Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state appeals court has given San Francisco a chance to reinstate an affirmative action program for minority and female contractors, saying a history of discrimination may justify preferential treatment despite California's Proposition 209. A judge who struck down the 20-year-old program in 2004 failed to review San Francisco's claims that long-standing and pervasive discrimination by both city employees and contractors resulted in firms owned by minorities and women being illegally excluded from winning city business, the First District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday. If San Francisco can prove those claims, it may be able to show...

An unemployed Romanian miner who is flown across the globe to confront environmental activists is the unlikely star of a Michael Moore-style film, aimed at debunking the militant green movement. Gheorghe Lucian, 23, is a plain-speaking resident of an impoverished village where an opencast gold mine is planned. He is dismayed that the project, which would bring a £400 million investment and generate 600 jobs in an area where unemployment is 70 per cent, is being blocked by environmentalists. Among them is the actress Vanessa Redgrave, who used a film festival awards ceremony in June to denounce the mine project...