CHESTER, Calif. — Students at two high schools are devastated after hearing that a couple bound for a prom were slain over the weekend, and that the young woman’s ex-boyfriend is accused of the killings.

Jennifer Carrigan and Steven Daniel Furtado, both 18, were found dead Sunday by Carrigan’s mother at a house in Chester.

Deputies arrested 18-year-old Reyes Carillo in the deaths of the two teens, said Plumas County Sheriff’s Patrol Commander Gerry Hendrick. He said Carillo previously dated Carrigan. Read more »

One of the Vikings’ most important trading centres has been discovered in Ireland.

The settlement at Woodstown in County Waterford is estimated to be about 1,200 years old.

It was discovered during archaeological excavations for a road by-pass for Waterford city, which was founded by the Vikings.

The Irish government said the settlement was one of the most important early Viking age trading centres discovered in the country. Read more »

Dallas has historically been predominantly white but its population diversified as it grew in size and importance over the 20th century to the point that whites now represent only one-third of the city’s population. In addition, almost 25% of Dallas’s population is foreign born. [Wiki entry]

DALLAS — It’s May, which means thousands of high school seniors across North Texas can almost taste it: their diploma. This month 7,500 Dallas ISD seniors are expected to walk across the stage and make their families proud.

But what if we told you that 75 percent of the seniors headed to Dallas community colleges can’t read above an 8th grade level, and others can’t add or subtract?

Graduation is a time for feeling proud, but that might quickly change to frustration for thousands of DISD students like Gia Hollis come fall, when reality hits. Read more »

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Federal Immigration agents on Monday arrested more than 300 people in Postville during a raid at the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant.

The raid by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was the largest in Iowa history, said Matt M. Dummermuth, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Iowa.

Dummermuth said the raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in northeast Iowa came after months of planning, beginning in October 2007. Federal agents were helped by state and local police. Read more »

This week Israelis are celebrating the 60th anniversary of their state’s foundation. But, as German media commentators point out, the country still faces huge challenges.

As Israel celebrated its 60th anniversary this week, there was much the country could point to with pride. Despite being surrounded for much of its history by hostile neighbors, Israelis have built up a successful economy, turning deserts into fertile land and developing a successful high-tech industry. Israelis are also proud of their tradition of liberal parliamentary democracy in the largely autocratic Middle East. Read more »

Bavarian Prime Minister Guenther Beckstein called Sunday for a dialogue with the Czech government to resolve outstanding issues related to the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II.

For this to happen, “Prague had to face up to the chapter of history relating to the expulsions,” he said at a rally of the Sudeten German Association in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg.

“Concealment will not resolve the problem. A lasting reconciliation is possible only on the basis of the historical truth,” Beckstein said at the gathering attended by around 8,000 mostly elderly expellees.

Read more »

Perhaps the most dangerous place to be a Zionist is on today’s American college campuses.

From coast to coast, left-wing politics and the Palestinian cause have joined forces, notes Middle East analyst Mark Silverberg. Supporting the Palestinian cause, he says, has become “fashionable” in liberal college circles.

Jewish students on numerous American campuses need to counter canards and half-truths about Israel with hard facts, passion and confidence. This requires training, the kind that will soon be available in Cleveland for current high- school sophomores.

Read more »

HOUSTON - An illegal immigrant from Mexico was convicted of capital murder Thursday in the 2006 shooting of a police officer during a traffic stop.

Jurors will now consider whether Juan Leonardo Quintero-Perez, 34, should get the death penalty.

Officer Rodney Johnson, 40, was shot four times in the head after arresting Quintero-Perez for driving without a license. Read more »

MADISONVILLE, Tenn. - Monday morning, an international manhunt was underway for a man who authorities said raped and beat an elderly east Tennessee woman.Police said Francisco Barbosa-Sanchez attacked a 91-year-old Monroe County woman in March 2008.

Investigators said Barbosa-Sanchez is an illegal immigrant, and he may be on the run in his native country of Mexico.

Read more »

BOYNTON BEACH — Authorities have identified the three suspects they say robbed a Burger King at gunpoint Friday and led authorities on a 14-mile, two-county chase and shootout.

Christopher Ladarious Hicks, 18; Robert Louis Jackson Jr., 19; and Reginald Demetris Robinson Jr., 20, all from Pompano Beach, face charges of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault with a firearm, fleeing and eluding and resisting arrest, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday. Read more »

Millions of people across Britain will be shocked and horrified by the news that the fascist British National Party (BNP) has managed to grab an assembly seat in London – one of the most multiracial and diverse cities of the world.

The BNP polled 5.3 percent of the London-wide assembly vote, as compared to 4.7 percent in 2004. Much of this vote came from suburban areas, especially the outer east London boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge.

While anti-fascist campaigning and the high turnout helped hold the Nazis back, it was not enough to prevent them from breaking through the crucial 5 percent barrier that guarantees a London assembly seat. Read more »

I’ve been mugged three times in London. Now, looking at it objectively, spread over 20 years of living in one of the world’s most crowded cities, that’s not a bad tally. The trouble is this: every time, the perpetrators were young, male and black. On the third and most serious occasion, I was clubbed on the head with a metal bar, dragged into an alley, and held with a knife to my neck by one guy while his accomplice raided £500 from my bank account.

What do I “do” with that? The progressive thing to do is, if not write it off as a statistical blip, at least place it in the context of wider sociological factors. But one’s intellectual and visceral responses are two different things, and as a committed anti-racist I was shocked to find myself flinching every time a young black male (particularly if dressed in a particular fashion) passed me in the street. Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown that victim counselling leaflet in the bin. Read more »