HOUSTON — A grand jury here Monday cleared a Pasadena, Texas, man in the shooting deaths of two suspected burglars as they left his neighbor’s house — a case that stirred a national debate over whether he was a vigilante or a hero.

Joe Horn, 62, shot the men on Nov. 14 after he called authorities and declared his intention to open fire on the suspects with his 12-gauge shotgun.

The 911 audiotape captured multiple warnings by the dispatcher, asking Horn to stay inside and telling him that “property’s not worth killing someone over.” However, Horn grew agitated because the men looked to be getting away before police arrived. As the tape rolled, Horn went outside, shouted “Move, you’re dead!” and fired his weapon.

The incident in Pasadena, a city of about 140,000 east of downtown Houston, outraged some activists, who staged protests in the neighborhood. They argued that if Horn — who was not arrested — were not white and his victims not dark-skinned, he would have been taken to jail immediately.

The controversy grew when authorities disclosed that the shooting victims, Diego Ortiz, 30, and Hernando Riascos Torres, 38, were illegal immigrants from Colombia. Read more »

Russian prosecutors say they are ready to charge a group of skinhead youths with more than 20 racially motivated murders and 12 attempted murders.

Prosecutors say the nine accused, all aged 17 to 22, belonged to an illegal far-right group which sought out non-slavic looking people to attack.

The alleged victims were guest workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The group was led by two students and had one female member, who is accused of videoing the attacks. Read more »

Friday is July 4, Independence Day. Aspenites and visitors will celebrate at the annual parade, gasp at the fireworks and no doubt have a whole lot of fun eating, drinking and merrymaking. We hope also they’ll stop for a few minutes, at least, and think about what Independence Day really means.

It’s easy to take our American freedoms for granted, but frequent news dispatches from places like Iraq, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Iran and China should remind us of just how fortunate we are in this country.

Of course, we can’t do anything and everything that we want in the Roaring Fork Valley, and many locals have raised compelling questions about perceived limits to our freedoms. So, on the occasion of July 4, we decided to ask a cross-section of locals from all walks of life this question: Do you feel free? Read more »

Hip-hop artist DMX is out of the Miami-Dade County Jail after he posted a $6-thousand dollar bond following his second arrest this week in Miami, on drug related charges.

The 37-year-old, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was arrested Friday on charges of attempting to purchase cocaine and attempting to purchase marijuana, according to a Miami-Dade Police Department arrest report.

Simmons was arrested during a narcotics sting operation, according to the report.

DMX has recently had a string of run-ins with the law. He was picked up Monday afternoon in Miami on an arrest warrant for having no valid driver’s license, and he pleaded not guilty to felony drug possession and misdemeanor animal cruelty charges last month in Arizona.

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Police said an Ypsilanti man is accused of stabbing his mother with a fork and hitting another woman over the head with a frozen chicken.

Frederick McKaney, 40, was arraigned in a Jackson courtroom on Thursday on two felony assault charges, one count of assault and battery and one count of resisting an officer.”He stabbed his mother in the back of the neck when she refused to give him money, and then, an hour later, he attacked a neighbor woman with a chicken,” Jackson County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Blumer told the Ann Arbor news.

Police said McKaney went to his mother’s house and demanded money. When she refused, he stabbed her and took off on his bicycle, police said.A short time later, he encountered two other women talking on the sidewalk on Woodbridge Street.The woman said he said something nasty to them and hit one of them over the head with 10 pounds of frozen chicken.The woman went to the hospital and got stitches in her head.McKaney’s mother suffered minor injuries from the stabbing.

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HILLSBOROUGH - A confidential witness told investigators that Demario Atwater admitted that he and Laurence Lovette Jr. entered Eve Carson’s home in Chapel Hill through an open door March 5, according to search warrants made public today.The documents offered the first detailed public accounts of the crime, in which Atwater and Lovette are accused of killing Carson, the student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Atwater and Lovette forced Carson into the backseat of her Toyota Highlander and drove her to an ATM machine, the witness said. Read more »

(*Editors Note: Why would people wishing to express an alternative view point in a civil manner at a public meeting require “necessary resources” from the police? Necessary resources for what, to keep public opinion in check? We may not have a right to speak but we certainly have a right to attend and participate in an orderly fashion.)

