Free Republic

OPELIKA, AL (WTVM) - News Leader 9's Elizabeth White spoke with the father of the 20-year-old Airman who was shot in the stomach March 6 by an Opelika police officer. It was the first on-camera interview Billy Davidson has done since the incident. He met with us in a parking lot just across the street from East Alabama Medical Center, where his son is still recovering with serious injuries to his stomach. Billy tells us his son is and has always been a good kid who is dedicated to his Air Force career. He is well-loved by his friends, family...

Mkombozi's story is legendary in Nairobi, Kenya, if not the world. The African dog currently resides at the Kenya SPCA where she spends her retirement sleeping in a soft bed and teaching school children about animal welfare. It’s a good role for her, considering how the stray dog ended up at her comfortable home. After all, back in 2005, Mkombozi became famous for saving an abandoned newborn baby and carrying her back to her ‘home’, where she was nursing her own young. The heroic dog reportedly found the infant, wrapped in rags, in the Ngong Forest where she was scavanging...

This just in from the Edward Snowden vault of government secrets: The National Security Agency is breaking into "potentially millions of computers worldwide" and infecting them with malware "implants" as part of an effort that is increasingly relying on automated systems and not human oversight, according to a by First Look Media report published Wednesday. And the NSA is pretending to be Facebook to get the job done. "In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social-media site as a launching pad to infect a target's computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive,"...

The Lee County deputy approached the parked van and told Torockio he was under arrest, but the upset driver simply said, "I am not! Don't you have anything better to do?" The septuagenarian continued to resist arrest while yelling and screaming, "What are you going to do, beat up a 72-year-old man?" When another officer arrived, Torockio was arrested and charged with resisting an officer without violence, failure to obey police and violation of county park rules. His van was later towed.

You're gonna want to steer clear of this CUPID. The Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone, or "stun copter," can deliver 80,000 volts of pure projectile terror directly into the skin of an ill-intentioned hoodlum. This is serious business for Chaotic Moon, the folks behind SharkPunch and the Pizza Hut touch table. The Austin-based design studio created the flying machine as a tech demo, but CUPID could be quickly brought to production whenever a personal security or law enforcement client sees fit. This prototype unit is based on a Tarot Hexacopter, originally designed to carry a digital SLR for video and...

YORK COUNTY, SC — Alice Renee McGlone says her cats Rhett Butler and Tara will have to go on without Scarlett –– her 9-year-old Labrador retriever –– after a York County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and killed the dog when, he says, it charged him aggressively on Tuesday. McGlone’s friend Ron Montana buried Scarlett on Wednesday afternoon in her backyard, under a tree, on Clara Street in Rock Hill. Montana and McGlone say they’re outraged that the deputy used lethal force. But, sheriff’s officials say the deputy had no choice but to protect himself from the dog. “He hated to...

Attorney Eugene Iredale, who represents the Alvarado family, said although the methamphetamine found in Tachiquin-Alvarado’s system was a significant amount, it may have been the result of diet medications or supplements. Iredale also acknowledged that Alvarado did have a “substance-abuse problem,” which could account for the drug finding. But Iredale said the new information about the 10 bullets, which caused 14 separate wounds, is more important. He said details about the angle of travel of those bullets reveals that the agent shot Alvarado while standing in front of her car, not while he was being carried along on the hood...

WJLA) - A Baltimore city police officer, assigned to the 8th District, is on unpaid suspension amidst allegations he beat and strangled his seven-month-old puppy to death. On Feb. 26, Alec Taylor, 27, a five-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, returned to his apartment along the 13000 block of Castle Boulevard in Silver Spring. Upon entering the unit, Taylor noticed his Jack Russell Terrier, named Rocko, had defecated on the carpet. According to police, Taylor became enraged, beating the untrained dog with a mop, then using his bare hands to suffocate the puppy.

Like most 8-year-olds, Myles Eckert was already dreaming up ways he could spend a $20 bill he had just discovered laying in a Cracker Barrel parking lot earlier this month. “I kind of wanted to get a video game, but then I decided not to,” the child recounted to CBS News. That’s because Eckert saw Lt. Col. Frank Dailey enter the restaurant. The man in uniform changed his mind. Why? “Because he was a soldier, and soldiers remind me of my dad,” Eckert explained to CBS.

