Free Republic

Rising temperatures from climate change are driving animals northward into new environments, raising concerns that pathogens hitching a ride may bring new diseases -- especially to southern U.S. states, including Louisiana. The world's warmest and wettest climates are home to some of its most worrying diseases like dengue, yellow fever and malaria. Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states could become a portal through which new diseases enter the United States, carried in the bloodstream of northward-bound species, scientists say. The warning comes as an Associated Press analysis this week of temperature data shows widespread and faster warming over the past...

Dr. Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life and niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., commented today on the Jena Six case in Louisiana, where six African American high school students involved in a fight with white students have been charged with crimes that could send them to prison for decades. Critics of the prosecutions, citing racial segregation at the school and discriminatory prosecution of only the black students involved in the fight, are asking the Justice Department to investigate. "The call to investigate the Jena Six prosecutions is legitimate," said Dr. King. "There's clear evidence...

A PALESTINIAN journalist has warned of a Muslim backlash over the failure of Australian authorities to grant him a visa in time to speak at today's Brisbane Writers Festival. Abdel Bari-Atwan, a best-selling author and among the last Western journalists to interview Osama bin Laden, was cancelled as a speaker at the festival yesterday as he waited for his visa application to be processed. Atwan, author of The Secret History of al-Qa'ida, accused the Howard Government of discrimination in delaying approval for his visa application, submitted on August 16, after giving notice to authorities of his intention to visit Australia....