Free Republic

A U.S. court has opened the door to restrictions on religious practices that are not considered “mandatory” by the faith.

HOUSTON - A member of a right-wing paramilitary group who was extradited from Colombia made his first appearance in Houston federal court Friday on a charge he participated in a $25 million arms-for-cocaine deal. Diego Alberto Ruiz Arroyave was one of 14 right-wing paramilitaries nabbed in a surprise pre-dawn operation this week and brought to the United States to face charges of supporting a terrorist organization and drug trafficking. Many of the others made their court appearances earlier in New York, Washington, Miami and Tampa, Fla. During a brief court hearing, Ruiz appeared before a federal magistrate judge on a...

Gary McKinnon leaves Bow Street Magistrates' Court yesterday after a judge recommended that he be extradited to the US (DAVID BEBBER) A BRITISH man accused of the biggest military hacking operation yet faces trial in the US after a judge recommended him for extradition yesterday. Gary McKinnon believes that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay and tried by a military tribunal if his extradition goes ahead. He said that he was “practically already hung and quartered” if US government claims that he would face a federal court in Virginia proved correct. Mr McKinnon, 40, is alleged to have caused...

Hundreds of students who have transferred from Hearne to the Mumford Independent School District will have to go home to reverse an illegal "white flight" trend that has segregated the districts, according to a ruling delivered out of a federal court last week. U.S. District Court Judge William Justice described Mumford as maintaining a "pattern of fraudulent conduct" in past years as it solicited transfers from Hearne, increasing its enrollment of white students over a 10-year period by 3,540 percent. The judge's ruling permanently bars the TEA from funding transfers to Mumford that "reduce or impeded racial desegregation at Hearne...

<p>Problems mount for Shreveport councilman Lester barred from practicing in federal court in Western District.</p> <p>Don Walker / Staff Writer Posted on July 16, 2003 Shreveport City Councilman Calvin Lester has been barred from practicing law in the federal court system in several Louisiana cities - including Shreveport - until May 2005, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court here.</p>