<p>An 85-year-old North Texas man said he couldn't get out of a local hospital on Wednesday. Instead of going home, he ended up in a nursing home.</p> <p>Charlie Fink called FOX 4 for help Wednesday after he went into Richardson Methodist Hospital on Friday for hernia surgery and wasn't released.</p>

Here’s a YouTube that the Electra, Texas, convention and visitors bureau probably would like to see disappear from the firmament. It shows what can happen when cops with a bad attitude come up behind you at night and end up accusing you of the bad attitude. You can end up driving off with a couple of bogus tickets. Or, if you’re like the guy who produced the video, you can stand your ground and beat them at their own game. Ask yourself how you would handle something like this. You can imagine these two cops were the overgrown bully-boys who...

DURHAM, N.C. — A 20-year-old sophomore communications major at North Carolina Central University, Lewis James Little sat in the Durham County jail for a month last year after he did what he says he thought was the right thing. He and several friends had been visiting the home of a childhood friend on Melbourne Street in east Durham on the night of June 21, 2013, when, he says, they discovered 25-year-old Michael Lee dead in the middle of the road. "I called the police – when none of the other guys were even thinking about it – trying to do...

A troubling bill (PDF) that passed the Mississippi legislature last month would give the state’s attorney general three paramilitary-style “strike forces” to use around the state at his discretion. The bill is being pushed by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who told the Associated Press, “These elite forces will respond to a specific high-crime area and hit gangs and drug dealers where they live. Give law enforcement the authority and the resources they need, and they will get the job done.” But it’s far from clear that the state really needs more strike forces with which to hit people. Mississippi already...

In a video posted Thursday to YouTube, Connecticut State Police Spokesman Lt. Paul Vance is heard telling a woman identified as "GMN Producer Guerilla Girl Ashley" that she sounded anti-American for questioning the state's new gun control law. ***** "I want to know, if it comes down to it, will the police go to my home if my husband refuses to give up a weapon that was formerly legal and now has been made illegal by a corrupt legislature?" she asked. "Will the police actually go to my home and threaten my family, 'cause I'm scared to death?" "We don't...

This purebreed is pure hero. A Doberman pinscher competing in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York City next week is being credited with saving his Staten Island owner’s life nearly three years ago by detecting her breast cancer. Troy, then a 4-month-old puppy, alerted Diane Papazian, 56, to a dangerous lump in her breast while they were cuddling in bed, said her husband, Harry. Diane thought it was peculiar how persistent the pooch was in his nuzzling, leading her to conduct a self-examination and to discover the lump. She underwent a double mastectomy and chemotherapy to beat...

Zeus was on the living room couch when the fire broke out. That's where firefighters found the unconscious, adult male Doberman when they entered a home in the 600 block of Hartford Drive off Victoria Road in College Station Friday and immediately provided him with oxygen. He was taken to the Wellborn Road Veterinary Medical Center for treatment for smoke inhalation and will remain there for at least one night, said Dr. Brittany Frank, the veterinarian on his case. While Zeus has improved since arriving at the medical center and is able to walk on his own, Frank said he's...

A Cincinnati traffic reporter has gained national attention for his dramatic on-air parody of a Disney movie song. WKRC's Bob Herzog changed 'Let it Go,' sung by Princess Elsa in the animated movie 'Frozen,' to 'Just Don't Go' to reference the winter weather. As images of cars skidding on ice and traffic conditions play, Herzog dramatically sings lines like: 'I must share what dispatchers say, all the traction's gone. School's closed or at least they're on a delay.'

SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLORIDA - All Gilberto Powell, 22, a five foot tall man with Down Syndrome, wanted to do was walk a half block home from a friend's house, but this was enough time and distance for the police to intervene. Police "followed" Powell because they noticed a "bulge in his pants." He was not happy to see the cops; this was only his colostomy bag (which police ripped from his body). Powell was then beaten down in the street by police, leaving him bruised and battered from blows to the face. The beating officer insisted Powell ran, but Powell...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police may search a home without a warrant when two occupants disagree about allowing officers to enter, and the resident who refuses access is then arrested. The justices declined to extend an earlier ruling denying entry to police when the occupants disagree and both are present. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court's 6-3 decision holding that an occupant may not object to a search when he is not at home.

TORONTO – For women, smelling a newborn baby feels as good as drugs are to addicts or cheeseburgers to those just breaking a fast, new Montreal research suggests. A University of Montreal scientist says a newborn baby’s odour lights up the reward centres in our brain in a way other scents can’t. And for women – specifically moms – the experience, a rush of dopamine to the brain, is heightened. The reaction is so strong, it exists even if the baby isn’t in front of you. It’s chemistry between mom and baby. “What we’ve shown for the first time is...