Free Republic

Following the demand of Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, the leaders of the coalition parties on Sunday evening approved the Yisrael Beytenu party’s bill mandating the death penalty for terrorists. The bill will be brought to a preliminary vote in the Knesset plenum. MK Robert Ilatov, Yisrael Beytenu Parliamentary Group Chairman, said, "Today is a historic day in the State of Israel. After years in which the Yisrael Beytenu party has been promoting the death penalty for terrorists and after it was rejected by the Knesset and the government, today the death penalty bill for terrorists has finally been approved by...

SAN CASIMIRO, Venezuela — Kenyerber Aquino Merchán was 17 months old when he starved to death. His father left before dawn to bring him home from the hospital morgue. He carried Kenyerber’s skeletal frame into the kitchen and handed it to a mortuary worker who makes house calls for Venezuelan families with no money for funerals. Kenyerber’s spine and rib cage protruded as the embalming chemicals were injected. Aunts shooed away curious young cousins, mourners arrived with wildflowers from the hills, and relatives cut out a pair of cardboard wings from one of the empty white ration boxes that families...

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (WKRC) - Middletown Police have signed warrants for the arrests of two men believed to have been with a mother of nine when she overdosed, and left. Jim Boyer, 63, and Keith Boyer, 32, face charges of abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, nine counts of child endangering and petty theft when they are arrested. Police took them into custody Friday afternoon. Police were called to the home of Jamita Sanders, her husband and children Wednesday evening. She had died from a heroin overdose with her children in the home. Their ages range from 14-years-old to just...

A key member of Kim Jong Un's inner circle touted as a powerful military figure mysteriously vanished from public life recently, sparking rumors he was executed by a North Korean death squad after allegations of bribery, recent reports indicated. Hwang Pyong-so, a vice marshal who held the most senior position in North Korea’s military, hasn’t been seen in public since Oct. 13, sparking rumors of his death.

WKYT - According to our CBS affiliate, WKYT, Kentucky State Representative Dan Johnson, who was under investigation for alledged sexual molestation, has committed suicide, according to a report from WDRB in Louisville. Bullitt County Sheriff Donnie Tinnell said Johnson killed himself on a bridge on Greenwell Ford Road in Mt. Washington, and the gun was recovered. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin released the following statement: Saddened to hear of tonight’s death of KY Representative Dan Johnson...My heart breaks for his wife and children...These are heavy days in Frankfort and in America...May God shed His grace on us all...We sure need it......

I love my parents more than I can explain, just as you likely do yours. You can’t quantify that love, or put it in words, but anyone with good parents understands without needing it explained. It’s universally understood by anyone lucky enough to have great parents. My parents met when they were still in high school. They went to the same school in the same town I and my five siblings all graduated from. My mom and her friend were hitchhiking (it was the late 50s and you could still do that), and my dad picked them up. They knew...

A New York Doctor was found murdered shortly after reporting a “breakthrough” discovery in the cure for cancer. Dr. Miguel Crespo’s body was found in the bathroom of the Weill Cornell Medical Center on the Upper East Side where he worked, after having gone missing for several hours. Police initially thought that Dr. Crespo had committed suicide by drug overdose after they found vomit next to his body and “foaming at his mouth.” However, close friends and family say his death is suspicious, noting that Dr. Crespo had just made an exciting discovery in the field of cancer research and...

(Spring Run) -- A construction worker was killed when his backhoe was struck by a car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Fannett Township at 4:15 a.m. Oct. 10, according to Pennsylvania State Police in Newville. Police said Robert W. Marchetti, 63, of Drums, was driving the backhoe loader from the median to the south berm, at mile marker 197.4 between the Willow Hill and Blue Mountain interchanges, when the rear bucket was struck by a 2007 Volkswagen traveling east in the left lane. The driver of the car, Peter J. Awadallah, 21, of Jackson, N.J., and a passenger, were both...

