Free Republic

An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary after a court recognized the ape as a "non-human person" unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported on Sunday. Animal rights campaigners filed a habeas corpus petition - a document more typically used to challenge the legality of a person's detention or imprisonment - in November on behalf of Sandra, a 29-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Buenos Aires zoo. In a landmark ruling that could pave the way for more lawsuits, the Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) argued the ape...

Salinas >> Before Monday, the last time Lynda Alsip saw her forest-green 1967 Ford Mustang was 28 years ago. It was her first car. They even shared the same birthday, said Alsip, who was born in 1967. She bought the car for $800 at the age of 17, with a little help from her dad who has since passed away. But about a year after she bought the car, it was stolen from outside her apartment complex in Salinas. Before she had the chance to install her personalized license plates — “LYNDA 67” — it was gone. “I never thought...

Nativity scene has caused quite a stir in his neighborhood, with some considering it a holiday treat. But others see a nightmare before Christmas. Responding to two anonymous complaints, officials in Ohio’s Sycamore Township said on Tuesday they have ordered Jasen Dixon to take down his display by Friday because it violates local property maintenance codes. Dixon, who manages a haunted attraction in Indiana, faces a $1,000 fine if he does not remove the 10-foot by 10-foot structure he built three weeks ago. He said he made the models for the zombie Mary and three wise men and borrowed props...

A Federal judge has ordered the Bank of America to pay a Florida couple $1 million for a slew of automated calls that occurred over a four-year period. According to the order, the relentless calls violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and as such the bank must pay the couple $1,500 for every prerecorded message received. In a statement, Joyce and Nelson Coniglio said they were harassed by telephone calls repeatedly after telling the bank on multiple occasions to stop. The calls started after the Coniglio’s began having problems with their mortgage payments....

Sex differences in risk seeking behaviour, emergency hospital admissions, and mortality are well documented. However, little is known about sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour. This paper reviews the data on winners of the Darwin Award over a 20 year period (1995-2014). Winners of the Darwin Award must eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such an idiotic manner that their action ensures one less idiot will survive. This paper reports a marked sex difference in Darwin Award winners: males are significantly more likely to receive the award than females (P<0.0001). We discuss some of the reasons for this...

This clip is taken from an episode called 'The High Ground'. The result of this short conversation, and the general theme of the program being centered around insurgency as a means to achieve freedom, led to the BBC (The British Broadcasting Corporation- Britain's national broadcaster) and Sky TV (a Satellite Broadcaster) putting a ban on showing the episode. When Sky did show the episode they cut the part about Irish reunification in 2024. In Ireland on RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann-Ireland's national broadcaster) the showing of the full episode came with a warning describing the content as "Fictional and Aspirational." The...

A restaurant in Tokyo has announced that it will refuse to serve couples on Christmas Eve because their happiness would serve to remind single patrons of their loneliness. The owner of PiaPia, a pasta restaurant in the Hachioji suburb of west Tokyo, has placed a handwritten sign in the window of the restaurant that reads, "We will be refusing entry to all couples on December 24, with no exceptions!" The message is accompanied by an outline of a male figure in blue and a female figure in red and a heart with a large red cross through the image. As...

Facebook is working on software that could prevent users posting unflattering photos of themselves. Combining image recognition and artificial intelligence, the system would be able to distinguish between drunk and sober pictures. It would ask: "Are you sure you want your boss and your mother to see this?" The plan was revealed by the head of Facebook's artificial intelligence research lab. Speaking to Wired magazine, Yann LeCun said he wanted to build a Facebook digital assistant. In the future, this assistant might also be able to help identify when someone else has uploaded a picture of a user without permission,...

BRANSON, Mo. -- The story of a unique tip given to a waitress in Branson has not only caught the attention of the community, but thousands of people on social media. Cindi Grady is a waitress at Cracker Barrel, and while people tend to be a bit more generous around the holidays she says a gift she recently received came at the perfect time. "I was in a spot where I was depressed," says Grady, "Just feeling like nobody cares, it's very different now." Grady says she loves her job, it's just that getting to work was a bit of...

The media frenzy exposing Bill Cosby's sordid sex life is deeply disturbing, but Bill Cosby has an opportunity to use this nightmare for America's benefit. In the final years of his life, Bill Cosby can choose to live in disgrace. He can look forward to every gory detail of any misdeeds becoming the subject of books and television specials. He can stew in bitterness and regrets, watching his fame as a comedian surpassed by detailed accusations of him being a rapist. But, he has another choice—a truly amazing one. The Apostle Paul once sought to wipe out Christianity. By God's...

