Free Republic

BOURNE – Hurricane Katrina evacuees hastily handed $2,000 in federal relief money last month have been living it up on Cape Cod, blowing cash on booze and strippers, a Herald investigation has found. Herald reporters witnessed blatant public drinking at a Falmouth strip mall by Katrina victims living at taxpayer expense at Camp Edwards on Otis Air Force Base. And strippers at Zachary's nightclub in Mashpee, a few miles from the Bourne base, report giving lap dances to several evacuees. ``They were tipping me $5 a pop,'' said a Zachary's dancer named Angel. ``I told them I felt bad taking...

BOURNE, Mass. --The state is monitoring seven sex offenders at Camp Edwards who are among the more than 200 evacuees from New Orleans living at the Cape Cod military base. The male offenders are living together on a separate floor of the base's dormitory-style barracks while the state tries to learn more about their criminal backgrounds. Edward Flynn, the state's secretary of public safety, said protecting the other evacuees without stigmatizing the sex offenders is a "delicate balance." "We want to respect people's sense of dignity," Flynn said. "We have to take into consideration that this is a vulnerable population...

BOURNE, Mass. (AP) - Army officials at a Massachusetts army base said they thought they were being eco-friendly when they started using "green bullets" that contain no lead - a move meant to prevent polluting an aquifer beneath Camp Edwards. But six years later, after a million rounds have been fired at the base's shooting ranges, new information suggests the green bullets may not be much better for the environment than the lead ones. "It's frustrating," Col. William FitzPatrick of the National Guard's Environmental Readiness Center said Thursday. "You're doing what you think are the right things. As science evolves,...