Members of the Keystone State Skinheads are planning to attend the event this Sunday called “A New Day in Luzerne County — Building on the Strength of Our Diversity.” The Wilkes-Barre chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is hosting the event

“Yeah, I’ll probably be there,” said Steve Smith, a member of KSS. “We want to let the community know we’re not dangerous and there are a lot of false stereotypes about us.”

But Ron Felton, NAACP chapter president, won’t let the group speak at his event.

“It’s an event that’s open to the public, but I choose not to provide them a platform to present their rhetoric,” Felton said. “If they want to speak, let them have their own event.” Read more »

 Administrators at Charter Oak High School in Covina are investigating how a student on the yearbook staff was able to get fake names for Black Student Union members, including “Tay Tay Shaniqua,” “Crisphy Nanos” and “Laquan White,” into the published yearbook.

Calling the incident a “regrettable mistake,” Clint Harwick, superintendent of the Charter Oak Unified School District, said today that school officials had spoken to the student believed to be responsible.

Principal Kathleen Wiard however, said they were still trying to determine who bore responsibility for multiple errors on a yearbook page that listed class councils and other student groups in addition to the Black Student Union. Read more »

For those of you unaware, Juan Alvarez has ties to what some call the Aztec Al-qaeda  watch this video for more background on this story that the media has blacked out. Juan Manuel Alvarez could face the death penalty for collision that occurred when he parked his SUV on the tracks near Glendale in what he called a suicide attempt. A Los Angeles jury convicted a 29-year-old Compton laborer of 11 counts of first-degree murder Thursday for triggering the deadliest Metrolink train crash in history when he parked his vehicle on railroad tracks three years ago and fled.

Juan Manuel Alvarez, who could face the death penalty, showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were announced in a downtown courtroom. Behind him sat at least half a dozen relatives of people killed in the crash, including some who had attended much of the eight-week trial despite its sometimes graphic testimony. Source>>>

As more and more illegals, and non-Whites flood Dallas, and many other major cities they are forced to water down local laws. How soon will it be before rape is an offense that you will get a ticket for?

Dallas police are considering a new plan that calls for writing tickets to some shoplifters instead of arresting them, NBC 5 reported. “Higher priority calls, like robberies and burglaries — we’ll be working on those more,” said Ron Pinkston of the Dallas Police Officers Association.

As it stands now, a shoplifter who steals anything between $50 and $500 is taken straight to jail, a process that can take an officer off the streets for two or three hours.”State law has changed so that departments can now write citations for Class B misdemeanors including theft,” said police spokesman Senior Cpl. Kevin Janse.That means if a person steals something worth less than $500, they will get a ticket and be sent home. Source>>>

It’s the g-word.

Some rank it up there with the n-word.

“Gringo.”

Although employed with mirth in a recent Las Vegas Sun story about attempts to lure Hispanics to this month’s Vegas Grand Prix, one reader said the word was racist and possibly warranted a lawsuit.

Hitting the in-box just as Don Imus was being shoved away from the microphone, the strong feelings made for thought.

The term, after at least two centuries of use and incarnations on many shores, seems to have become a fighting word, at least for some “white, LEGAL, American citizens,” to quote another reader’s e-mail. Read more »

A Canadian stand-up comedian will face a human rights tribunal hearing after a woman complained she and her friends faced a “tirade of homophobic and sexist comments” while attending one of his shows.

In a decision released this week, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled there is enough evidence to hear the case of Vancouver woman Lorna Pardy against Toronto comedian Guy Earle. Zesty’s Restaurant in Vancouver, where the May 22, 2007, show took place, was also named in the complaint. The restaurant has since closed.

Pardy could not be reached Wednesday for comment. However, the tribunal’s decision says she alleges she was discriminated against over her sex and sexual orientation when Earle made public comments “intended to humiliate her.” The ruling says Earle and Pardy “have very different versions of who was to blame for the incidents, how it came about and how it escalated.” There is also a dispute over what role alcohol played in the incident. Read more »

SAN CLEMENTE - With a ping-pong table in the street and children batting at a street-hockey ball, the Calle Campana and Calle Canasta neighborhood of this seaside town appears to be enjoying an ideal summer afternoon.

