Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Mike Huckabee has a resume fit for a GOP presidential nominee — Southern Baptist preacher, former Arkansas governor, fierce opponent of abortion and gay marriage. Those attributes would seem to be exactly what fellow conservatives are looking for in a candidate. What he doesn’t have is money or a household name, and those deficiencies have proven costly to his campaign. He barely registers in polls and is struggling to break out of the pack of Republicans seeking to be seen as credible alternatives to the strongest contenders, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain (news, bio, voting record) and Mitt Romney....

LOS ANGELES - Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary “Sicko,” The Associated Press has learned. The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush. In the past, Moore’s adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary. “Sicko” promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America’s passion for guns in “Bowling for Columbine” and skewered...

BOULDER, Utah - By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person. After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water. But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various...

LONDON - Keith Richards was joking when he claimed to have snorted his father’s ashes along with cocaine, a spokesman said Wednesday. “It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fool’s joke,” said Bernard Doherty of LD Communications, which represents the Rolling Stones. Doherty declined to say any more about why Richards made the statement in an interview with NME, a pop music magazine. “The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” the 63-year-old guitarist was quoted as saying. “He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him...

An influential retired Army general released a dire assessment of the situation in Iraq, based on a recent round of meetings there with Gen. David H. Petraeus and 16 other senior U.S. commanders. “The population is in despair,” retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey wrote in an eight-page document compiled in his capacity as a professor at West Point. “Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate.” McCaffrey is widely respected in the military, having fought in the Vietnam War, commanded a division in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and later served as the commander for U.S. military operations in...

Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list. The Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of "specially designated nationals" has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences...

Immigrants are emerging as among the first victims of a growing wave of home foreclosures in the Washington area as mortgage lending problems multiply locally and across the country. Nationally, 375,000 high-interest-rate loans were made to Hispanics in 2005, and nearly 73,000 of them are likely to go into foreclosure, said Aracely Paname?o, director of Latino affairs for the Center for Responsible Lending. About 1.1 million homes in the United States are expected to go into foreclosure in the next six years, and many native-born Americans are likely to be stuck with burdensome loans. But immigrants are getting hit first...

TORONTO - A five-year-old Canadian boy can have two mothers and a father, an Ontario court ruled this week in a landmark case that redefines the meaning of family and examines the rights of parents in same-sex relationships. In a ruling released on Tuesday, the Ontario Court of Appeal said the female partner of the child’s biological mother could be legally recognized as the boy’s third parent. The biological father, named on the boy’s birth certificate, is a friend of both women and is taking an active role in the child’s life. “It is contrary to (the child’s) best interests...

Jones played for ABC News two voice-mail messages he says were left for him by Haggard. He says Haggard used the pseudonym “Art.” The man on the tape says: “Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we can get any more. Either a $100 or $200 supply. And I can pick it up really anytime tomorrow, or we can wait until next week sometime. And so, I also wanted to get your address so I can send you some money for inventory. But that’s obviously not working, so if you have it go ahead...

JERSEYVILLE, Ill. - A teenager carrying a Bible and shouting “I want Jesus” was shot twice with a police stun gun and later died at a St. Louis hospital, authorities said. In a statement obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, police in Jerseyville, about 40 miles north of St. Louis, said 17-year-old Roger Holyfield would not acknowledge officers who approached him and he continued yelling, “I want Jesus.” Police tried to calm the teen, but Holyfield became combative, according to the statement. Officers fired the stun gun at him after he ignored their warnings, then fired again when he continued...

<p>CABAZON, Calif. — Investigators swooped down Monday on a home only one-quarter mile from where a deadly arson wildfire was started last week and took the two residents into custody for questioning.</p> <p>The investigators, including the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the Cabazon Fire Department’) and the California Department of Forestry, entered the house around 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT).</p>

The following is the complete text of Mel Gibson’s statement regarding his arrest for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol: “After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person. “I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said...

A preliminary military inquiry found evidence that U.S. Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked attack in November, contradicting the troops’ account, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. President George W. Bush said he was troubled by news stories on the November 19 killings of men, women and children in the town of Haditha, and a general at the Pentagon said the incident could complicate the job for the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. “Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are borne out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of U.S. forces to...

Succumbing to scandal, former Majority Leader Tom Delay intends to resign from Congress within weeks, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style. Republican officials said Monday night they expect the Texan to quit his seat later this spring. He was first elected in 1984, and conceded he faced a difficult race for re-election. "He has served our nation with integrity and honor," said Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who succeeded DeLay in his leadership post earlier this year. But Democrats said the developments marked more than the end to one man's career in Congress....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 2005 CONTACT: Jill Minette, CASE, 202-478-5666 Professor Lawrence Roberge, 413-547-8448 NATIONAL HONORS FOR TOP PROFESSOR IN CONNECTICUT (Washington, DC)-The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education have named Lawrence F. Roberge at Goodwin College the 2005 Connecticut Professor of the Year. Professor Roberge was selected from among nearly 400 top professors in the United States. Professor Roberge was the Chair of the Science Dept and Associate Professor of Science at Goodwin College from 2003 until 2005. During his tenure, he organized the construction of science labs and...

YOU could argue that she is the most influential woman in America, not least because her daily television program reaches into the living room of almost every home in the US. Television insiders insist she can single-handedly turn books into bestsellers and mere celebrities into megastars. But now, glamorous talk show host Oprah Winfrey has become the target of the controversial Church of Scientology. The campaign is being led by its most famous disciple, 43-year-old Tom Cruise, who is doing everything in his considerable power to convert her to the cultish faith. Cruise recently bought a house two doors away...

A former Border Patrol agent who is accused of being an illegal immigrant and also is accused of helping to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States from Mexico has been deemed a flight risk and will be held without bail, a federal judge ruled today. Magistrate Judge Anthony Battaglia ruled that Oscar Antonio Ortiz, 28, is an illegal immigrant himself, and no amount of bail could ensure his return to court, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune. Battaglia also said, "the temptation for Ortiz to flee to his Native Mexico is strong."

Tehran, 8 August (AKI) - US troops in Iraq have seized documents that suggest fugitive al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden is planning to enter Iraq during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, an Iranian news agency reported on Monday. Bin Laden's visit to Iraq during Ramadan, which this year begins in early October, would be part of an al-Qaeda attempt to further destabilise the war-ravaged country, and to lead a coup attempt against the government in Baghdad, the Mehr news agency said. Citing a spokesman from the Shiite grouping, the Hezbollah of Iraq, the report said that Americans soldiers found...

COEUR d'ALENE -- When Joseph Edward Duncan III told the FBI he killed a Riverside, Calif., boy in 1997, he also admitted his involvement in the death of two Seattle-area sisters a year earlier, a source close to the investigation said. The source, who demanded anonymity, said Duncan admitted he killed Sammiejo White, 11, and Carmen Cubias, 9, when they disappeared after leaving their north Seattle motel room July 6, 1996. Law enforcement officials, who are under a gag order because of potential federal prosecution of Duncan, would not confirm what Duncan allegedly told the FBI, nor would they deny...

At least one border agent hasn't quite fulfilled his job description. An illegal alien who was a US border agent is charged with smuggling illegal aliens across the US border, reports KFI News in Los Angeles. 28-year-old Oscar Antonio Ortiz submitted a false birth certificate when he applied to become a border agent. The certificate said he was born in Chicago. Ortiz was hired in 2001. Now the federal government says Ortiz was born in Tijuana and that he smuggled illegal aliens across the border while on duty as a US border agent. Ortiz was arrested in California on Thursday...