An unpredictable public health concern is being highlighted in Terre Haute and other Hoosier communities in honor of a local toddler who died in 2014. Allison Jean Hescher died at age 16 months in her crib at home. An autopsy and investigation revealed no known cause of death for the little girl, leading to the category of Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood, or SUDC. Now, her mother, Karen Hescher, is bringing the SUDC Banner Project to the area to spread awareness and share the SUDC Foundation’s support and advocacy for families who have experienced the sudden, unexpected death of their...

As a divinity school student, I had just started working as a student chaplain at a cancer hospital when my professor asked me about my work.>SNIP< "I talk to the patients," I told him. "You talk to patients? And tell me, what do people who are sick and dying talk to the student chaplain about?" he asked.>SNIP< They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave. Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they...

Every day, it seems, our lives become a bit less tangible. We’ve grown accustomed to photos, music and movies as things that exist only in digital form. But death? Strange as it sounds, the human corpse could be the next physical object to vanish from our lives.

What Is Eternal Life? Msgr. Charles Pope • November 15, 2017 • This is the seventh in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.I often think that we haven’t done a very good job of setting forth the doctrine of eternal life. For most people, the concept seems a rather shallow one: that we will live forever. Frankly, many may not consider it all that appealing if the place where we live forever is Heaven. Too often, Heaven is reduced to merely this: a place where I’ll be happy. I’ll have a...

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WIVB) — According to the Rochester Police Department, the mother of a 10-day-old baby has been arrested for the infant’s death. Police say that when police arrived on scene around 2:30 p.m. Monday, they were told the child was found in bathtub of the home. The baby was immediately transported to Rochester General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

How to Influence the Way the Lord Will Judge Us Msgr. Charles Pope • November 13, 2017 • This is the seventh in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.Works of Mercy, Pieter Bruegel In the past several posts, we have been considering the judgment that awaits us. Not only must we be ready in the ways we have described, but should allow our looming judgment to help our attitude today.Scripture says, Always speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the Law that gives freedom. For judgment...

Parables by Jesus on the Day of Judgment and on Our Need to be Ready Msgr. Charles Pope • November 9, 2017 • This is the fifth in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.credit: Ashland CTC Jesus was urgent in warning us to be ready for judgment. He did this in many ways, but most notably in the parables. In this post let’s ponder His teachings and hear His urgency.Most casual readers of the Bible tend to view the parables as merely interesting, entertaining stories. While that is so, they are...

Pondering Judgment, One of the Four Last Things Msgr. Charles Pope • November 8, 2017 • This is the fourth in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.We turn our attention now to the judgment that awaits us all. Scripture speaks in the Book of Hebrews speaks rather plainly to this day for us all:It is appointed for us to die once, and after that to face judgment (Heb 9:27).For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he...

And Death Is Gain: A Reflection on the Proper Christian Sense of Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 7, 2017 • This is the third in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.Yesterday we pondered the fear of death and some understandable reasons for it, but we also considered how a lack of lively faith can lead to a fear of death that is unchristian. As St. Paul admonishes regarding death,We do not want you to … grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died...

On the Fear of Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 6, 2017 • This is the second in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.For the faithful, the day we die is the greatest day of our life on this earth. Even if some final purifications await us, the beatific vision for which we long lies just ahead; our exile in this valley of tears is ended.Is calling the day we die the greatest day of our life too strong a statement? I have seen some fellow Christians wince at this statement....

A Florida woman is accused of suffocating her 4-year-old daughter and then tossing her body in a dumpster, police said. Tina Farrington, 31, was held without bond Monday at the Miami-Dade County jail on a first-degree murder charge, officials said. According to an arrest report, Farrington told police she was at her home on Halloween night with 4-year-old Tania Paige and another child when she became upset with the girl. Farrington lured Tania and her brother to a bedroom, according to police, and then used a pillow to suffocate her.

The Mystery of Life and Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 5, 2017 • This is the first in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.Note: I wrote this post prior to the terrible shooting that occurred Sunday in Texas. Once again we are confronted with terrible violence and the specter of sudden death. Please offer your prayers for those who have died and their families. As we begin here a series on the Four Last Things, a shooting like this confronts us not only with the death and life, but also...