Free Republic

A Roman Catholic priest accused of traveling to Honduras to molest poor street children during missionary trips was convicted on Tuesday of several charges. Federal jurors convicted the Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr. of charges including three of four counts related to sex abuse of boys during trips to a Honduran orphanage. Maurizio was accused of traveling abroad from 2004 to 2009 to have sex with three young boys, a charge known as sexual tourism. He also was convicted of possession of child pornography and illegally transferring money to a charity to help fund the trips. Jurors acquitted him of another...

The combine was reported weaving from ditch to ditch on U.S. 56 highway. It struck a guy wire and caused damage to power poles near the intersection of Southeast 10 Road and U.S. 56 Highway. It then continued West and entered the city of Ellinwood around 10:47 p.m. The driver drove through a residential neighborhood, striking several power poles and a 2005 Cheverolet pickup truck parked on the road. The pickup truck sustained extensive damage and the 8-row combine header was torn from the combine. An Ellinwood police officer attempted to contact the driver around 10:52 p.m. While doing so,...

In a gift to many musicians, movie-makers and other content-creators, a federal judge has found that the song “Happy Birthday To You” is entirely in the public domain. But the move could mean millions lost for the music publishing company that has been collecting on the copyright to one of the most widely sung songs in the world. U.S. District Judge George H. King found Tuesday that the song’s original copyright, obtained by the Clayton F. Summy Co. from the song’s writers and bought for $15 million in 1988 by Warner/Chappell Music Inc., only covered specific piano arrangements of the...

He's accused of sexually assaulting a child on numerous occasions over the course of three years. The victim's mother trusted 35-year-old Julio Cesar Hernandez-Aleman to watch her daughter. Instead, investigators say the girl found herself in the care of a sexual predator. The victim says the assaults started when she was ten years old. Three years went by and the victim's brother noticed Hernandez-Aleman showering the girl with toys and gifts. "Not a lot of paperwork on this individual, he's a citizen of Honduras. He has one involvement in 2005 where he had some immigration issues, possibly deported back over,...

According to court documents, (Officer Don) Allen created a posting on Craigslist under the personal ads. “The suspects responded to the ad and arranged to meet with the victim,” a Texas Ranger stated in the affidavit. The documents go on to reveal “the suspects insisted the victim used an alias during their contact with him.” KTXS viewed the ad before its removal from the site on Monday and deemed it to be too explicit for publication... "Electronic evidence, which we believe will more definitively reveal the nature of the relationship, is still being processed at the Department of Public Safety...

Doritos Rainbows are a limited-edition version of its Cool Ranch-flavored tortilla chips to show the chipmaker’s support of the LGBT community. The chips come in shades of green, blue, purple, red, and orange inspired by colors of the Pride flag (or, perhaps, Skittles’ “taste the rainbow” tagline). “There’s nothing bolder than being yourself,” the company declares on the package.

In 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 1.4 million out of a total of about 12.7 million workers in the restaurant industry, were legal or illegal immigrants. In 2008, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that roughly 20 percent of the country's more than 2.5 million chefs and cooks were undocumented immigrants..."Improving economy, declining immigration, and higher rents — those are the three main things creating the shortage of cooks," Cowen said.

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga freshman Yasmeen Abdulazeez, 17, was told by a professor that he would lower her grade when she asked to miss class for a religious holiday. She dropped the class instead... During a campaign stop in Chattanooga in July, Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey made national headlines by suggesting that Islam might be a cult instead of a religion. Ramsey did not respond to repeated requests for comments for this report...Chattanooga's Muslim teens said they feel a responsibility to help dispel the negative stereotypes of their faith. Before graduating from Red Bank High School, Abdulazeez said...

Police are searching for a cobra that is believed to have bitten an 18-year-old man who died Tuesday evening. Police believe Grant Thompson, 18, owned a monocled cobra and that it bit him in his car while at the parking lot of a Lowe’s at 13000 North Interstate 35. Thompson died after going into cardiac arrest, medics have said. Police said it is possible that the snake is still in the area and are asking anyone with information about the animal to call police at 512-974-5210. Police described the cobra as black with a distinctive circle on its back and...

