Free Republic

Heartbreak is the word of the day as newspapers capture the poignant end of a thrilling journey for the football team that dared to dream The excruciating agony of England’s loss on penalties in the final of Euro 2020 dominates the front pages after the team repeated history at Wembley. There is no more poignant parallel than manager Gareth Southgate consoling his players 25 years after his miss sent England out of Euro 96 at the same stadium, and the image features on many of the fronts. The Telegraph says “The ultimate agony … penalties heartbreak again” over the top...

I can’t imagine the terror that must have been running through the mind of the 74-year-old Southgate, Michigan homeowner just before 5:00 AM this morning as a home invader broke in. The homeowner armed himself and stepped outside the bedroom to protect his cancer-stricken wife as she called 911. The homeowner ran into the armed home invader. According to investigators, the home invader raised his weapon, and the homeowner was forced to fire to save his life.

Two notorious abortion mills have closed or are scheduled to close, contributing to the national trend of clinic closures first documented by Operation Rescue last year in "Project Daniel 5:25."  In Yakima, Washington, the Cedar Women's Clinic, which was the first abortion clinic to open in that city 31 years ago, closed Monday due to a dramatic decrease in the demand for abortions. According to statistics kept by the state, the abortion rate for women ages 15 to 44 dropped from 18 per 1,000 in 2008 to 16.7 per 1,000 in 2009. One abortion clinic remains in Yakima.  In...

The former treasurer of the city of South Gate was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison for extracting nearly $2 million in bribes from contractors and sharing the money with family and friends. Albert Robles, 41, was taken into custody immediately after his sentencing. He was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson to pay back more than $600,000 to the city in southeast Los Angeles County. Robles was convicted in July 2005 of five counts of bribery, four counts of money laundering and 21 counts of defrauding citizens of South Gate. Prosecutors depicted the city...

Mexican drug cartels operating in cities in the U.S. are buying up legitimate businesses to launder money and using some of the proceeds to win local mayoral and city council seats for politicians who can shape the policies and personnel decisions of their police forces, according to Rep. Tom Tancredo "The Tijuana-based Felix drug cartel and the Juarez-based Fuentes cartel began buying legitimate business in small towns in Los Angeles County in the early 1990s," "They purchased restaurants, used-car lots, auto-body shops and other small businesses. One of their purposes was to use these businesses for money-laundering operations. Once established...

While we are engaged overseas in a mission to recreate countries in our own image and likeness, many of our own cities are being transformed into the image and likeness of Mexican villages. Nowhere is this more apparent than California. The city of South Gate, a dozen miles southeast of Los Angeles, is a prime example. Until the 1920s the area that is today South Gate was home to dairies—many of them operated by Danish immigrant families —and vegetable and fruit farms. Then subdivision began, and housing tracts and industrial parks started to replace fields and barns. In 1923, with...

Former South Gate Treasurer Albert Robles was arrested Friday and charged with plundering $12 million over five years from the small working-class city, whose entire annual budget is $28 million. A federal grand jury indicted Robles on 39 counts of money laundering, bribery, wire fraud and public corruption, alleging that he used his elected office and political influence to funnel money from a variety of city projects to family and friends between 1998 and last year. Federal officials estimate that Robles, 39, personally received $1.2 million from the various schemes. Robles' attorney declined to comment Friday, saying he had not...