Free Republic

Time and again the headlines are filled with stories of young children left home alone. Typically they're found fine, and we all fret about what could have happened. In Joplin, Missouri, however, it's what did happen that's heartbreaking. According to The Joplin Globe, Eric Hicks, 28, was watching his girlfriend's 18-month-old son, Emjay Corn, Saturday morning. He had an appointment at a methadone clinic, but instead of taking the boy with him or finding alternative care for him, he just left him there, alone in his crib. Sometime later the boy was found dead. The boy's cause of death is...

Gore to young advocates: Battle industry lobbyists to turn the tide on climate By Ben Geman - 04/15/11 09:10 PM ET Al Gore told young green energy advocates Friday that progress on global warming must come from a strong grassroots movement that can counter the oil and coal lobbies, which he alleged have “paralyzed” governments. Gore – who compared action on global warming to the Civil Rights movement – was the keynote speaker at Power Shift 2011, a Washington, D.C. conference attended largely by college students. “It’s true that governments by and large have been politically paralyzed because the energy...

Knox, 23, is serving 26 years for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, 21, who was found partially clothed and with her throat cut in her bedroom in the house they shared. Tramp Antonio Curatolo originally told the court in the first trial that he had seen Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, by the house the night Miss Kercher was murdered because he recalled "youngsters waiting for buses."

Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Ariz., which sits on the U.S.-Mexico border, says if President Barack Obama were to come and visit that county he would like to take him to visit the grave of rancher Robert Krentz who was shot and killed on his own property in March by an attacker who fled south on foot into Mexico. The attacker shot both Krentz and his dog after Krentz had radioed his brother to tell him he saw an immigrant who appeared to be in trouble and that his brother should notify the Border Patrol.

Talk about going rogue. Meghan McCain, who fancies herself the hippest, most progressive young Republican in America, talked some trash last night about Sarah Palin. I know, where have you heard this song before? Ever since Palin imploded in her Katie Couric interview before the 2008 election, just about everyone involved in John McCain’s presidential campaign – the candidate excluded – has publicly declared how they never really liked Mama Grizzly to start with. Now the candidate’s daughter is piling on. In an interview with Jay Leno to publicize her recently-released book, Dirty Sexy Politics, Meghan McCain confesses to weeping...

How can a former constitutional law professor, an attorney general and an iconic organization get it so wrong on civil rights? When you look at it, it is hard to tell if the White House, the Department of Justice and the NAACP are merely a collective sign of the times or the reasons why the times are sadly changing. Over the course of the past week, all three iconic institutions have corrupted the legacy of civil rights activism in America, using their efforts to support legal initiatives that pervert the legacy of black civil rights leaders with self-serving and misguided...

38 year old child movie star Corey Haim was found dead today in his apartment, known for movies like 1986's feel good movie Lucas, also starring Winona Ryder and Charlie Sheen, and 1987's Horror/thriller The Lost Boys and with Keifer Sutherland and lifelong friend Corey Feldman ...

All we're getting is whispers from the press, of course, A raised eyebrow here, a sad shake of the head there. But the picture that is emerging of Barack Obama, the executive, is not very flattering if you look between the lines.

He said: "My doctor told me those mysterious new pills were methadone, which is used to wean heroin addicts off dope. Had I known it was methadone, I probably wouldn't have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can't even say 100 per cent for sure. “My doctor told me the amount of methadone I'd taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. Even when they told me I almost died, it didn't click." The 36-year-old hip-hop star admits his substance abuse addiction had spiralled out of control by then. He added to Vibe...

Media helos overhead, LAPD asking for traffic control....fans and papparazzi overrunning streets.

On Clemens' stance regarding claims in Mitchell Report that he used and was injected with banned performance-enhancing drugs from 1998-2001: ``Roger Clemens adamantly, vehemently and whatever other adjectives can be used, denies that he has ever used steroids or whatever the word is for improper substances. ``He is really concerned and upset that he has been named in this report based on the allegations of apparently, reading the report, based on a trainer (Brian McNamee) that he has had in the past. ``That's not a standard somebody should be held out in public to have done something as serious as...

