MIAMI -- Miami-Dade police officials plan to include in their 2009 handbook a note about how to respond to calls about ritual animal sacrifices.
The decision comes a year after Coral Gables officers raided a home where practitioners of Santeria were slaughtering goats, chickens and pigeons. Several worshippers were held at gunpoint and detained for hours.
The entry will remind county officers that federal and state laws protect people's freedom to practice religion.
The move was hailed by those who practice Santeria, a blend of traditional African religions and Catholicism. Followers of the faith believe in spiritual forces whose survival depends on blood sacrifices.
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  San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group
July 29: AutoZone manager Daniel Sanchez cleans up after an earthquake knocked products off shelves in Diamond Bar, Calif.
 LOS ANGELES —  Despite shaking a large swath of Southern California, a magnitude-5.4 earthquake was not the "Big One" that scientists have long feared. Still, it rattled nerves, causing people to vow to step up their emergency preparations.
The quake, which rocked the region from Los Angeles to San Diego on Tuesday, caused only limited damage and minor injuries, and served as a reminder of the seismic danger below sprawling freeways and subdivisions.
The temblor's epicenter was located just outside Chino Hills, 29 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles in San Bernardino County, and it was felt as far east as Las Vegas. Dozens of aftershocks followed, the largest a magnitude-3.8.
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 One of the truly amazing and simultaneously terrifying sites is to see an aerial view of Elkhorn Scarp, a visual scar on the landscape of central California that shows the San Andreas Fault's mark on the land. And according to newly discovered “mud pots”, the San Andreas fault may be longer than previously thought.
A mudpot is simply a hot spring of bubbling mud that speaks to geothermal activity in the rocks beneath it, which has pushed water or gas up through the ground. These mudpots were found by David Lynch and Kenneth Hudnut of the US Geological Survey, who were part of a comprehensive analysis of a region lying well beyond what was believed to be the southernmost point of the San Andreas Fault line.
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by David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) The major cattle cloning companies in the United States have admitted that they have not bothered to try and keep meat from the offspring of clones out of the U.S. food supply, in spite of a request by the FDA several years ago.
"This is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain," said Donald Coover, who owns a specialty cattle semen business. "Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about, or they're not being honest."
Coover admitted that for several years, he has been openly selling semen from cloned bulls. He is sure, he added, that others are doing the same.
The revelation came as the FDA approved cloned beef as safe for human consumption but the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asked farmers to keep it out of the food supply anyway.
The USDA's primary concern is that if cloned beef enters the U.S. food supply, other countries might refuse to purchase beef from the United States. Similar problems have emerged in the past with genetically modified U.S. crops being rejected, particularly in Europe but also in parts of Africa, ...   more »

Judge says principal embarked on what can only be characterized as witch hunt
Court Orders that Pro-Homosexual Proselytism by Students be Permitted in Schools
By John Jalsevac
July 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A judge in Holmes County, Florida, has ruled that the school board cannot forbid students from "wearing or displaying t-shirts, armbands, stickers, or buttons containing messages and symbols which advocate the acceptance of and fair treatment for persons who are homosexual."
The case that led to the ruling surrounded incidents at Ponce de Leon High School in Holmes County. According to court documents, a 12th grade student - called "Jane Doe" by the court - went to school officials last year to complain that she was being taunted by a group of middle schools students because of her homosexuality.
The complaint was passed on to the school's principal, David Davis, who met with the student after school on September 10, 2007. Davis allegedly questioned Doe about her sexual orientation, and in the process told her that it was "wrong" to be a homosexual. Davis also stated his intention to inform Doe's parents that she was a homosexual.
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