Free Republic

Sir Paul McCartney and wife Nancy Shevell, who attended Yom Kippur services prior to their wedding in deference to Shevell’s Jewish faith, might well be bentsching gommel (a thanksgiving prayer for escaping a dangerous situation) on their next visit to the synagogue after the couple narrowly escaped a crash when two helicopter pilots missed danger signals, as reported by the Daily Mail. The terrifying ordeal occurred when the two were flying back from London, where they attended a celebration of the release of a vegetarian cookbook by McCartney’s daughter Mary, to their home in East Sussex. The pilots were attempting...

Goal of cutting is to reduce fire danger, salvage timber and regrow forest. Removing beetle infected pine trees will help new and healthy pine trees grow. It will also promote the growth of aspen, which are naturally fire resistant. By clearing out these trees, they’re prevented from falling on the ground, which not only adds to the fire danger, but also hampers growth of new trees. Dead trees also obstruct movement of large animals such as deer and elk. The dead trees left behind shed their needles and branches and then fall to the forest floor. The pines, filled with...

With an acrimonious divorce dragging on through the courts, you’d think a 64-year old man might learn something. Not Sir Paul McCartney. He’s formed a bond with Sabrina Guinness, a former girlfriend of Prince Charles and heiress to the beer dynasty. After Australia’s Herald Sun finishes listing her laundry list of suitors, you get the feeling that “The Cute One” is reaching for the bottom of the barrel.

ATTICA, New York (AP) -- John Lennon's killer was denied parole for a fourth time Tuesday because of the "bizarre nature" of his crime. Mark David Chapman, 51, must remain at Attica Correctional Facility for at least two more years for gunning down the former Beatle outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980. "The panel remains concerned about the bizarre nature of this premeditated and violent crime," the board wrote in a one-page decision issued shortly after Chapman's appearance before the three-member panel at Attica.

Canada's annual seal hunt, the focus of a major protest effort by animal activists, will start on Saturday and could last longer than usual because the ice floes on which the seals gather are in poor condition, officials said on Thursday. Canada says a total of 325,000 harp seal pups can be shot or clubbed to death this year. The first stage of the hunt, which takes place on ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Canada's East Coast, will account for just over 90,000 animals. Activists, who say the killing is cruel and unnecessary, say they will film...

The Cuban President, Fidel Castro, has paid homage to John Lennon at the unveiling of a statue of the late pop singer in Havana. The ceremony in the Cuban capital's El Vedado Park coincided with the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's murder in New York. President Castro praised Lennon as a revolutionary, whose thinking and ideas made him great. In the 1960s, when Lennon's band The Beatles topped the charts throughout the world, the Cuban authorities denounced their music as decadent. But an official statement said recently declassified US documents showed how Lennon had suffered for his opposition to the...

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Beatle Paul McCartney is to broadcast live into space from a U.S. concert to two astronauts circling the globe. He will play "Good Day Sunshine" and one of his latest songs, "English Tea," to NASA astronaut Bill McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev who are on an international space station 220 miles above the earth. McCartney, who will be singing into space Saturday from Anaheim, California via NASA television, got the idea when he discovered that the crew of the spaceship Discovery were treated to a burst of "Good Day Sunshine" in August as a wake-up...

Say goodbye to the love bug. The last original Volkswagen Beetle, the tiny car that became an icon of the flower-power generation, rolled off a Mexican assembly line yesterday. A mariachi band strummed as workers put the finishing touches on a baby-blue model marked No. 21,529,464 - the last of seven decades' worth of the beloved vehicles. "You didn't just participate in the construction of a car, but in the creation of a legend," Volkswagen executive Reinhard Jung told a crowd of workers. The last original bug will be shipped to a museum in Wolfsburg, Germany, home of Volkswagen's world...