When asked about recent allegations against Bill Cosby, Chris Rock fell into what for him is an unusual position. He was at a loss for words. "I don't know what to say," he told New York magazine. "What do you say? I hope it's not true. That's all you can say. I really do. I grew up on Cosby. I love Cosby, and I just hope it's not true." A lot of us longtime Cosby fans have been at a loss for words ever since long-simmering rumors boiled over in recent weeks that Cosby allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted women...

Authorities are formally investigating whether Michael Brown's stepfather intended to incite a riot last week when he urged a crowd in Ferguson, Missouri, to "Burn this bitch down" after the grand jury's decision was announced, the city's police chief said Tuesday. No charges have been filed against Louis Head in the incident, but police have interviewed people who know Head and who were with him November 24, the day a prosecutor announced that Officer Darren Wilson (who has since resigned) would not be indicted in the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown, Police Chief Tom Jackson said. Shortly after St....

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn., - A woman and her pot-bellied pig were booted off a Washington, D.C.-bound plane after passengers complained the pig was disruptive and stinky. The pig, thought to be about 70 pounds, had been brought aboard the US Airways plane at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut as an emotional-support animal. Crew members determined the animal was too disruptive and asked the woman to leave with the pig before the flight departed. Some people aboard the plane thought the woman was carrying a large duffle bag over her shoulder. "But it turns out it wasn't a duffel bag. We...

Bill Cosby testified under oath in 2005 that he gave the National Enquirer an exclusive interview about looming sexual-assault accusations by a Canadian woman against him in exchange for the tabloid spiking a second accuser's story. Excerpts released Wednesday of Cosby's deposition from a civil lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand quote Cosby as saying he feared the public would believe her sexual-assault accusations if the Enquirer published similar claims by Beth Ferrier. Both women accused Cosby of drugging and molesting them. "Did you ever think that if Beth Ferrier's story was printed in the National Enquirer, that that would make...

The University of Massachusetts Amherst severed its ties Wednesday to alumnus Bill Cosby, joining a growing number of colleges to distance themselves from the entertainer amid accusations he sexually assaulted more than a dozen women. Cosby, who received a master’s and a doctorate in education from the college, was an honorary co-chairman of the school’s ongoing $300 million fund-raising campaign. He and his wife, Camille, donated several hundred thousand dollars to the school, and the comedian was frequently cited in the past as one of the university’s most notable alumni.

HOUSTON,- A Houston-area family rescued a 5-month-old puppy last week, after it spent two months running around the neighborhood with a plastic jug on his head. "Every night I went to bed thinking about that dog and I really felt bad for him having that on his head," Audra Bohannon, of Northwest Harris County, Texas, told KPRC on Monday. Bohannon said the stray, thought to be a German Shepard mix, probably stuck his head into a plastic pet feeder in her barn. She and her family spent weeks trying to catch him. When they finally did, Bohannon and her family...

NEW YORK (AP) - The author of a new Bill Cosby biography is apologizing for not pursuing allegations that the comedian had drugged and sexually assaulted numerous women. Mark Whitaker, whose "Cosby: His Life and Times" was published in September, tweeted Monday that he was wrong not to "aggressively" look into the charges and promised to address them "at the appropriate time." "If true the stories are shocking and horrible," wrote Whitaker, whose account was confirmed by his publisher, Simon & Schuster. Reports about Cosby have been public knowledge for years, but resurfaced last month after a video of comedian...

Have you ever thought of converting your car into a stealthy car camper so you can easily sleep in it while traveling without being noticed? This way you don’t have to spend so much extra money and time getting in and out of hotels while you try to get somewhere. So I wanted to show you what I’ve been working on for the last few days. Of course it’s considerably smaller than your average tiny house so I’m not sure if you’re still with me but even if you’re not… Isn’t it fascinating what can be done to make an...

Human rights group Amnesty International released free software on Thursday that allows users to determine if their computers are bugged by government intelligence agencies. The program, Detekt, was designed specifically for human rights activists and journalists, whose computers governments regularly target, Amnesty said. “Governments are increasingly using dangerous and sophisticated technology that allows them to read activists and journalists’ private emails and remotely turn on their computer’s camera or microphone to secretly record their activities,” said Marek Marczynski of Amnesty International. “They use the technology in a cowardly attempt to prevent abuses from being exposed,” he added. In many place,...

LYNDEN, Wash., - A Washington state museum said it is removing World War II-era rifles from exhibit to avoid running afoul of a new background check law. The Lynden Pioneer Museum said the 11 rifles borrowed from collectors will be returned to their owners to avoid potential problems caused by Initiative 594, which requires background checks for all sales and transfers of weapons. The law includes an exception for antiques, but museum director Troy Luginbill told the Bellingham Herald the guns aren't old enough to qualify. Luginbill said the law wouldn't cause trouble for the "Over the Beach: The WWII...