Free Republic

One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned.Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said.Ivins’ name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case that disrupted mail service...

Critics say the Arkansas governor cashed in on the school shooting with the 1998 publication of 'Kids Who Kill.' By Richard A. Serrano Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 26, 2008 JONESBORO, ARK. — After two middle-school boys in camouflage gear shot and killed four classmates and a teacher here, leaving 10 others wounded and a community shattered, it seemed inevitable that someone would see opportunity in the tragedy for a book deal. Indeed, within days a publisher agreed to pay $25,000 to an Arkansas writer to produce a book on youth violence. Victims' families were outraged. They called the...

The U.S. is known for its "paranoid style" of politics, so brace yourself for the next Big Scare coming down the pike (literally) -- the Trans-Texas Corridor. Isolationist conservatives, emboldened by their jihad last year against the Dubai Ports World deal, have identified this road project as the spearhead of a conspiracy to dissolve the United States of America. Texas awarded a planning contract in 2005 for the first phase of the corridor to Cintra, a Spanish multinational company, and its San Antonio partner, Zachry Construction. (Cintra also won a $1.3-billion contract last year to build a 40-mile extension of...

Over at Captains Quarters, Captain Ed ponders an interesting question brought forth by one of his readers. Apparently, the only evidence of Fred's work at National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association is a copy of the NFPRHA's board minutes from September 14, 1991 that claims that the group had hired Fred. The big question is, at what point did Fred begin working there? Here's what Captain Ed found. Now a new bit of indirect evidence has been found. Arent Fox brought Thompson into the firm to be "of counsel" in 1991 for his expertise in their lobbying business, including...

GARDEZ, Afghanistan — After completing their deployment to this remote firebase, the Green Berets of ODA 2021 left for home covered in glory. The 10-member Special Forces team, part of the Alabama National Guard, returned to their families in the spring of 2003 with tales to tell of frenzied firefights and narrow escapes. ADVERTISEMENT Its commander had nominated each of his men — as well as himself — for medals for valor. The team's performance was heralded as evidence that the Guard could play as equals with the regular Army in the war on terrorism. But the team also had...

On a tape of a closed-door meeting with advisers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that Cubans and Puerto Ricans are naturally feisty and temperamental because of their combination of "black blood" and "Latino blood." "I mean Cuban, Puerto-Rican, they are all very hot," the governor says on the recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times and made available on its Web site Friday. "They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it." The six-minute tape was made earlier this year. On it, Schwarzenegger and Chief of...

THE RESOLUTION UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED FRIDAY by the U.N. Security Council calling for a "full cessation of hostilities" in Lebanon comes too late for the more than 1,000 people killed in the last four weeks. But its adoption — with the expected consent of Israel and Lebanon — is still a major achievement. If implemented successfully, it not only would prevent further loss of innocent life, but would address what President Bush called the "root cause" of this unexpected and unexpectedly bloody conflict: Hezbollah's creation of its own state within Lebanon. Hezbollah, a Shiite movement nurtured by Iran, proved that it...

In the weeks leading up to the release of The Passion of the Christ film over two years ago, Tim Rutten, media columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote no less than six hyperventilating columns that dealt almost exclusively with breathless concerns over anti-Semitism in Mel Gibson's film. At one point, Rutten attacked Mel Gibson as "a little brat" and "an unwholesomely willful child playing with matches."  Yet when the blatantly anti-Christian and anti-Catholic The Da Vinci Code was released a few months ago, Rutten's reaction was a ho-hum and a yawn; far from a concern, Da Vinci is "only...

A Los Angeles Times editor, hoping to give his journalists a break from reporting the often grim news in America's second-largest city, offered an unusual morale booster Monday: pony rides. Managing Editor Doug Frantz ..."I hope it boosted morale..." Like many major U.S. newspapers, the Times, forced to compete with news Web sites on the Internet, has seen circulation decline.

The 43-foot San Diego landmark represents clear government favoritism toward one religion.THE GRACEFUL SIMPLICITY of the towering cross atop a San Diego hill belies its convoluted history. It starts with a small wooden cross erected on the city-owned hill nearly 100 years ago, apparently for Easter sunrise services. Atop 822-foot Mt. Soledad, there is little to block the first rays of the sun. Over the years, crosses were vandalized or blown down and replaced; the current version was erected in 1954. It is a striking sight, visible from Interstate 5 and surrounded by an imposing spiked-top fence. In 1989, a...

