Free Republic

The Republic of Bolivia boasts a new national monument: the childhood home of Evo Morales, the country's new president. In July, reports the Bolivian newspaper La Razon, Morales issued presidential decree No. 28807, declaring his hometown of Orinoca a "National Historical Heritage" site and turning the house where he was born into a "Historic Monument." The decree, approved by the president and his cabinet without input by the national legislature, directs the Ministry of Culture to allocate government funds toward maintenance of the home, and to build an "interactive museum" chronicling Morales's life up until his election victory last December....

The most comprehensive analysis ever performed of the genetic relationships among all the major groups of snakes, lizards, and other scaly reptiles has resulted in a radical reorganization of the family tree of these animals, requiring new names for many of the tree's new branches. The research, reported in the current issue of the journal C. R. Biologies, was performed by two biologists working at Penn State University: S. Blair Hedges, professor of biology, and Nicolas Vidal, a postdoctoral fellow in Hedges' research group at the time of the research who now is a curator at the National Museum in...

New York -WABC, Feb. 10, 2005) — A boil water advisory has gone out to 17 area towns this morning. All are serviced by the same water treatment tank where the body of a missing New Jersey woman was found last night. Eyewitness News reporter Ken Rosato is at the scene in Totowa with more. The medical examiner arrived at the Passaic Valley water treatment plant last night. It was clear, the news would be grim. They had found the body of a woman missing for several days. The discovery led officials to declare a boil water advisory for several...