Young kids lick popsicles under the sun, in contrast to the events of less than three weeks ago, when a 14-year-old from San Juan Capistrano was fatally struck with a block of concrete during a fight nearby.

The scene also belies parents’ uneasiness.

Now, three 14-year-olds await trial as adults on suspicion of murder. Another four teenagers, also charged as adults, face aggravated assault and other charges in connection with the June 6 fight, which authorities said was gang-related. Read more »

HONOLULU — “Wetback,” a term that is archaic and used only when intended to insult persons of Mexican ancestry has shattered the tranquil and paradise image of the Hawaiian island. Hawaii, which to date had not been drawn into the volatile immigration debate has now been plunged into the issue when Honolulu City Councilman Rod Tam used the term “wetback” not once, but twice during a public meeting.

Marie Villa, editor of the Hawaii Hispanic News, was at first dumbfounded and then offended by the use of the word. Ms. Villa had thought that her island home was above this type of public racism. According to Villa, “Hawaii is home to about 100,000 Hispanics from Puerto Rican to Mexican,” and an island that is truly multi-racial. In a phone interview Villa stated, “Hispanics and Hawaiians look so much alike it is hard to tell the difference. Hawaii is not a melting pot but more like a toss salad. We have truly assimilated into the culture.” Read more »

NORWALK, Conn.—Norwalk police said they nabbed a burglary suspect after he broke out in tears when the homeowner caught him. Police said Miguel Alvizures-Montaya, 35, of Norwalk, cried, handed over his cell phone and told the homeowner to call police.

The homeowner apprehended Alvizures-Montaya after chasing him on foot for a block. The 26-year-old homeowner was awakened Saturday morning when he saw a shadow outside his sliding glass door.

Alvizures-Montaya was charged with first-degree burglary and criminal attempt to commit burglary. He was released on bond Monday after being arraigned at Norwalk Superior Court.

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A jury convicted Robert A. Williams of attempted murder, rape and arson on Tuesday for the attack on a former Columbia University journalism student who was tortured and raped repeatedly for 19 hours last year.It took the jury just over five hours to reach its verdict — guilty on 44 counts, not guilty on 2 — which were read without Mr. Williams in the courtroom. He refused to come to court for most of the trial, remaining in a holding cell.

Mr. Williams, 31, was sleeping when his lawyer notified him that the jury had reached a verdict, and he did not respond and went back to sleep, Justice Carol Berkman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan said just before the foreman read the verdict. Read more »

The 109th Street facility has been closed after a crowd of young men attacked workers there. Now community leaders in South Los Angeles are looking for ways to guarantee protection.

A day after opening the summer swim season in the midst of a ferocious heat wave, the L.A. City Department of Recreation and Parks shut down one of the more troubled neighborhood pools in Watts after a band of young men took over the pool deck, attacked the manager and threw him, a lifeguard and a locker room attendant into the water.

The 109th Street Swimming Pool is between two public housing projects, Nickerson Gardens and Jordan Downs, and two competing neighborhood gangs. And it wasn’t the first time the facility had experienced difficulties.

Last year, the city stationed armed guards at the pool during swimming hours and installed video cameras in an attempt to monitor and control unruly crowds that had become a threat to the pool staff and younger swimmers.

Read more »

Marion County - Democratic City-County Council members went into a closed-door meeting Monday night to review the arrest of a colleague accused of assaulting a police officer over the weekend.

15th District Council member Doris Minton-McNeill attended the meeting, but didn’t talk about her arrest Sunday night.

Metro police arrested Minton-McNeill (D) on misdemeanor and felony charges. She faces battery with injury on a police officer, a felony, and resisting law enforcement. Read more »

 The men arrested in the slayings of an aspiring Christian singer and his colleague at a Texas recording studio said in a chilling jailhouse interview the victims were killed at random in a robbery that netted only $2.

Cousins James Broadnax and Demarius Dwight Cummings, both 19, face capital murder charges in the deaths of singer Matthew Butler, a father of two, and Stephen Swan, his employee, outside Butler’s Christian recording studio, Zion Gate Records in Garland, Texas.

Broadnax and Cummings, speaking to MyFOXDFW.com from the Dallas County Jail, told the station of their plans to rob somebody the night of June 18. They traveled by train from Dallas to the suburb of Garland because “that’s where all the rich white folks stay at,” Broadnax said.