SACRAMENTO — State intelligence reports released Thursday by the Schwarzenegger administration include material suggesting that the governor's anti-terrorism operation was interested in the actions of the Minuteman volunteer border patrol group. The reports also include a cryptic reference to "suspicious conversations at a mosque" in San Diego. TState officials released more than 80 intelligence reports prepared for the state Office of Homeland Security, in response to The Times' disclosure that two reports carried information about domestic political protests ranging from antiwar gatherings to protect-the-seals rallies. Large sections of the reports shown to reporters had been removed. The homeland security office...

LAST WEEK, IT LOOKED as if Sacramento might use a fraction of this year's multibillion-dollar budget surplus to expand health coverage for more kids in California. But in their final budget negotiations, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature decided that it was better to cave to a small group of vocal Republicans who believe that sick 3-year-olds should be punished for their parents' actions.

ON APRIL 6, 2004, Cpl. Jason Howell, a Marine squad leader who had arrived in Iraq three weeks before, was enduring his baptism of fire in what later became known as the "first battle of Fallouja." Howell, who had not eaten in 18 hours or slept in 36, was running on nothing but adrenaline. His dehydrated spittle, caked around the side of his mouth, was dirty white. Kneeling on a roof, he saw a flash of movement. An Iraqi child put his face out the window. Exhausted, Howell found himself unable to process the Arabic word he had learned for...

Gale Holland, LA TIMES newsdesk: "If something newsworthy happens, we'll cover it" phone conversation, 4-14-06 If the mainstream media cannot figure out why they are going the way of the dinosaurs and the Whigs, perhaps a little encounter with Gale Holland can serve as but a small example of the problem. On Monday, I called the LA TIMES, and they connected me to Gale Holland at the newsdesk. I let her know that a trial date was set on the previous Friday for defendant Bill Clinton, et al in the historic civil lawsuit of Peter Paul. Holland, not surprisingly, knew...

HISTORIANS OF the future will look back with amazement at U.S. foreign policy at the turn of the millennium, especially with regard to Russia. It's true, of course, that the Soviet Union once posed a severe threat to the United States and its allies — a global challenge that tied up American energies for 50 years and cost tens of thousands of American lives in anti-communist proxy wars. But that struggle ended in 1989 with a Western victory that was not only complete but miraculously peaceful. Since then, the U.S.-Russia relationship has been uneasy but usually cooperative. Not one American...

In today’s editions of the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, there are editorials praising Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Cardinal Mahony for opposing restrictive immigration bills. If a bill with punitive measures gets passed, Cardinal Mahony wants priests and the laity to defy the law. Here’s what Catholic League president Bill Donohue had to say about this development: “The Los Angeles Times not only commends Cardinal Mahony for his latest statement on public policy, it congratulates him for ‘reinforcing the right of religious leaders to speak out on the moral ramifications of political issues.’ This is a dramatic...

Warriors and wusses I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on. I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

Bad news tonight for Tribune Company shareholders: Shares in Tribune Co. tumbled Thursday after the media company reported a 6.1% drop in revenue last month on declines in both its newspaper and television businesses. Tribune, whose holdings include 26 television stations, 11 urban U.S. dailies and Spanish-language Hoy, said December revenue fell to $539 million from $574 million a year earlier. The company's stock fell $1.01, or 3.2%, to $30.80 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Tribune shares sank 28% in 2005. Advertising revenue in the publishing division fell 4.5%to $333 million, down from $349 million. The...

Michele Naar-Obed knows she will not stop the war in Iraq by walking the streets of Baghdad, unarmed and unguarded, calling for an end to the violence, but she considers it her duty to try. She is 49 years old, a mother, a wife, a pacifist who can't stand to be passive. Soldiers put their lives on the line for their country; she will risk hers too, in pursuit of peace. Four of her colleagues in the pacifist movement were kidnapped in Baghdad late last month. The men — fellow members of Christian Peacemaker Teams — have been threatened with...

WHO IN THE White House knew about DITSUM No. 044-02 and when did they know it? That's the newly declassified smoking-gun document, originally prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2002 but ignored by President Bush. Its declassification this weekend blows another huge hole in Bush's claim that he was acting on the best intelligence available when he pitched the invasion of Iraq as a way to prevent an Al Qaeda terror attack using weapons of mass destruction. The report demolished the credibility of the key Al Qaeda informant the administration relied on to make its claim that a...