Free Republic

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned to the national spotlight on Valentine's Day to tell U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he misses her verbal attacks. "It had been days since she had given me any attention. How are you, Condoleezza?" Chavez asked in a speech Wednesday to pensioners in the capital of Caracas. It was Chavez's first response to Rice's testimony last week to a U.S. congressional committee that the Venezuelan leader was "destroying his own country" economically and politically — an apparent reference to a centralization of power in Venezuela and moves to nationalize key...

A Houston jury today found Delmy Ruiz guilty of aggravated assault in the severing of her ex-boyfriend's penis with a knife. Ruiz, who listened to the verdict through headphones, closed her eyes and lowered her head when she heard the verdict. The trial now moves into the punishment phase. Earlier today, Assistant District Attorney Mike Trent told jurors that despite Ruiz's claims of violent rape, she is still a criminal for cutting off her former boyfriend's penis. "You don't have the right to cut it off because you've been raped. You have the right to call the police," Assistant District...

Penis amputated 'by accident' The surgeon has been arrested A Mexican surgeon "accidentally" cut off the penis of a patient who had only come in for a circumcision. Federal agents in Tijuana have arrested Dr Francisco Javier Valentin y Ortiz, who worked at a state-run clinic. He is accused of negligent injury, medical malpractice and performing surgery without the proper medical certification. The alleged amputation happened in September 2000 when a man visited the clinic for a routine circumcision operation, in which only the foreskin of the penis is removed. This is a relatively technically simple operation, which can be...