Free Republic

Update: Police have now said the boy who will be charged with the dog beating death is 10-years-old, not 11. FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – Residents in one Fort Worth neighborhood are shocked after “Cookie,” a Cavalier mix, was allegedly beaten to death. Police said an 11-year-old boy chased Cookie out of the pet’s back yard with a stick, eventually cornering him on a porch then killing him. According to the Cookie’s owner of five years, Jennifer Knittel, a concerned neighbor was key in figuring out what happened to the dog. Knittel said while she wasn’t home, a neighbor driving by...

The parents of Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old killed last year by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., filed a civil lawsuit against the city Thursday. This lawsuit alleges that the officer’s actions violated Brown’s civil rights, and goes on to state that the city’s broader law enforcement practices “led directly to the unjustified killing.” Brown was shot and killed last August by Darren Wilson, a Ferguson police officer. This shooting set off frenzied protests in the city, demonstrations that flared up again in November when a grand jury opted not to indict Wilson and again last month when the...

Link only: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/charles-manson-wedding-off-after-it-emerges-that-girlfriend-afton-elaine-burton-just-wanted-his-corpse-for-display-10034793.html

Link only: http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/crime/2015/02/05/police-6-year-old-kidnapped-to-scare-him/22950695/

Link only: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/motherofsix-with-learning-disabilities-could-be-sterilised-after-authorities-ask-court-for-permission-to-force-entry-into-her-home-10018414.html

Pop starlet Selena Gomez was so heavily criticized for posting pictures of herself flashing her ankle inside Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque on Instagram that she appears to have deleted the evidence altogether. A second picture, showing Gomez and fellow musicians Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Cody Simpson and Shay Mitchell smiling and striking poses has also been lambasted but remained on her Instagram Thursday. Mosque visiting rules strictly ban all 'intimate behavior' including holding hands and kissing, and states that all skirts must be ankle-length. Commenting on the picture, Alaa Almitwally said: 'Disrecpectful! It's a religion place not a place to...

WASHINGTON • A 95-year-old newlywed Virginia man has died just weeks after his 96-year-old wife was taken away by family members to Florida. Eddie Harrison died Tuesday in a hospital after suffering from influenza, said Rebecca Wright, who was caring for the couple in their Alexandria, Va., home. Harrison became distressed after his wife and longtime companion, 96-year-old Edith Hill, was taken away, Wright said. Wright is Hill's daughter. "He lived for her, and she lived for him. It's the love story of the century," Wright said, recalling how they would dance, take walks and care for each other.

Three cardboard cutouts of black people were reportedly found hanged in effigy from nooses on the UC Berkeley campus on Saturday morning. The incident follows a week of protests on the streets of Berkeley, California, to denounce the grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers in the deaths of two unarmed black men in St. Louis and New York. Local pastor Michael McBride was the first to share the image on Twitter. One of the hanged figures, which appears to be a cardboard cutout of a lynched woman identified as Laura Nelson from 1911. The cutout includes the...

Oscar de la Renta, the doyen of American fashion, whose career began in the 1950s in Franco’s Spain, sprawled across the better living rooms of Paris and New York, and who was the last survivor of that generation of bold, all-seeing tastemakers, died on Monday at his home in Kent, Conn. He was 82. His death was confirmed by his wife, Annette de la Renta. The cause was complications from cancer. Though ill with cancer intermittently for close to eight years, Mr. de la Renta was resilient. During that period his business grew by 50 percent, to $150 million in...

Parents say it’s a form of digital kidnapping. Instagram isn’t sure what to say. The followers were the first sign of trouble. There were 20 new ones following Jenny on Instagram--an unusually large burst of attention for the married mother of three from Charlotte, North Carolina. Then two private messages arrived, with warnings that barely made sense. “The women told me they saw a photo of my baby daughter, and a user named ‘Nikki’ was saying it was her son, Wyatt,” says Jenny, who, concerned for her privacy, asked that her last name not be used. “Nikki said he was...

