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Chile officially appealed for international aid today as the country's President Michelle Bachelet imposed a dusk to dawn curfew in the two provinces closest to the epicentre of Saturday's earthquake and tsunami and the death toll rose to over 700 people. The army was sent in overnight to help the overwhelmed police force to deal with looters in Chile’s second city, Concepcion, which was 70km from the epicentre of the quake.

ATTORNEY General Eric Holder's decision to send the radical Islamic terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks to New York City for trial is horribly misguided. This public-safety mistake will further endanger our city and the lives of New Yorkers. New York City has always been in the crosshairs of terrorists seeking to attack our nation. Our city likely will always be the No. 1 terrorist target, but yesterday we had another bulls-eye placed on our backs, inviting yet another terrorist attack. The trials for these murderous terrorists are expected to be long and drawn out -- perhaps taking years, thanks...

California's newly minted budget deal was threatened late today after the Assembly Republican leader said he would withhold GOP votes because of an emerging Democratic proposal to release thousands of prisoners to home detention and county jails and create a commission to review criminal sentences. In an e-mail to his colleagues titled "Budget Double-Cross?" GOP leader Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo said the budget agreement with Democrats and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger clearly ruled out "early prisoner releases." Moreover, he said leaders had agreed to tackle the prison issue in August after the main budget bills had been approved. Votes...

Chunks of this city's rich and eclectic architectural history tumble to the ground every few days, piece by piece, forever lost in the rubble. Neo-Baroque and Art Deco treasures deteriorate at an alarming rate. Every three days, there are two partial or total building collapses in Central Havana alone, according to architectural experts. No official figures are available. "Buildings are standing by sheer luck," said architect Jose Antonio Choy, president of a Cuban nonprofit organization devoted to the conservation of Havana's modern architecture. In September, after Hurricane Ike's lethal 41-hour odyssey across much of the island, authorities reported 67 buildings...

On Jan. 10, 2008, it was 22,000. This past New Year's Eve, it was 15,000. Two weeks ago Friday, it was 8,000. Now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration – looking down the barrel again at a massive budget crisis – is talking about letting 38,000 inmates out of prison before their time is up. Proposals 1 and 2 never got off the ground when the governor's budget writers eventually found the money to keep the prisons full. More recently, the administration never followed up with legislation to enact the early releases corrections Secretary Matt Cate announced on April 24. The latest...

SNIPPET: "Fourteen years ago today Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway." SNIPPET: "A final note - Aum Shinrikyo operatives, on the order of the cult's leader, underwent flight training in Florida. There is no evidence that they made any attempts to use this training. It is just an odd, disturbing coincidence."

After two fatal tower crane accidents last year, New York City instituted a series of reforms to increase safety and oversight in the construction industry, including requiring a 30-hour class for crane operators and other workers on the safest way to raise and lower a tower crane. But some sessions of the city-mandated class are being taught by a union official who has admitted that he helped unqualified people, including organized crime figures, get into his union, according to sworn testimony and investigative reports. He and other union officials helped some of those men secure licenses to operate smaller cranes...

NEVER-BEFORE-REVEALED TERRORIST TRAINING VIDEO EXPOSES 35 COMPOUNDS ON AMERICAN SOILBy Steve Foley - Posted on February 9th, 2009 Press Release from the Christian Action Network “Act like you are his friend. Then kill him.” – Sheik Muburak Gilani explaining how to kill American infidels Washington, DC—Christian Action Network will show Homegrown Jihad at the Landmark Theater in Washington, DC, on February 11, 2009, at 7:30 pm. There is no charge to attend the viewing. Copies can also be obtained at www.christianaction.org. The American public was never supposed to know. The 2006 Justice Department document that exposes 35 terrorist training compounds...

Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., has introduced to the House of Representatives a new bill, H.R. 645, calling for the secretary of homeland security to establish no fewer than six national emergency centers for corralling civilians on military installations. The proposed bill, which has received little mainstream media attention, appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany. The bill also appears to expand the president's emergency power, much as the executive order...

A military judge has refused the Obama administration's request to delay proceeding for 120 days in the case of a detainee held at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is accused of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship, an al-Qaeda strike that killed 17 service members and injured 50 others. The decision throws into some disarray the administration's plan to buy some time as it reviews individual detainee cases as part of its plan to close the prison. The Pentagon may now be forced to withdraw the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a...

