Free Republic

The son of former US vice president candidate Sarah Palin did not start a booze-fuelled 20-man melee at an Anchorage house party as previously reported, it has been claimed. Members of the Palin family allegedly became embroiled in a brawl at a friend's home on 6 September. Early reports claimed that after arriving at the party in a stretch Hummer limousine, the former Governor of Alaska's son Track confronted a former boyfriend of his 20-year-old sister, Willow. A fight then broke out involving about 20 people, leaving Track with broken ribs and father Todd with a bloodied nose. Amid the...

Individuals 55 and older would lose their right to keep and bear arms under a provision that’s expected to be included as part of a comprehensive United Nations Global Arms Trade Treaty. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke about the impetus behind the controversial measure at press conference over the weekend in New York City, the site of the final negotiations between the 193 Member States. “Regulating the international transfers of both weapons and ammunition is a key component of a robust arms trade treaty, as is limiting civilian access to small arms and munitions,” said Ban Ki-moon. “There’s an...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - After spending half his life in a Pakistani jail, Tahir Mirza Hussain is scheduled to hang on his 36th birthday for killing a taxi driver _ even though a court acquitted him 10 years ago. Hussain, a British-Pakistani, claims he is innocent. He was cleared by a secular court but retried and found guilty in an Islamic one. He now faces execution June 1 unless President Gen. Pervez Musharraf intervenes. His muddled case, spanning two decades, is emblematic of Pakistan's corrupt and bifurcated legal system, described by a leading rights activist as "flawed" and in desperate need...

Little room in the trench as Baghdad father heeds Saddam call (Go to link to view picture) Iraqi Mustafa Mohammad, 13, wearing a World War II gas mask, plays with his sister Haya in a trench shored up by sandbags and bricks at their home garden in a Baghdad residential suburb on Thursday (photo by Patrick BAZ/AFP) BAGHDAD (AFP) — As his children play soldiers using a second-hand gas mask, Mohammad Jawad points to a shallow, makeshift trench in his garden in a Baghdad suburb. “After the president's appeal, I had workmen come here who dug a trench in three...

<p>For the second time in three weeks, a major media survey has found that Americans' news habits have not been fundamentally changed by the traumatic events of Sept. 11.</p> <p>On the heels of a Project for Excellence in Journalism study that revealed that network news was returning to a pre-Sept. 11 diet of softer content, a new Pew Research Center survey reports that the terror attacks and the war in Afghanistan have not significantly whetted the public's appetite for news.</p>