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Dominion Voting Systems’ electronic voting machines contract with the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico is under threat after contentious primaries produced upset results. According to election officials, some machines reported zero votes for certain candidates or reversed count totals. Counts reported by machines were also sometimes lower than paper counts. “The concern is that we obviously have elections in November, and we must provide the [island] not only with the assurance that the machine produces a correct result but also that the result it produces is the same one that is reported,” said Jessika Padilla, interim president of Puerto Rico’s...

Santa Fe - Democratic lawmakers believe the governor broke the rules again and they're taking her to court because of it. On Wednesday Democratic legislators Mimi Stewart, Kiki Saavedra, John Arthur Smith and Luciano "Lucky" Varela slapped the governor with two lawsuits over her line-item vetoes in an unemployment bill and a housing bill. The unemployment bill would have required businesses to pay more into unemployment benefits. The governor chose to take out the line that specifies the amount. Lawmakers argue she can't do that because it's not an appropriations bill. The second bill allocated $150,000 to the Mortgage Finance...

Alleged gun smuggling leader arrested in TucsonBy: The Associated Press Updated at: 04/04/2008 02:16:41 PM PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona authorities have arrested a Tucson man accused of being the leader of a gun smuggling network that supplied a Mexican drug cartel with weapons. Authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of 23-year-old Victor Manuel Varela Jr., who is accused of supplying the Juarez cartel in Palomas, Mexico with rifles and guns. Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, says Varela’s network illegally bought the firearms in Arizona, transported them to New Mexico and then took...

Last year, more than 650 Venezuelans quietly, unremarkably applied for asylum in the United States. But two cases are grabbing headlines in South Florida and in Venezuela. A pair of former military officers linked to the bombings of the Spanish and Colombian diplomatic missions in Caracas are now at the center of an extradition fight that will test the Bush administration's response to terrorism in the hemisphere. Last December, José Antonio Colin Pulido and Germán Varela arrived at Miami International Airport seeking asylum. A month later Venezuela filed a request to extradite the two men to face charges in Caracas...

HAVANA -- A former political prisoner whose case was highlighted by President Bush urged Cuba's government Friday to hold a referendum on whether to change the communist island's political system. In a 10-page report called "The Cuba We Want," Leonardo Bruzon Avila and fellow dissident Carlos Rios Otero called for the referendum and laid out a plan for Cuba's transition to a multiparty, democratic system and free-market economy. The report was delivered Friday to the offices of Cuban Justice Minister Roberto Diaz Sotolongo. There was no public reaction by the President Fidel Castro's government to the recommendations. The proposal echoed...

Wake Me Up When Cuba Is Free At Last! By Donnel Jones, June 14, 2003 Home   Search   Forum   Terms I really can't bear it. Castro has flipped his lid and is alienating one of his few, remaining allies: the European Union. Whatever unlikely moral intelligence is left in the E.U., it should be commended for aligning itself with the United States in its censure of Cuba's most recent brutal crackdown on dissidents. Of course, this censure took the form of an announcement that the E.U. would "review" its relationship with the Caribbean dictatorship, so one shouldn't get one's hopes up. To help...