In response to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, atheists are sitting around knitting. And in this time of national crisis, they are knitting bricks. Worried about the supposedly crumbling wall of separation between church and state, the Secular Coalition for America (SCA) launched a “Knit a Brick” campaign to “harness outrage” at the ruling. The group will send yarn bricks to the Supreme Court, Congress, or White House staffers. Targets will be selected based on the number of bricks the Coalition’s high command receives by August 5, according to Religionnews.com. If organizers collect 400 bricks, they will send them...

Road safety campaigners have accused a leading neurosurgeon of putting lives at risk after he claimed cyclists who wear helmets were wasting their time. Henry Marsh, who works at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London, said many of his patients who had been involved in bike accidents had been wearing helmets that were “too flimsy” to be beneficial. Mr Marsh cited evidence from the University of Bath which suggested that wearing a helmet might even put cyclists at greater risk. It showed that drivers got around three inches closer to cyclists who wore helmets because they perceived them to be...

(CNSNews.com) - Under the Affordable Care Act, the Health and Human Services Department is spending billions of dollars to expand community health clinics, which are mainly staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. "It's going to be one part of a complex part of the health care system," Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects of Obamacare, told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly Tuesday night. "So if your kid has a sore throat and you want to find out if it's strep throat, or your kid has what appears to be an ear infection and you want to find out if...

I was cruising youtube for Gilbert & Sullivan videos and found this little gem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b_gmO7AJS4

After 24 knee operations, the National Football League’s former Man of the Year leans heavily on a crutch. When Reggie Williams pulls up his pants leg, what’s underneath looks like the trimmings from a butcher shop. His right leg is so ravaged that it’s three inches shorter than his left. Worse, it’s uninsured. Once, Williams was the NFL’s high ideal. From 1976 to 1989 he was a spring-legged linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals who set franchise records and played in two Super Bowls. Off the field, he was a civic-minded Dartmouth graduate who won humanitarian awards and served as a...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The Minnesota State Patrol had to put down two horses after they got away from their Faribault farm early Monday morning. They’d been trying to get the horses back onto their property when they say the situation just became too unsafe. But, as can be imagined, the horses’ owner is very upset — and has to foot the bill. Suzette Clemens didn’t even realize her quarter horses, Roper and Frenchie, had escaped when a tree fell on her electric fence, until a Rice County deputy showed up at her door in the middle of the night. He...

A wheelchair-bound man was awarded $8,000 by Disneyland after the "It's A Small World" ride broke, stranding him for a half hour while the theme song played continuously, according to an attorney for the plaintiff. Jose Martinez, who suffers from panic attacks and high blood pressure, did not medically stabilize for three hours after the ride broke down in 2009, attorney David Geffen said. "He has panic disorder and that was really what started everything rolling," Geffen said. "What caused the court concern, as well, because Disney was alerted about his panic problem and didn't call for the fire department...

Her name is synonymous with beauty, grace and elegance. But Lindsay Lohan's attempts to channel stylish Elizabeth Taylor for a private dinner to celebrate the Lifetime premiere of Liz & Dick on Tuesday evening can only be described as a failure. The 26-year-old actress, who has already been given terrible reviews surrounding her performance playing the Hollywood legend in her new Lifetime biopic, stepped out in a trashy gold dress as she graced the red-carpet at the Beverly Hills hotel. At first glance Lindsay's gold gown could have passed as tasteful, but on closer inspection the red dangling gems strategically...

RANCHO CORDOVA (CBS13) – It’s a shocking way to stop the copper theft crime-wave – a 7,000-volt electric security fence. The Rancho Cordova City Council voted Monday night to draft an ordinance allowing businesses to put up electric security fences that will zap would-be copper thieves. Sam Matsoyan of MP Auto Parts said Monday he can’t wait to install it around his Rancho Cordova business. “It’ll be a little fun to watch one of these guys get electrocuted holding my fence trying to rob me,” he said. His laughter said it all. This has become personal for Sam after copper...

Veteran's day is to thank those who have served the militaries of our respective countries. We throw parades, hold services, and honor our warriors in many ways. But it should never be forgotten that not all veterans walk upright. No one knew when or where he was born. In common terms he was just a stray dog. It was an early morning in 1917 at Yale Field in Connecticut. The area had been taken over by the U.S. Army for training, and a group of young soldiers was there, preparing for World War I across the Atlantic. At some point...