, box springs and night stand when the lights go out. Bedbugs. The bloodthirsty nocturnal critters of the childhood rhyme "Good night, sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite" are no myth. They're real, and they're back and breeding in bedrooms in the...

Nearly wiped out in the 1800s, the purebreds' newer enemy is a century of inbreeding QUITAQUE - Pushing a button that activates a feed dispenser on a trailer behind his pickup, Danny Swepston summoned a sound that nearly disappeared from the plains 131 years ago: The thunder of bison hooves. "Here they come now out of those mesquite trees," said Swepston, who as a wildlife leader for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is responsible for these bison. A stampede it wasn't. Fewer than 60 of the fur-covered, humpbacked animals make up the last purebred examples of the Great Southern...

EL PASO - A Fort Bliss soldier has pleaded guilty to smuggling cocaine from Colombia into the U.S. on military aircraft, a post spokeswoman said Saturday. Spc. Francisco Rosa, 25, pleaded guilty Wednesday to using, possessing and distributing cocaine and making a false official statement, Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt said. Based on a military judge's recommendation, Rosa will spend five years in prison with a reduction in rank to private and a bad-conduct discharge, Offutt said. Other authorities, including the post's commanding general, could change the sanctions, she said. Military investigators have said Rosa and Staff Sgts. Daniel Rosas,...

Racial makeup of jury that convicted Miller-El renews concerns about discrimination DALLAS - A Supreme Court decision citing racial discrimination during trial provided Thomas Miller-El, convicted or murder, an opportunity to leave Texas' death row after 20 years, but Dallas prosecutors will try to prevent that by retrying him. Dallas District Attorney Bill Hill says the high court's decision in June doesn't question the guilt of Miller-El, a black defendant accused of killing a white hotel clerk and wounding another during a robbery. His office says the state will again seek the death penalty. Prosecutors have until late November to...

Houston is coming into its own as a center for style and fashion If 25 years ago, you picked up a national magazine and looked at ads for luxury retailers, chances are they'd be touting stores in cities like London, Paris, New York, San Francisco and Dallas. Dallas — but not Houston. Today, Houston is more likely to be included among the list of chichi towns. Theories on how Dallas got the luxury jump on Houston are numerous: Dallas is the headquarters of retail powerhouse Neiman Marcus. Dallas is the site of a major wholesale apparel mart. Dallas has more...

Brother charged in shooting death of his sibling after police stop car in 'controlled' setting A man arrested after Houston police stopped the funeral procession for his 28-year-old brother has been charged with murder in his death. Chris Dwayne Jackson was taken into custody Friday after police stopped the procession on its way to Paradise North Cemetery for the burial of his brother, Michael Curtis Jackson. Family members could not be reached Saturday. In a KHOU (Channel 11) report on Friday, however, they said the use of SWAT officers and the timing of the arrest were inappropriate. Relatives also expressed...

Kerr-McGee project is nearly ready for Gulf voyage INGLESIDE - Workers toil over the massive 50-story structure 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the Gulf Marine Fabricators shipyard here. Workers in jumpsuits, who look like specks of red dust on the enormous steel cylinder, work through the wee hours of the morning putting the finishing touches on what will become an oil and gas production platform. This structure will eventually float vertically in the Gulf of Mexico, like a buoy, extending more than 500 feet deep. "We always are ready to work, 24 hours a day if...