Free Republic

WINTER HAVEN (FOX 13) - A man breaking into a Winter Haven home Monday morning was shot and killed by the family living there, Police Chief Gary Hester said. It happened at a little before 7 a.m. on Lake Marriana Road Drive. A mother, father, and son woke up to the sound of someone, identified by police as 40-year-old Mitchell Large, trying to get in through a porch door. Chief Hester said one of the family members fired a warning shot. "[A resident] fired a warning shot above the door. That warning shot did not deter the intruder. The intruder...

‘Cities Changing Diabetes’, a new partnership programme to fight the urban diabetes challenge has been launched with Mexico City the first major city to sign-up to the programme. “The global diabetes epidemic is an emergency in slow motion,” says Lars Rebien Sørensen, CEO, Novo Nordisk, the Danish based healthcare company that is leading the initiative.

The Eucharist: Foundation of the Christian FamilyFr. John A. Hardon, S.J.We do not normally associate the Holy Eucharist with marriage and the family. But we should. Without the Eucharist, there would not be a livable Sacrament of Matrimony or a stable Christian family. What are we saying? We are saying that Christ intended these two sacraments to be related as condition and consequence. The Eucharist is the condition, and matrimony as the core of the family is the supernatural consequence. Surely this calls for an explanation, and a clear explanation. Needless to say, this is a most important subject....

Agenda 21 is alive and well in Klamath County, Oregon. Klamath Basin farmers are feeling the wrath of the Klamath Tribes in collusion with the Federal and Oregon state governments. Water is now basically off limits to ranchers unless they get approval from the tribes, and approvals are few and far between. ... The success of this plan spells disaster for not only the Klamath Basin family farmers, but for all family farmers, as it will be a precedent. Without locally grown produce and animal feed, we will be even more dependent on imported food at a much higher price....

As a mother, I often dwell on my role and that of my husband in influencing our children. I also think about the roles their peers and their environment play in affecting their growth. Are our children being challenged enough? Are they being taught responsibility, gratitude and manners? Should they be focusing on one activity or many? Are they over- or under-scheduled? The list goes on and on. Recently our 14-year-old daughter Maggie has been questioning me about her talents. Specifically, she has been wondering what those talents might be. My response most often has been to tell her that...

Dallas.. (AP PHOTO/BAYLOR HEALTH, WIECK) Premature quintuplets born this week in North Texas are doing “remarkably well,” their doctor said Thursday. Dr. Vijay Nama, director of neonatology at the Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, said during a news conference that the four girls and one boy were breathing on their own after birth, and although four were later put on machines to help their breathing, all are expected to be off the machines soon. He expects the babies to remain in the hospital for six to seven weeks.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former Manson Family member Bruce Davis, who was sentenced to life in prison for two 1969 murders carried out with other members of the cult, was granted parole on Wednesday by a California parole board, although it was not certain he would be freed. Davis' parole must still be affirmed by California Governor Jerry Brown, who reversed a similar decision by the same board last year, saying that the 71-year-old convicted killer remained a danger to the public.

Back in September, our family received an Obamacare-induced health insurance death notice. We joined millions of other Americans whose individual market health plans died after Democrats lied about our ability to keep the plans and doctors we liked. President Obama tried to "fix" the mess he created. But as usual, the federal government's solutions have made things even worse. Confusion and chaos reign not just in our household, but across the country. As I reported last fall, our letter from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado informed us that we could no longer keep our high-deductible PPO plan with a wide...

"But the purpose of prayer," wrote Bill Buckley, "surely, is to stress the great divisions between the material and the supernatural condition, not to gloss over them." Indeed, though it seemed in recent days that the chasm between the material and supernatural has grown so great that not even a multi-million dollar congressionally funded bridge to nowhere and back could connect the distant shores. I'm not Catholic, (though I am doing some reading on the faith), so I'm unfamiliar with the specialties of the various saints. I know there is a patron saint for traveling, another for the military, and...

WASHINGTON – A German home-schooling family facing deportation following the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear their appeal is being allowed to stay in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security has granted the family “indefinite deferred status,” their attorney confirmed to Fox News. That means the Romeike family, who claim the German government is persecuting them because they want to raise their children in accordance with their Christian beliefs, can stay in the United States without the threat of being forced return to their home country, the family’s legal team told Fox News. The family moved to Morristown, Tenn., in...

