Silsbee Highschool cheerleader kicked off squad for refusing to cheer for player who raped her. A Texas high school cheerleader who was kicked off the squad for refusing to chant the name of an athlete she said had raped her will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate her free-speech suit against the school district, her lawyer says. The cheerleader and her parents are also challenging federal court... 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union was fined 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) for breaching party donation rules, adding to the CDU’s difficulties as it prepares to fight seven state elections. The fine was imposed by the lower house of parliament in Berlin, the Bundestag, for party funding violations in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the time of a regional... 

Alexander Lukashenko has ruled the country since 1994 and has been dubbed “Europe’s last dictator”. A Belarusian human rights organization says seven of the candidates who ran against the country’s authoritarian leader face charges that could lead to 15 years in prison in the wake of post-election violence and massive arrests. Ales Belyatsky of the human rights center Vesna said the charges... 

Officers will start random bag inspections on the sprawling Washington subway system, the Washington Metro Transit Police said on Thursday, a week after a man was arrested for making bomb threats to the rail system. Metrorail police officers plan to randomly select bags before passengers enter subway stations and they will swab them or have an explosives-sniffing dog check the bags, according to the... 

Army Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin of Greeley, Colo., left, leaves a military court after being found guilty of missing a flight for deployment Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010 at Fort Meade, Md. Lakin refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he does not believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States and therefore questions his eligibility to be commander in chief. An Army doctor who disobeyed... 

The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for sexual misconduct illustrates the hypocrisy of the West about democracy, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says. In the strongest comments to come out of Russia in the latest WikiLeaks saga, Putin also took aim at the U.S. for the cables, some of which had derided Russia a “mafia state.” Assange’s arrest in London earlier this... 

John Demjanjuk’s attorney has filed a motion in the Munich state court where Demjanjuk is on trial saying his client’s rights are being violated by keeping him in jail and demanding damages “in the millions.” Attorney Ulrich Busch says Demjanjuk should be given credit for time served in Israel and the U.S. and said in a motion Thursday the court was “depriving him of... 

Provisions in Dream Act qualify undocumented for fed money. Want to know how the lame ducks in Congress plan to “cut” federal spending – which seemed to be a dominating theme of the 2010 elections? They’re proposing a plan to take upwards of $44 billion a year from taxpayers and hand it over to illegal aliens who are in the United States so they can go to college. The plan is called... 

  13-year-old Cody Alicea rides with an American flag on the back of his bike. He says he does this to be patriotic and to honor veterans, like his own grandfather, Robert. He’s had the flag on his bike for two months but Monday, was told to take it down. A school official at Denair Middle School told Cody some students had been complaining about the flag and it was no longer allowed on... 

Nov. 1: Natalia Garcia Pasmanick yells at a protest of Arizona's new immigration law while Raymond Herrera, rear, holds up an Arizona flag in support of its immigration law outside of a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals building in San Francisco, a sanctuary county and city that received $754,853 in SCAAP grant money in 2010. The Department of Justice has spent tens of millions of dollars this year... 

Willem Ratte It has been eighteen days since Willem Ratte, Boer Republican, and ten others were imprisoned by the South African government without substantial evidence for their imprisonment. This questionable imprisonment has together with the continual victimization of Boers by the South African Government led Ratte on a hunger strike. The Boers is a minority in South Africa seeking their independence... 

Australia may pressure Sweden to prosecute Julian Assange or others linked to his whistleblower website WikiLeaks if planned releases of military documents outlining the Iraq and Afghanistan wars pose a risk to serving forces. Attorney-General Robert McClelland warned Mr Assange, who is an Australian citizen but runs his rogue website from Sweden, that he could not ”from the comforts of his... 

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders appealed for freedom of expression Monday as he went on trial for alleged hate speech at a time when his popularity and influence in the Netherlands are near all-time highs. Prosecutors say Wilders has incited hate against Muslims, pointing to a litany of quotes and remarks he has made in recent years. In one opinion piece he wrote “I’ve had enough... 

South African right-winger and former Rhodesian SAS soldier Willem Ratte and 10 others were arrested for possession of illegal firearms, Mpumalanga police say. Police arrested the men on a farm in Balmoral near Witbank on Thursday afternoon. “We don’t have much information at this stage. The 11 were arrested for being in possession of unlawful firearms and ammunition,” police spokesman... 

Cambodia’s main opposition party leader was convicted in absentia Thursday and sentenced to 10 years in prison for a politically sensitive comment about a border dispute, in what critics said was another example of the government’s intimidation of its opponents. Sam Rainsy, who is living in exile in Paris, was convicted of spreading false information about a border dispute with Vietnam....