Free Republic

Gary Webb's Final Days Tue Jan 25, 6:34 PM ET NEW YORK As with nearly every suicide, there is far more to the death of Gary Webb than meets the eye. Although his downward spiral following his departure from the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News provides a pat story line, the devil is really in the details -- and extends to a wide range of family and health issues, as well as a stolen motorcycle. In fact, after spending several years away from full-time journalism, Webb was beginning to stage a comeback in late 2004. But then a series of...

Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, dies THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49. Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office....

Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, son of notorious Medellín cartel drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar, now says his father “worked for the CIA.” In a new book, “Pablo Escobar In Fraganti,” Escobar, who lives under the pseudonym, Juan Sebastián Marroquín, explains his “father worked for the CIA selling cocaine to finance the fight against Communism in Central America.” “The drug business is very different than what we dreamed,” he continues. “What the CIA was doing was buying the controls to get the drug into their country and getting a wonderful deal.” “He did not make the money alone,” Marroquín elaborated in an...

Mark Halperin of Bloomberg interviewed Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a candidate for president of the United States, recently and endeavored to find out how authentically Cuban he is. This line of questioning has not, so far as is known, been directed at any other presidential candidate. Barack Obama’s blackness has not been called into question, nor has Hillary Clinton’s womanhood. Ruben Navarrette, writing on Saturday for the San Jose Mercury News, was appalled, to say the least. Halperin asked Cruz what kind of Cuban food he liked, if he listened to Cuban music and was invited to address Bernie Sanders...

Unfortunately, Senate Republicans, except for Sen. Maldonado, decided they would continue holding up the budget in an effort to address concerns they have with environmental regulations. Let me be perfectly clear - it is unacceptable to hold up the budget, and negatively impact the entire state, over a non-budget issue. Once the Republican senators achieved their promise to balance the budget, they should have joined Sen. Maldonado and passed it. The budget is now six weeks late, leaving one of the world's largest economies without a spending plan. The ramifications are real and far-reaching.

A federal judge issued an order Friday that allows the sale of four newspapers, including the Times, to MediaNews Group Inc., pending a separate decision by the U.S. Department of Justice. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston clears a major obstacle that could have stalled the sale of the Times, San Jose Mercury News, Monterey County Herald and St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press. San Francisco businessman Clinton Reilly had filed a lawsuit aimed at halting the deal in which Sacramento-based McClatchy Co. would sell the papers to Denver-based MediaNews. The judge denied a request by Reilly for a...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Jose Mercury News has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a same-sex harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a man who said he endured sexual comments and touching from a mailroom supervisor, officials said today. Mark Newton, 45, of Brentwood, who is married with children, said a former male supervisor harassed him from October 2002 to June 2003, leading him to seek medical treatment for emotional distress. "These practices include subjecting Mr. Newton to harassment on the basis of his sex, male, which created an offensive, abusive, intimidating...