The Romeike family sought to stay in the United States because returning to Germany would mean they could not home school their children in that country. The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from a German family seeking asylum in the United States because their home country does not allow home-schooling. The justices rejected an appeal from Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who claim the German government is persecuting them because they want to raise their children in accordance with their Christian beliefs.

ROME, February 27, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “I am a homosexual, but I’m against ‘gay marriage,’” a French pro-family activist told an Italian Catholic opinion paper earlier this month. Jean-Pier-Delaume Myard, spokesman for Manif Pour Tous, told La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana that the “sole purpose” of the homosexualist “gay rights” movement is “destroying the family.” Myard gave the interview following the first big pro-family Manif Pour Tous event in Italy on February 11. Myard noted that in a recent talk, he said “we must break the silence” about the real nature of the homosexualist movement, noting that many homosexuals “have nothing to...

The traditional family is dead, so we've been informed. It's been replaced by blended families, cohabitation, single-parent families, and, if the latest scientific controversy regarding mitochondrial DNA pans out, multiple biological parents for a single child. It's not wrong to declare that the face of the American family is changing (even if most of the changes have been for the worse), but it may be overwrought. The only way to sing a dirge for the "traditional" family is to define it exceedingly narrowly -- and even then, it's not dead, just diminished. If you define "traditional" as a father working...

Jesus once rebuked the people of his time for their stubborn and unrepentant hearts: This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. At...

Just read this and weep for our future. David Wise is at the top of his sport. He’s always smiling among his friends and competitors, however, he’s not like the rest of the field. He is mature. Not to say the rest of the freestyle skiers of halfpipe are not mature, but Wise is mature far beyond his years. At only twenty-three years old, he has a wife, Alexander, who was waiting patiently in the crowd, and together they have a two-year-old daughter waiting for them to return to their home in Reno, Nevada.At such a young age, Wise has...

Culture Challenge of the Week: No Future for our Kids? President Obama recently warned Americans that too many members of our society never climb the ladder to success—they’re defeated before they even begin. When children have no future, it poses “a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe.” He actually got that right. According to a recent Pew study, “[m]ore than 40 percent of Americans raised in the bottom quintile of the family income ladder remain stuck there as adults.” It’s a tragedy to see human potential go to...

A Mexican man was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison in the December 2010 murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in ATF’s Fast and Furious gunwalking case. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes was wounded at the crime scene and pleaded guilty to first degree murder. Terry's sister, Kelly Terry-Willis told Osorio-Arellanes at the sentencing hearing in federal court in Tucson, Ariz., that he was a coward who had chosen the wrong path in life, the Associated Press reported. She also described her brother as a loving and devoted family man - "a man who loved God and life," according to the...

Time and time again I have been accused of being on the "wrong side of history" when it comes to the arguments over abortion and, especially, to so-called gay marriage. This linguistic fad has exploded in use lately as if history itself is the sole arbitrator of what is right and true. It is the weapon of utter dismissiveness that is boldly and routinely wielded by the Left. One should, in reality, not be interested in being on the "right side of history," but on the right side of right and wrong. The most recent and sudden burst of Leftist...

FR is pro-God, pro-Life, pro-family, pro-constitution, pro-limited government and will remain that way. Regardless of any consequences!! You're either with us on this or against us. Moderation is not the solution, it is the problem!! We do not surrender, we do not retreat, we do not negotiate or compromise on our unalienable rights to Life and Liberty or our sovereignty!! Karl Rove and the GOP-e moderates and all like them can KMA!! You cannot moderate evil, you fight it!!

Numerous studies have found that children who do not live with both biological parents, irrespective of socioeconomic status, are far more likely to be sexually abused than their peers in intact families. In particular, girls living in non-traditional families are found to have been sexually abused by their ‘stepfathers,’ either the married, cohabiting or casual partner of a divorced or single mother, at many times the rate girls are sexually abused by their natural fathers in intact families. (Snip) Child sexual abuse is not fully and frankly discussed because the public discourse is self-censored by politicians, academics, social service organisations,...