Read more »

On “Imus in the Morning” Monday, the controversial radio host Don Imus — who was fired last year for making racist and sexist remarks about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team — made a racially freighted comment about another African-American athlete.

During the show, conversation turned to a story about how suspended Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones now wants to drop his well-known nickname. In the course of the segment, Imus is told that Jones has “been arrested six times since being drafted by Tennessee in 2005.” Read more »

TEMPE, Ariz. — Three men have been arrested in connection with a June 12 carjacking that left the victim in a coma, police said on Monday.

The men approached a motorist parked at a Tempe apartment complex in the 1800 block of E. Broadway Road and forced him out of his vehicle, officers said.The victim was shot in the head and hand as the attackers fled in his 1996 Toyota Avalon, investigators said.A week later, Anthony Bustamante, Jaleel Green and James Earl Smith Jr. were positively identified and arrested without incident, police said.

The men were booked into the Tempe Jail on charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault. Smith was charged with theft of means of transportation.

The victim in the shooting remains in a coma.

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Police say a man named God was arrested near a Tampa church for selling cocaine.

Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police say he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood. When officers searched his home, they reported finding another 22 grams of cocaine and a scale. Jail records show Howard was charged with several counts drug possession and distribution, which include increased charges for being within 1,000 feet of a church, a school and public housing.

He was being held on a bond of $86,500.

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LAKEHURST — A 26-year-old Asbury Park man was arrested Saturday night after police learned the Pennsylvania license plate on his car was a cardboard fake, authorities said.

The Mitsubishi Gallant driven by Armando A. Alfaro-Hernandez was pulled over at 7:45 p.m. after Officer Michael Rodriguez ran the car’s license plates through a mobile data terminal in his police cruiser and learned the car was unregistered.

During a roadside investigation, Alfaro-Hernandez admitted being an unlicensed driver, Sgt. Ronald Heinzman said. Later, Rodriguez removed a plastic cover from the car’s license plate and found the tag to be a color photocopy of an actual license plate. Read more »

Teachers College at Columbia University is suspending indefinitely Madonna Constantine, a professor who claimed she was the victim of a hate crime after an investigation began into allegations she committed plagiarism.

In a letter sent out today to Teachers College faculty, the college president, Susan Fuhrman, and dean, Tom James, said the faculty advisory committee had rejected Ms. Constantine’s appeal of the plagiarism charges. They said Ms. Constantine was suspended as of today, but that she is entitled to appeal the decision or request a hearing before the faculty executive committee.

RELATED: The Letter to Faculty (pdf).

The letter, obtained by The New York Sun from a source at Teachers College, said the faculty advisory committee upheld an 18-month investigation by a Manhattan law firm, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, which found that Ms. Constantine had plagiarized two dozen times works of two former doctoral students and a former colleague. Read more »

It’s a dangerous, highly addictive drug whose skyrocketing potency has only increased its stranglehold on our nations youth. Or it’s mostly harmless, a substance not much worse than caffeine - with medicinal value to boot.

It’s marijuana. And the polarized debate about its safety has been rekindled by two reports released separately this month by the federal government and a leading drug prohibition group. Both studies conclude that marijuana’s potency has increased, which they link to reports of more addiction, mental health problems, and emergency room admissions related to marijuana use among teenagers. READ MORE>>>>

Silver Spring, Maryland (Reuters) — Director Spike Lee, whose movies often cast a sharp eye on U.S. racial politics, predicted a presidential victory for black Democrat Barack Obama that would mark a “new day” for the United States. “Its going to be before Obama, ‘B.B. , ‘ and after Obama — ‘A.B. ‘– and some folks need to get used to this,” Lee said. “And I’m going to be at the inauguration — getting my hotel reservation now.” SOURCE>>>>

 Crack is bad for your health, even if you are a Jewish soul singer.

LONDON - Soul diva Amy Winehouse has damaged her lungs by smoking crack cocaine and cigarettes, her father said in an interview published Sunday.

The Sunday Mirror quoted Mitch Winehouse as saying that Amy has early stage emphysema and an irregular heartbeat, and has been warned that she will have to wear an oxygen mask unless she stops smoking drugs.