Warning - A petition worker came by yesterday to ask for our signatures and knew everyone's name in the household. We declined to sign. Later, Mr. b overheard one of the workers asking the other what happens if no one signs the petition. The guy told him that they write in the signatures themselves. Mr. b reported it to the elections office and to someone else in the courthouse. We'll wait until the petition is turned and to see if our names are on it and then report it to the county attorney. Please be aware of this practice in...

Today, Jason White and his fiancé Jonathan Means are planning to obtain a marriage license from the San Saba County Clerk. However, the San Saba County Clerk Kim Wells has indicated that she will deny their application for a marriage license presumably based on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s nonbinding opinion that clerks may claim religious exemptions in performing marriages for same-sex couples. In a letter to Kim Wells, Matt Thorn Interim Executive Director for OutServe-SLDN stated “Under the United States Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, in which all 50 U.S. states are now required to issue and recognize marriages...

Austin police say a man was caught on video sexually assaulting a woman outside a bar on 6th Street. He is in jail. It's possible another man may be charged as an accomplice. Austin police say on Sunday at 10 a.m., a witness got video that clearly shows 34-year-old Darius Maxwell sexually assaulting a woman. She was lying in the doorway of the Lit Lounge and was unconscious. The witness says another man appeared to serve as a look out while Maxwell committed the assault.

Attorneys at a hearing to determine who would receive temporary custody of the 5-year-old boy told a judge Friday morning that his mother and an aunt had been notified that the hearing would take place but that neither were in the courtroom to speak on his behalf. His father hadn’t yet been found, and the grandmother who abandoned him Tuesday at Kohl’s when she bolted from a shoplifting stop was still on the run from law enforcement, Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Amanda Marino said. The judge placed the child in the temporary custody of the state.

A black drinking buddy of the white man accused of killing nine people at a Charleston church says the suspect told him a week earlier that he planned to shoot up a college campus in the city. The friend, Christon Scriven, told The Associated Press on Friday that he thought Dylann Roof's statements were just drunken bluster. Still, Scriven said he was concerned enough that he and another friend, Joey Meek, went out to Roof's car and retrieved his .45-caliber handgun, hiding it in an air-conditioning vent of a mobile home until they all sobered up. "He just said he...

According to the team's site, the event was planned as a celebration of "Irish, Italian, German … or even Utahn! Whatever your background, celebrate it at the home of the Owlz!" The promotion details have since been removed from the team's website. The promotion was set for Aug. 10, but was canceled after social media outrage that began Friday afternoon. "We understand, in light of recent tragic events, that our intentions have been misconstrued,"... Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox tweeted that he had spoken to one of the co-owners of the team, and the owner said "he had no idea this...

The number of people sickened by synthetic marijuana has reached 235 since May 29, according to Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services. Since Sunday evening, medics responded to a couple of calls where two people were treated for adverse reactions to the synthetic drug known as K2 or “spice,” EMS officials said. The synthetic drug is intended to mimic the effects of marijuana. People who have taken K2 have shown symptoms that include violent behavior, paranoia, seizures, low heart rates and low blood pressure.

Hackers stole personnel data and Social Security numbers for every federal employee, a government worker union said Thursday, charging that the cyberattack on U.S. employee data is far worse than the Obama administration has acknowledged. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor that the December hack into Office of Personnel Management data was carried out by "the Chinese."

“What I saw happening on our trip, I thought it was beautiful because kids could talk to these sex educators without any shame, without any fear,” Hedges said Monday. Gaia is a K-12 school with a motto promising academic freedom, youth empowerment and democratic education. Parents say the school has about 25 students, including several described by administrators as transgender...“It was certainly the first time we have taken that kind of field trip and it will probably be our last, which I feel bad [about] because the kids had so much fun,”

A man accused of robbery apparently got a case of the munchies and demanded a taco truck operator make him food — threatening him with brass knuckles — before then going on a beer run, according to Austin police.

H-E-B has put up signs on our egg shelves throughout all of our stores, asking our customers to limit their purchases to three cartons of eggs per purchase... the company does not want restaurants and commercial institutions coming in and stripping its shelves of eggs... [Whataburger] is cutting back on the hours it offers breakfast... Some egg-dependent companies are contemplating drastic steps that include importing eggs from overseas or looking to egg alternatives.