Free Republic

<p>New Yorkers can earn cash rewards for ratting out bodegas, groceries and individuals selling bootlegged cigarettes if a bill supported by Mayor Bloomberg wins approval.</p> <p>Under the bill, the city would give a "suitable" reward to anyone who provides information that leads to the detection of violations of the cigarette tax.</p>

French troops under attack from mobs Pro-government mobs are laying siege to the main French military base in the Ivory Coast. The mobs in the country's commerical capital of Abidjan are demanding that peacekeepers withdraw from the country and allow fighting to resume in its civil war. The soldiers, in Ivory Coast to enforce ceasefire lines in the former French colony, fired tear gas and blanks to force back a rock-throwing crowd believed to be 250-strong. French forces in riot gear held the gates as the protesters set fire to barricades outside the base's entrance. Government-allied militias and youth groups...

For weeks, the Palestinian solidarity conference planned for Rutgers University caused controversy. The conference, the goal of which was to force the university to sell holdings in companies that do business in Israel, was originally to be held on the Rutgers campus itself. But after someone spray-painted swastikas on the buildings of some Jewish organizations on the state-run campus, the conference became a political hot-potato that eventually involved the governor of New Jersey. Some in the campus community feared that the conference would be a hate-fest that would only inspire more anti-Semitic acts. In a series of developments that aren't...

Americans are being left baffled by a bizarre phenomenon that is sweeping the US. Called "flash mob", dozens and sometimes hundreds of people are turning up in public places and carrying out wacky, pointless stunts. The mass mobilisation is organised by email - those taking part agree to turn up at a certain place at a certain time to carry out the act. They then disappear a few minutes later, leaving bystanders scratching their heads and wondering what was going on. 'Love Rug' In the latest incident, 200 people turned up at a bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and pretended to...

<p>AS ITS MANY CRITICS have pointed out, Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" is a big-budget historical epic about as concerned with history as, well, the average big-budget historical epic. Since the movie's release, historians have been telling anyone who will listen about just how fast and loose the movie plays with its facts, how capriciously it distorts chronology, conflates characters, and ignores inconvenient events. How, most inexcusably, it glosses over the virulent anti-black animus of the 1863 Draft Riots so as to fit them into an immigrant-versus-nativist ur-narrative.</p>

Iran Contra Alumni in Bush Gov't The Associated Press Wednesday, March 13, 2002; 1:35 AMFormer Iran-Contra figures who have been given jobs in the Bush administration:–JOHN POINDEXTER. Reagan national security adviser during Iran-Contra, the retired admiral is director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office. Created after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the office uses computer technology to detect and analyze new kinds of military threats, including those from terrorist organizations. Poindexter was convicted in 1990 on five felony counts of conspiracy, making false statements to Congress and obstructing congressional inquiries. In 1991, an appellate court overturned the convictions and...