Free Republic

(CBS) LOS ANGELES -- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called on federal, state and local officials Wednesday to develop a plan to fight poverty by investing more money in education. During a luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Villaraigosa pushed for coordinated investment in universal preschool, education saving accounts and expanded availability of career training for youths. "There is no clearer predictor of economic success, no more powerful weapon against poverty, than educational attainment," Villaraigosa said. "It's time to move the issue of education reform to the front and center of the national debate." Villaraigosa's speech offered a preview...

CHARLESTON, S.C. - A City Council member, reacting to a video store holdup believed to have been carried out by children, says parents who can't properly care for their kids should be sterilized. "We pick up stray animals and spay them," Larry Shirley said in a story published Saturday by The Post and Courier of Charleston. "These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs. Once they have a child and it's running the street, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable." Shirley's comments come after police say a video store was held...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - In Niger, a desert country twice the size of Texas, most of the 11 million people live on a dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of four dies before turning 5. And that's when things are normal. Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges: skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the flies from their faces. To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken areas. They leave it to...