Free Republic

Chicago’s youngest victim lost to gun violence this year may have been targeted by four reputed gang members who thought the boy shouted a warning to rival gangbangers, Chicago police said Friday in announcing charges in the month-old slaying.. At a news conference, Superintendent Garry McCarthy lauded the help of the community in solving the slaying of 9-year-old Antonio Smith Jr., saying police had little to go on after his shooting Aug. 20 in a back yard in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood

The blowback against the NFL over the recent domestic violence incidents -- a pattern, if you will -- is growing and growing rather quickly. CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported on a new sponsorship problem and the White House issued a stern edict to the NFL Friday morning about getting "a handle on" the problem. Enter another branch of government: the military. According to CNN, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is asking his staff for "detailed information about the US military's relationships" with the NFL.

Like thousands of his fellow Coloradans, Peyton Manning is buzzing off the state's legalization of marijuana. But it's a different kind of high for the Denver Broncos quarterback, who credits legal pot with booming sales at his Papa John's pizza franchises. Manning purchased 21 Papa John's locations statewide shortly before voters passed Colorado Amendment 64 in late 2012, and he's been raking in the money ever since.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh has launched an initiative this month targeting the city’s black and Latino boys and men, a population at risk for joblessness, poverty, and a host of health disparities, according to several studies. Building on the lead of President Obama earlier this year, the mayor is introducing Boston’s version of “My Brother’s Keeper,’’ a network meant to bridge the gap between men of color and their potential achievements. “There are a lot of young black and Latino men that we have here in our city that need this initiative,’’ Walsh said in an interview. “This can be...

Are chimpanzees naturally violent to one another, or has the intrusion of humans into their environment made them aggressive? A study published Wednesday in Nature is setting off a new round of debate on the issue.

Russian feminist protest punk band Pussy Riot found themselves at the Cambridge Police Department Monday evening after 2008 Harvard School of Public Health graduate Roman Torgovitsky was arrested for trespassing. Torgovitsky asked a question during Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina’s appearance at the JFK Jr. Forum earlier that evening, where he openly admitted to being “illegally” on Harvard grounds after he had been arrested in May for an altercation with campus police.

A man was arrested Tuesday after he threatened to shoot a Checkers drive-thru clerk if he didn't give him a hamburger, according to a report. West Palm Beach police said Dechazo Harris, 27, pulled up just after 1:30 a.m. on March 29 to a Checkers drive-thru, 1209 N. Dixie Highway. He ordered a meal at the speaker, pulled around to the window and wanted to submit another order, according to an arrest report.

SPRING VALLEY, N.Y. (PIX11) – A New York mother was sentenced to prison time and mandatory deportation Monday after she pleaded guilty to strangling her hours-old son and dumping his body in a recycling container, authorities said. Maria Oliva Guaman-Guaman, now 24, was sentenced to 12 years in state prison with five years’ post-release supervision, according to the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office.

The first sponsor has backed away from its involvement with the NFL amid the chaos that has enveloped the league over the past week. On Monday night, hours after its logo appeared on the banner behind Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman as he explained the team's decision to play running back Adrian Peterson in the near future, hotel chain Radisson announced it was suspending its sponsorship with the team.

The NFL is hiring four women to serve as advisers in shaping the league's stance on domestic violence, according to a memo from commissioner Roger Goodell to the 32 NFL owners sent Monday. The full memo, via Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal, can be read here. The gist of it is that the league attempting to change the outside perception of how it handles domestic violence and, hopefully, an earnest effort to change the actual process internally.

A Seattle woman is accused of raping her neighbor as he slept after a party. The victim shoved the 240-pound woman, later identified as 26-year-old Chantae Gilman, off of him when he woke up to her having sex with him, according to the Seattle P-I. She apparently broke into the 31-year-old's apartment on June 16, 2013 after a birthday party. It wasn’t until recently that a sample of DNA taken from the victim was analyzed.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, Utah – A woman has criticized police in the Utah County city of Saratoga Springs over the fatal shooting of her 22-year-old son, saying she believes the outcome would have been different had he not been black. Susan Hunt of Saratoga Springs said her family wants answers about what happened leading up to Wednesday's shooting by officers of her son, Darrien Hunt.

A women's rights group named Ultraviolet plans to fly anti-Roger Goodell banners over three NFL stadiums on Sunday. Per Bloomberg, the women's rights group will fly banners saying "@Ultraviolet: #GoodellMustGo." Those banners will fly over MetLife Stadium in New Jersey before the Giants and Cardinals play, as well as above the Saints-Browns game in Cleveland and the 49ers-Bears game on Sunday night in San Francisco.

CENTENNIAL, Colo., Sept. 13 (UPI) -- A man is suing the Arapahoe County jail and its contracted health care company after most of his right foot was amputated due to infected blisters.

CHICAGO (AP) — The patient had been shot on the streets of Chicago, but when Dr. Jared Bernard stood over his open body in the operating room, he could see that the single bullet had unleashed the same kind of massive infection inflicted by roadside bombs in Afghanistan. Although the wounded man lay in a modern American hospital, saving his life would be no different than caring for a soldier wounded by a bomb exploding under a Humvee. That's why the Navy is sending its doctors, nurses and medics to Stroger Hospital, a Cook County facility that, in its own...

ASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., is invoking first lady Michelle Obama as a possible 2016 opponent in a recent fund-raising appeal, citing the "press and rumor mills" as his source — though Mrs. Obama has given no sign she is interested in running for elected office. It's even doubtful President Barack Obama and the First Family will immediately return to Chicago after leaving the White House, since youngest daughter Sasha will still be in high school here in January, 2017. The letter, dated Sept. 5, serves to confirm that Kirk will seek a second term.

FORT LAUDERDALE— A man is accused of killing his former domestic partner and keeping the body in his bloodied bedroom, police said. Friends of Otis Blue, 35, became concerned for his well-being and reported him missing to Fort Lauderdale police on Wednesday. Authorities learned that Maurice Goodman, Blue's former partner, was the last known person in contact with him, according to a police release.

The San Francisco 49ers have suspended team radio broadcaster Ted Robinson two games for remarks he made about Ray Rice and domestic violence this week. While talking about Rice during a segment on KNBR-AM on Monday, Robinson had this to say about Rice's wife Janay, "How does she marry him after that? How does she go in front of Goodell? That's pathetic to me," Robinson said.

A former senior executive for the New York Mets charged that she was "humiliated" and eventually fired by chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon for having a baby out of wedlock in a new lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday. Leigh Castergine, who earned a six-figure salary as head of Mets Ticket Sales and Service Operations from 2010 to 2014, said that in one executive meeting she attended Wilpon brought up her pregnancy in a discussion of e-cigarette ads.

Seven people have been charged after a man who refused to flash a gang sign was attacked with a machete Monday morning at a Brown Line station in the Northwest Side Albany Park neighborhood.