WASHINGTON -- If you're a criminal and you're not entitled to be in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants you out of the country. Napolitano wants what she calls "criminal aliens" off American streets. She is looking at existing immigration enforcement programs to see if taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck. "That sounds very simple, but it's historically not been done," Napolitano said, speaking to reporters and senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials Thursday. About 113,000 criminals who were in the U.S. illegally were deported last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The agency...

Some home builders already struggling in Florida's dismal housing market are facing another headache: The Chinese-made drywall they used is causing unpleasant odors and possibly leading to electric problems in dozens of homes constructed during the housing boom.

Removing All Doubt Obama Would Cede Southwest to Mexico American Patrol Report -- December 19 "We are all Americans, whether you are legalized or not" Anyone who still doubts that Barack Obama is determined to grant de-facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens should explain to the rest of us why he picked Hilda Solis to be Secretary of Labor. A long-time supporter of la Reconquista, the Mexican takeover of the American Southwest, Solis is also a leader in the movement to silence Americans who speaks out against the invasion, specifically Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. At a...

By Michael Webster, Syndicated Investigative Reporter Early this month U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Tucson, Ariz. sector and agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were again fired upon with what appeared to be military type automatic weapons by Mexican drug smugglers dressed in military garb. Agents after observing a Flatbed tow truck on the Mexican side of the U.S. Mexican border backed up to the new international border fence. According to witnesses the tow truck backed up on a newly constructed earthen dirt berm which put the truck almost even with the height of the fence. The tow...

Naming his national security team, President-elect Obama acknowledged that the attacks in Mumbai once again emphasized the threat of terrorism and the importance of these picks for “a new dawn of American leadership.” But Obama’s choice for Secretary of Homeland Security, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, has a record of opposing border control to stop the flow of illegal immigrants (and therefore the criminals, gangs, drug smugglers and terrorists that inevitably accompany it). She also opposes any internal controls to detect and prevent illegals from unlawfully exploiting the benefits and privileges of our society. Under Napolitano, “change” for DHS may mean...

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month claimed some 500 casualties, dead and injured. Among the many questions raised by the outrage, there was a purely practical one: Why was the attack so successful? How could so few terrorists claim so many victims? One obvious answer is firepower. Guns were illegal in the hands of both the terrorists and the victims. The victims obeyed the laws, the terrorists didn’t. The police had guns, of course, but instead of protecting people, they stayed away until the massacre was practically over. Gun laws -- surprise, surprise! -- weren’t strong enough to defend...

Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk." As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies. Huckabee said Saturday that his comments came at a time when the public was still learning about HIV and AIDS and promised to do "everything possible to transform...

Figures from program's first 6 months show drop in accidents, tickets By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News Dallas officials believe the city's electronic red-light spies are causing motorists to hit the brakes. Preliminary statistics show that accidents and citations are drastically down at intersections with red-light cameras during the first six months of the program, according to a report presented to the City Council's public safety committee Monday. "Police can't be at intersections at all times, but technology can," said Zaida Basora, an assistant director of the city's Public Works and Transportation Department. In Dallas, nearly 30 percent...

Homeland Security: A bill to protect citizens who report terror threats became law only Friday, yet it's already working to back down terror-supporting bullies. The so-called "Flying Imams" dropped passengers as defendants in their bogus case just days after Congress reached a deal to shield terror tipsters from race-bias suits. The Muslim clerics were kicked off a US Airways flight in November after passengers warned crew members the clerics were behaving like the 9/11 hijackers. Democrats shamefully tried to strip the provision out of homeland security legislation President Bush just signed. It took a former Democrat — Independent Sen. Joe...

A few weeks ago, David Bennett turned off Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades and pulled into a nearly vacant parking lot at Temescal Gateway Park to use his cellphone. When he was finished, he passed a stop sign at Temescal Canyon Road and continued back to Sunset. Then he heard from the state authority that runs the park and other open spaces along the Santa Monica Mountains. "They sent me a letter telling me I didn't really stop," said the Malibu contractor. "They said it was a 'courtesy' letter because they weren't collecting the fine yet." That will change next...