Free Republic

HILLARY Clinton's campaign overnight predicted a rapid end to the Democratic White House race next month as the press read the last rites to her quest to be the first woman president. With more party elders drifting to Barack Obama's camp and the media declaring the nominating battle all but over, Senator Clinton aides battled back with appeals for voters to be heard and for new donors to come forward. Even as he vowed no surrender from the former first lady, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said party bosses known as "superdelegates" would coalesce behind a candidate once the final...

ARG GOP South Carolina Primary * John McCain 33% * Mike Huckabee 23% * Mitt Romney 20% * Fred Thompson 13% * Rudy Giuliani 4% * Alan Keyes 2% * Duncan Hunter 1% * Ron Paul 1% * Undecided 3% Survey of 600 likely Republican primary voters living in South Carolina (468 Republicans and 132 independent voters) was conducted January 15-16. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.

"A jury on Friday said Southwest Airlines did not racially discriminate against an overweight passenger when she was asked to buy a second seat on her flight." "The jury deliberated for a little over an hour before finding against Nadine Thompson, who sued Southwest in federal court. She claimed that she was singled out because she is black and that the airline’s "customer of size" policy was unfairly applied to her after she boarded a flight at Manchester Airport in June 2003." " Southwest’s policy states that a "customer of size" is someone who can’t sit in a seat without...

Green Bay, Wis., man is charged with killing his neighbor with a fork, according to police. Investigators said Gordon Senecal was taking care of Todd Charles' 15-year-old pit bull over the weekend when an argument broke out between the two men. The men began fighting at Charles' home and Senecal was stabbed with a large serving fork, police said. Senecal was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Charles is expected in court Monday for his first appearance.

FOREST GROVE, Ore. - A photo released by police shows the predicament an 18-year-old got himself into when he tried to make a run for it and ended up impaled on a wrought iron fence. The incident happened last Thursday when a teenager under arrest for assault tried to flee police as he was about to be transported in a patrol car. The teenager, who has since been identified as Cody Carlson, bolted from the car and tried to vault the fence with his hands cuffed behind his back. Firefighters ended up having to cut out a section of the...

SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) -- A state prison inmate is charged with attempted homicide for allegedly attacking a prison guard with a sharpened plastic eating utensil known as a spork. State police this week charged Steven Cave, 22, who is serving a five- to 10-year sentence for robbery, for the Dec. 18 attack at the State Correctional Institution-Somerset. A corrections officer told police the trouble began when Cave threw a container of urine at him while he was serving meals in the restricted housing unit where Cave was being held. After the meal, Cave then refused to return his tray and...

An X-ray showing a fork lodged sideways in the stomach of a 32-year-old woman who accidently swallowed it while using it to scoop a cockroach out of her throat, in the northern Israeli town of Tiberias on July 10.