Free Republic

Nearly 53,000 children in China have been sickened by milk powder contaminated by an industrial chemical, the government said Monday, dramatically ramping up its previous figures. Earlier the health ministry said 12,892 infants were in hospital with 104 babies in serious condition, according to the official Xinhua news agency. As the World Health Organization questioned Beijing's handling of the crisis, premier Wen Jiabao appeared on state television promising to head off further incidents. But a Hong Kong toddler also became the first child affected outside the mainland and more countries moved to bar Chinese milk products. The scandal stems from...

There's a new land grab starting in America. Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate - like Barneys New York and the Chrysler Building - is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country....

MONTGOMERY The state Senate may have been locked down for most of the year, but it did find time to endorse a widely discredited urban legend spread by the John Birch Society. The upper chamber passed a joint resolution April 10 sponsored by state Sen. Rusty Glover, R-Semmes, claiming that Canada, Mexico and the United States are moving toward a "North American Union" and working on construction of a "NAFTA Superhighway" to link the countries and report edly destroy their sovereignty. "It's about retaining independence," said John McManus, the president of the John Birch Society, in a phone interview Mon...

It occurs to this poster - for the election of 2008 each of the parties - has fallen under the control of the caricatures, each is accused of by the other: Democrats, really are becoming the far-left bug eyed Marxists, they're accused of being by Republicans. Republicans, really are beholden to a few big businesses, to which they pledge open borders and so-called "free trade".

WASHINGTON – As consumer safety recalls of Christmas products made in China continue at a torrid pace, a new report shows the average Chinese worker making toys is paid a meager 36 cents an hour – just 2.5 percent of what U.S. toy manufacturers pay domestically. Today, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the latest recall of a Christmas import – a holiday candle set that tips over and whose exterior coating is flammable. The snowman and Christmas tree candles were manufactured in China. The Consumer Product Safety Commission warned the candles should not be used because of the...

WASHINGTON – There are mixed signals coming from Mexico about the fate of a proposed mega-port in Baja California for mainly Chinese goods that would be shipped on rail lines and "NAFTA superhighways" running through the U.S. to Canada. The port at Punta Colonet, planned as a major container facility to transfer Asian goods into America's heartland, got at least a temporary setback when a Mexican businessman announced a competing project in which he was seeking to secure mineral rights in the area. Gabriel Chavez, originally one of the principal movers behind the port plan, now says there are significant...

Liberal campaign hurts people who need bargains Evergreen Park, Ill., a suburb contiguous with Chicago's western edge, is 88 percent white. A large majority of the customers of the Wal-Mart that sits here, less than a block outside Chicago, are from the city, and more than 90 percent of the store's customers are African-American. One of whom, a woman pushing a shopping cart with a stoical 3-year-old along for the ride, has a chip on her shoulder about the size of this 141,000 square-foot Wal-Mart. She applied for a job when the store opened in January and was turned down...