Hollywood film-maker Oliver Stone shocked the audience at the British Comedy Awards with a bad-taste gag about the Suffolk murders. The director of 'Platoon' and 'Born On The Fourth Of July' was attending the ceremony to present the best comedy film prize to Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park. Taking the stage, he quipped: "It's great to be back in England. I feel like Jack The Ripper days are back. Nothing ever changes here." But his attempt at comedy was met with jeers and gasps of horror from the celebrity audience. Realising his joke had bombed, Stone sneered: "You're a...

CERES, Calif. -- A Ceres toddler accidentally shot herself to death Wednesday using a handgun she found in her home, police say. Authorities said they received a call at 7:42 a.m. reporting a shooting at a home on Ninth Street. The 2-year-old girl, who was not immediately identified, was pronounced dead at Memorial Medical Center in Modesto. Police said the girl's parents were being questioned by investigators. "There's really nothing to make us believe at this point that they're not telling us the true story, but we certainly have an obligation to either substantiate that or not support it by...

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. (AP) - Al Gore's son was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs after deputies pulled him over for speeding, authorities said. Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said. The deputies said they smelled marijuana and searched the car, Amormino said. They found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, he said.

LONDON - Keith Richards was joking when he claimed to have snorted his father’s ashes along with cocaine, a spokesman said Wednesday. “It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fool’s joke,” said Bernard Doherty of LD Communications, which represents the Rolling Stones. Doherty declined to say any more about why Richards made the statement in an interview with NME, a pop music magazine. “The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” the 63-year-old guitarist was quoted as saying. “He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him...

Peggy cites the pop-culture glitterai who are ga-ga over Obama; opines on his book; and concludes he's a narcissist. Caveat Emptor.

Should Sen. Barack Obama run for president? It will be a tough call for the senator and for those who admire and respect him personally. If he runs, he has a good chance of winning because he represents what Americans want in their president at this very troubled time in their history, a man of firm principles but not an ideologue, a moderate who can sympathize with his opponent's position, a modest man with self-deprecating wit, a politician who tries to bring people together instead of polarizing them against one another. A candidate who does not swagger or shout and...

Wisconsin is squarely in the eye of Obamamania this week with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama crossing the border to campaign for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, attorney general candidate Kathleen Falk and Congresswoman Gwen Moore. Two years ago, when Obama showed up at Milwaukee's Martin Luther King Park to campaign for Moore and Sen. Russ Feingold, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel didn't even bother to run a story the next day. With every magazine and talk show in the nation now promoting the possibility of Obama becoming America's first black president, even the most oblivious local media have taken notice. That's why...

CHICAGO --Responding to a newspaper report, Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that arrangements he had with a political fundraiser accused of shaking down companies might have raised the appearance of impropriety. Antoin "Tony" Rezko, whom Gov. Rod Blagojevich has described as a friend and a fundraiser, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he plotted to squeeze millions of dollars in kickbacks out of investment firms seeking state business. He also has pleaded not guilty to obtaining a $10.5 million loan from General Electric Capital Corp. through fraud and swindling a group of investors. Photo/Tony Dejak

Officials: Family of 5 Shot Dead in Iowa BONAPARTE, Iowa — Three high school girls and their parents were found dead Saturday morning at their home in eastern Iowa, and the couple's son was arrested in Illinois and considered a suspect, officials said. The victims were found shot at about 4 a.m. near Bonaparte, according to the Van Buren County sheriff's office. It was not immediately clear what prompted the slayings. Shawn Bentler, 22, was arrested Saturday in Quincy, Ill., on an unrelated charge of possession of drug paraphernalia, the Van Buren County sheriff's office said. The Iowa Department of...