Free Republic

At least two rockets slammed into an area south of Beirut that houses the Defense Ministry and presidential palace on Thursday night, Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported. There were no casualties, according to the report. It was not immediately clear who fired the rockets or from where. Eyewitnesses said one rocket fell only a few meters from an entrance to the presidential palace, according to the Associated Press. Though nothing is yet confirmed, the incident may have something to do with the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria which has spilled into Lebanon on more than one occasion. Since the...

HIDALGO COUNTY - Deputies think a kidnapping squad from Mexico is behind the disappearance of a missing Hidalgo County man. The Hidalgo County sheriff briefed us on the case file. Forty-year-old Armando Morfin was taken from his home in north Hidalgo County Friday. He reportedly dropped off his children at school. By the time he returned home, three men were waiting for him. His wife and 4-year-old child were tied up. They weren't harmed. By the time they freed themselves, the men were long gone along with Morfin. His van was found a few hours later on the side of...

Laredo police on Tuesday and Wednesday rounded up five people they say carried out hits for the notorious Zetas drug cartel on this side of the Rio Grande. Customs officers on Tuesday night detained Nicolas Reyes Sanchez, 48, identified in an arrest warrant affidavit as the supervisor of a group of Zetas operating in Laredo, as he attempted to enter the U.S. at one of the city's international bridges. Starting early Wednesday, police launched a series of raids nabbing four more people accused of being Sanchez's subordinates and taking part in three homicides last year. Another man was arrested on...

HIDALGO COUNTY - The sheriff says the shooting involving a Hidalgo County sheriff deputy has a cartel connection. Sheriff Lupe Trevino says Sunday’s shooting can be linked to the death of Samuel Borrego Torres, also known as “Metro Tres,” of the Gulf Cartel. Trevino says Daniel Gonzalez Perez from Rio Bravo, a known member of a gang called Partido Revolutionaro, is the man who opened fire on his deputies. The sheriff says this gang was contracted to find a lost load of marijuana for the Gulf Cartel when Metro Tres was killed. Hidalgo deputies rolled up on Perez and three...

ESCOBARES — Fifteen gunmen crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S. near a shootout between the Mexican military and a group of gunmen was taking place. Several area SWAT teams were responding about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to a ranch near Escobares, just across the U.S.-Mexico border where a shootout broke out south of the Rio Grande. The shootout reportedly began shortly after noon but details were not readily available. Residents on the U.S. side reported seeing members of the U.S. Border Patrol and Starr County Sheriff's Office near the border securing the area. A U.S. law enforcement official confirmed a...

Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott has penned a letter to President Barack Obama requesting he take action following the recent Mexican drug cartel activity in Texas. The letter cites some of the incidents that have occurred in the Rio Grande Valley in the past couple of weeks, including the arrest of three Gulf Cartel leaders — two in Cameron County. It also mentions incidents that occurred in El Paso and Fort Hancock. Abbott writes of the criminal organizations: "Their presence in our country is more evidence that the cartels increasingly view the porous border as no more than a line...

He was just a skinny kid with a thick head of hair who stole cars and sold pot around his East End neighborhood. But Daniel Zamora climbed the crime ranks to reach one of the world's most ruthless employers: a Mexican drug cartel capable of providing power and money even if the path meant prison or death. Which for "Danny Boy," it did. He was dead by the age of 32, but not before bringing his family and friends along for a wildly perilous ride. Their collective story is one of a modern-day mafia, every bit as merciless as the...

PALMVIEW -- A "Trespassers Will Be Shot" sign stood in the front lawn of a residence here where Hidalgo County Sheriff's deputies worked late Monday night to investigate an alleged gun battle. Sheriff Lupe Trevino confirmed investigators were now trying to link reports of several shots fired in the neighborhood at around 9:20 p.m. Monday to an unidentified shooting victim dropped off at Mission Regional Medical Center soon after. A resident at a home on the Farmosa Avenue cul-de-sac in Palmview told deputies he used his own assault rifle to defend himself after noticing several armed and masked men approaching...

Senator John McCain says he's worried that border violence will spill into Arizona.

SAN JUAN —Police reunited a teenage woman with her family Monday afternoon, nearly 19 hours after she was abducted, blindfolded and dumped in a Reynosa field. The 18-year-old woman, whose name was not disclosed by police, was walking to a friend’s house about 6:30 p.m. Sunday. A black van pulled up alongside her and three men hopped out, San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said. They snatched the girl, blindfolded her and took her to Reynosa. The kidnappers began calling the woman’s family demanding ransom money. “The kidnappers somehow missed it that she had a cell phone,” Gonzalez said. “We...

Beijing blacks out anti-Japan protests By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - As anti-Japanese protests continued for a third day in a row Tuesday, government censors imposed a news blackout on coverage of protests, signaling that Beijing was trying to contain further damage to already strained Sino-Japanese relations. None of the nation's thousands of newspapers, television stations and news websites carried any details of the protests that took the capital by storm on Saturday. On Sunday, hundreds of full-gear riot police blocked access to the diplomatic quarter in downtown Beijing, but avoided direct confrontation with protesters. In sharp contrast with the full...