“The doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs, it won’t just ruin her voice, it will kill her,” Mitch Winehouse was quoted as saying. “There are nodules around the chest and dark marks. She has 70 percent lung capacity.” Read more »

Sen. Barack Obama’s historic victory in the Democratic primaries, celebrated in America and across much of the world as a symbol of racial progress and cultural unity, has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.

Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist groups have reported gains in numbers of visitors to their Web sites and in membership since the senator from Illinois secured the Democratic nomination June 3. His success has aroused a community of racists, experts said, concerned by the possibility of the country’s first black president.

“The truth is, we’re finding an explosion in these kinds of hateful sentiments on the Net, and it’s a growing problem,” said Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate group activity. “There are probably thousands of Web sites that do this now. I couldn’t even tell you how many are out there because it’s growing so fast.” Read more »

The other 2 are in denial.

Washington - One third of Americans admit to racist feelings and close to half of the population believes race relations are poor in the United States, a poll suggested on Sunday.

Asked by a Washington Post-ABC News poll if they had at least some feelings of racial prejudice, 30 percent of white respondents and 34 percent of African-Americans polled answered “yes”.

Just over half of the overall sample said they believe race relations in the country are “good”. However, more than six in 10 blacks rated race relations and “not so good” or “poor”. Read more »

Rocky was a boyhood friend. He was as big and as strong as his name. In his wild days, Rocky hung out with a runt whose obnoxious mouth regularly got my friend into serious bar fights. One night Rocky was beaten senseless when he stepped between the runt and someone with dangerous friends. I never understood his irrational defense of a guy with obvious “needs.”But then — K Street realpolitik notwithstanding — I have difficulty understanding America’s irrational defense of Israel, a country whose “needs” are as much at odds with the security of my country as were the runt’s “needs” at odds with the health of my friend.

Earlier this month 7,000 activists and politicians attended the America Israel Public Forum Committee’s 2008 Policy Conference in Washington D.C. This was AIPAC’s premier pro-Israel event, which attracted a bipartisan who’s who of Congressional sycophants. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s keynote address drew nearly half the members of Congress. Read more »

Hamburg is filling up with a horde of bikers this weekend for the port city’s annual Harley Davidson festival–this year the great-grandson of the firm’s legendary founder is even putting in an appearance.Around 10,000 Harley’s are expected to be ridden through Hamburg for the parade, celebrating the bikes, their fans and the connection they form between Germany and the USA. SOURCE>>>>

British forces in Afghanistan have used one of the world’s most deadly and controversial missiles to fight the Taliban. Apache attack helicopters have fired the thermobaric weapons against fighters in buildings and caves, to create a pressure wave which sucks the air out of its victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies.

When the American military bought them in 2005, President George W. Bush said: “There are going to be some awfully surprised terrorists when the thermobaric Hellfire comes knocking.” ARTICLE>>>>

GERMANY — From behind one of the camp dormitories a man jumped out, pink with rage. “This is private property!” he yelled in a harsh Saxon accent. “No pictures! Leave us alone –the past is the past!” And so it was that we were expelled, not from the Garden of Eden but from the garden colony that was once an offshoot of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Now the same camp has become a suburban idyll. The tidy, lush gardens are occupied not by the SS but by plastic gnomes. There are rose terraces, goldfish ponds, apple trees, swings and playhouses for the children- –MORE>>>>

LONDON - Model Naomi Campbell says she is sorry she assaulted two police officers during a dispute about lost luggage aboard a British Airways plane. But she has refused to apologize to the airline, accusing it of racism.

Briish Airways strongly denied the charge.

Campbell, 38, was sentenced Friday to 200 hours of community service and fined 2,300 pounds ($4,600) after she pleaded guilty to kicking, spitting and swearing at the officers aboard a plane at Heathrow Airport in April. Read more »

One female juror wept silently. Another bit down on her balled-up fist to keep from crying. The third looked ready to cry.

And some of the male jurors hid their faces in their hands Friday after viewing 14 emergency room photographs of a Columbia journalism student who had been raped and tortured for 19 hours.

“She was in a very extreme state,” said Lucien Monteau, a member of the sexual assault response team at Harlem Hospital who took the gruesome photographs. “Very bloodied, burned.” Read more »

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