Free Republic

Obesity is still rising among American adults, despite more than a decade of public-awareness campaigns and other efforts to get people to watch their weight, and women have now overtaken men in the obese category, new government research shows. For the past several years, experts thought the nation's alarming, decades-long rise in obesity had leveled off. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday that the obesity rate has climbed to nearly 38 percent of adults, up from 32 percent about a decade earlier.

The Indianapolis Colts, already reeling with injury and performing below expectations, received even more terrible injury news on Tuesday: quarterback Andrew Luck suffered abdominal injury in the team's victory over Denver. Luck is expected to miss two to six weeks. Colts head coach Chuck Pagano announced the injury on Tuesday afternoon, saying Luck suffered a lacerated kidney and a partially torn abdominal muscle on a fourth-quarter scramble. This is in addition to the report from earlier this season that Luck had been playing with multiple fractured ribs. The Colts are in a bye week this week, then face the Falcons,...

Somewhere in Atlanta, in a room controlled by the city’s police force, is a cache of 6,000 or so guns that have been plucked off the streets over the last three years. Yes, that’s “6,” followed by three zeros. Or 2,000 a year, which works out to just under six every day. In years past, the city would have turned most of this hardware into scrap metal.Gun stock image pistol illustration icon trigger shoot Source: Veer But in 2012, Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law S.B. 350, which required local governments to make an effort to return firearms to “innocent...

The Pentagon Paid Millions to Pro Sports Teams for Military Tributes That time 80 members of the National Guard unfurled an American flag on the turf during an Atlanta Falcons football game? You paid for that. That on-field swearing-in ceremony for soldiers at a New York Mets game? You pairs for that, too. That's because the Department of Defense paid at least $6.8 million in taxpayer money to professional sports teams for military tributes over the last few years, according to a new report by U.S. Senators John McCain (R) and Jeff Flake (R), both of Arizona. The document shows...

The 2-6 San Francisco 49ers are benching quarterback Colin Kaepernick and starting Blaine Gabbert this weekend against the Falcons, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Monday. Niners head coach Jim Tomsula said earlier on Monday that he was "evaluating everything." Later in the day, Schefter reported that San Francisco had traded veteran tight end Vernon Davis to the Denver Broncos for a 2016 7th-round draft pick and 6th round picks in 2016 and 2017. Kaepernick, who led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2012 and the NFC Championship Game in 2013, is having the worst season of his career. He's thrown...

" . . . when you're a city employee, and those thoughts, beliefs and opinions are different from the city's, you have to check them at the door." Just in case you’ve forgotten, gay rights and gay marriage won’t affect you in any way. Remember that promise? Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t enter into one. That’s all you have to do and you’re square, bro. But that was always a lie, and as we’ve discussed in this space many times, the gay marriage and gay rights movements were never really about what they claimed to be about at all. They...

Trade ministers from the United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim countries opened final-stretch negotiations Wednesday trying to seal a deal on the world's largest free-trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Ministers are under pressure to bridge differences over a handful of key issues which prevented an agreement during top-level talks in Hawaii in July. The stakes were high for many, with farm and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists from various countries and civil society activists gathered at the same Atlanta hotel to defend their interests. And as the ministers began meeting Wednesday, a handful of protestors marched through the lobby of...

An anti-Islam group has called on "patriots" to hold demonstrations in front of mosques across the country in October. Responding to the call, protests organized under the name "Global Rally For Humanity" have already been scheduled for Oct. 9 and 10 in at least 20 locations, including Charleston, South Carolina; Atlanta; Dearborn, Michigan; and Phoenix, Imagine 2050 reported Tuesday. Some of the organizers have encouraged demonstrators to leave their weapons at home, while others have encouraged participants to utilize their right to bear arms, the website said. “As this invasion of Muslim colonization continues unchecked on American soil, we can...

ATLANTA – An Atlanta-area police officer has been shot and taken to a hospital. DeKalb County police spokeswoman Mekka Parrish said the officer was shot Monday night but she didn't immediately have any details about the circumstances of the shooting. ... Parris said the officer would undergo surgery at the hospital. The extent of the officer's injuries was not immediately known.

Michael Lash knew he had a broken leg and he couldn’t feel his other foot. One bullet had gone in the front of his thigh and out the back. While trying to protect his wife and two young children, the northwest Atlanta father was shot in both legs Sunday evening, the beginning of a few terrifying moments for the family. As Lash was recovering Tuesday, Atlanta police were investigating the home invasion, hopeful that security cameras on neighboring homes and evidence left behind would help identify the suspects.

