Hundreds of Muslim men were arrested earlier this month when they reported to INS offices to comply with a "special registration" program which required most male noncitizens over 16 who were born in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Libya to be fingerprinted, photographed and questioned. Ben Ehrenreich reports that the INS wasn't prepared for the number of people who came into register and were forced to automatically detain hundreds of men, who were subjected to humiliating arrests.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief Russ Smith yesterday sold his iconoclastic weekly to a pair of publishing entrepreneurs for "around $5 million," according to the New York Post. New owners Chuck Coletti and Doug Meadow say they don't plan to do much on the editorial front, besides firing vacationing Editor John Strausbaugh as soon as they can find him. Smith will continue to write his "Mugger" column.
Pop Quiz: What state-sponsored university plays host to one of the top Marxist econ departments in the country? Bet you didn't guess the University of Utah, located in one of the most conservative states in the union, where the Mormon Church and Orrin Hatch call the shots.
John Heaston told the Omaha World-Leader that he is buying the AAN-member Omaha Reader from the family of the late Alan Baer. Heaston helped to found the Reader before selling his stake in 1999 and later starting up the competing Omaha Weekly. The two papers will merge and, "for now," will be called the Omaha Weekly Reader, according to Heaston.
Prosecutors investigating the New Times-Village Voice Media deals in L.A. and Cleveland have scheduled depositions in Los Angeles beginning the first two weeks of January, according to The Los Angeles Times' Tim Rutten. "Sources with firsthand knowledge" tell Rutten that the probe has focused increasingly on whether the deal "influenced both advertising rates and the amount and quality of local news in both cities." Rutten also reports that those who have been questioned say "prosecutors appear keenly interested in fashioning a remedy, perhaps by way of a settlement, that would restore competition to both cities' alternative press markets."
Eight years ago, Georgia lawmakers decided that children of a certain age who commit one of seven crimes are no longer children. Instead, they would be handed to the adult court system; a juvenile judge would have no say. If convicted, they would have to serve at least 10 years alongside adult murderers, rapists and molesters. Unlike the adults, they would never become eligible for parole. All has gone according to plan. That's exactly what many feared. Mara Shalhoup looks at the consequences of the controversial law.
Several months ago, the Portland police, without getting a search warrant, poked through the garbage of a fellow officer that they were investigating. They did so because, they argued, trash is public once the can gets to the street. They used evidence found in the garbage to indict the officer. Testing the "garbage is public" thesis, Willamette Week searched through the trash of Portland's police chief and a couple of other public officials -- and they aren't happy.
Fifty years ago, monks who chose to get away from it all to get closer to god opened a monastery in the middle of nowhere. Thanks to urban sprawl, "it all" is now poised to be their next-door neighbor. Matt Coker wonders if Sri Ramakrishna’s followers can stop the bulldozers in their once-quiet canyon.