Michael Lash knew he had a broken leg and he couldn’t feel his other foot. One bullet had gone in the front of his thigh and out the back. While trying to protect his wife and two young children, the northwest Atlanta father was shot in both legs Sunday evening, the beginning of a few terrifying moments for the family. As Lash was recovering Tuesday, Atlanta police were investigating the home invasion, hopeful that security cameras on neighboring homes and evidence left behind would help identify the suspects. The Lash family had just returned to their Sumter Street home from...

In 1913, Frank was convicted of murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan, who worked in his Atlanta factory. The case, charged with race, religion, sex and class, exploded in a national media frenzy. When Georgia's governor commuted Frank's death sentence, citizens took matters in their own hands. The case established the Anti-Defamation League as the country's most outspoken opponent of anti-Semitism. It also fueled the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. Until ADL lawyers pressed officials to posthumously pardon Frank in the 1980s, the case was hushed in Atlanta's synagogues, the homes of Old Marietta, and among Phagan's descendants.

Surveillance cameras caught images of two white males laying Confederate battle flags on the ground near the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s church, but it wasn’t clear whether they had committed a crime. Atlanta police Chief George Turner said Thursday his officers were working with federal authorities and hadn’t determined what, if any, charges might be sought. Turner said they had not ruled out a hate crime, though Georgia has no state hate crimes law. An officer from the Atlanta FBI’s joint terrorism task force was on the scene “to better determine if any specific threats were received” and to...

A sculpture in Georgia larger than a football field – depicting Civil War luminaries Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson – has become the latest target in the push to purge the South of signs of the Confederacy. The Atlanta chapter of the NAACP called Monday for the elimination of all symbols of the Confederacy from Stone Mountain Park, whose marquee attraction is the 90-foot-high, 190-foot-wide sculpture carved deep into the mountain. "Those guys need to go,” chapter leader Richard Rose told WSB-TV, referring to Davis, the former president of the Confederate States of America, and the...

After being fired for writing what’s been described as an “anti-gay” book, former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran says he “absolutely” wants his job back. “In the United States of America, Americans should not have to choose between keeping your job and living out your faith,” Cochran told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview. “And that’s the position the city of Atlanta actually has taken—that I have to have a choice to live out my faith or to keep my job.” Cochran was fired in January 2015 for publishing a men’s devotional book for a Baptist church group. In...

Members of the Parsi Zoroastrian community in Calcutta have filed a petition in a local high court against the music video for the song “King” by Amitis featuring Snoop Dogg, calling it blasphemous and disrespectful toward their faith, the Times of India reports. Zoroastrianism is a millennia-old faith with roots in ancient Persia and a flourishing community in India; its scripture emphasizes the sanctity of nature and the duality of existence. Amitis is an Iranian-born singer who now lives in Atlanta; “King” appears to be her entrance into the realm of Western pop. Snoop Dogg is Snoop Dogg — in...

According to the American Meteor Society fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus as seen in the morning or evening sky. A bolide is a special type of fireball which explodes in a bright terminal flash at its end, often with visible fragmentation. A spokesperson for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the fireball which was seen over Walker County (Alabama) was a meteor as neither FAA nor local authorities have any confirmed information about a plane crash or any other accident,...

OAKLAND — What's one more week compared to a 40-year championship drought? What's one more week when it means a shot at the first title in franchise history? The Warriors eliminated the Rockets with a 104–90 victory in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals on Wednesday, advancing to an NBA Finals date with the Cavaliers. This is a matchup worth waiting for, and a little patience will be required. Because both Golden State and Cleveland made quick work of their conference finals foes, the NBA will hit the pause button for a full week before the championship series opens...

VIA TWITTER: Where is this, and who is the woman?

A Georgia man says he has no regrets after he turned the tables on a would-be carjacker and held him on the ground at gunpoint until police arrived. Hashim Fannin said he was pulling into a parking spot at the Family Dollar in northwest Atlanta earlier this month when Edgar Horn, 61, slid into the passenger seat after Mr. Fannin’s doors automatically unlocked, a local ABC affiliate reported. “He told me, ‘You know what this is,’ ” Mr. Fannin recalled. Thats’ when he pulled out his gun on the suspect. “I asked him to get out the car, probably not...