Free Republic

Video footage from Wednesday's attempted armed robbery at a Six Corners market shows the store owner fending off an assailant who allegedly stuck a fake gun in his face. "He put it in my mouth," said the owner of Walnut Convenience Store, who pulled out a real gun after fighting 20-year-old Fernell Pelzer. Pelzer pleaded with the shop owner not to hurt him, according to ABC40 News, which obtained store surveillance footage of the crime being committed. "I say, 'I'm not gonna shoot ya,' and I was holding him till the cops got here, and that's what I did," the...

BLACKSTONE — Investigators found the remains of three infants inside a squalid, vermin-infested home here on Thursday, two weeks after child welfare officials removed four children from the same address to protect them from suspected abuse or neglect, authorities said. A woman identified as Erika Murray, a 31-year-old resident of the house, was arrested Thursday night and will be arraigned Friday on a witness intimidation charge, as well as additional unspecified charges stemming from living conditions in the residence, police and prosecutors said. Authorities would not say whether Murray is related to any of the children who had been living...

A 20-year-old man was arrested Wednesday evening after an alleged armed robbery attempt with a fake gun was thwarted by a shop owner with a real one. According to Springfield Police Sgt. John Delaney, around 10:20 p.m., Fernell Pelzer allegedly entered the Walnut Convenience store on the border of the Six Corners and Old Hill neighborhoods. Delaney said Pelzer ran into the store and confronted the shop owner before attempting to pistol whip him with what turned out to be a fake gun. A struggle ensued, according to police, and in the process, Pelzer had the tables turned on him...

The chants cut through the warm, humid air like an approaching cold front, prompting drivers to crane their necks and pedestrians to stop in their tracks on the sidewalk outside the U.S. Post Office on Liberty Street. "No justice, no peace, no more people in the streets." "What do we do when banks attack? Stand up, fight back." The protesters' numbers were few – less than 20 – but the collective voice of Springfield No One Leaves was mighty as the group took aim at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the beleaguered government-sponsored mortgage enterprises bailed out by taxpayers, and...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is lending a hand to Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) in his Democratic primary campaign. The liberal icon and freshman senator endorsed Tierney at an event in Salem on Monday, adding her name to a long list of other Democrats who are backing the nine-term lawmaker ahead of his competitive contest. “Congressman Tierney is a tireless champion for Massachusetts families,” Warren said in a statement. “We need to send him back to Washington so he can continue fighting for a level playing field for working families.”

The mosque on Prospect Street is not only Cambridge, Massachusetts,' largest mosque, but it is also the city's only mosque. As many as 1,000 people a week, including immigrants, students, families and residents from surrounding neighborhoods, stop by to pray up to five times a day as Islam requires. Known as the Cambridge mosque, it is run by the Islamic Society of Boston and is just a few short blocks from the well-traveled Red Line, which serves Boston's many universities and colleges. "The mosque is open to everyone," says spokeswoman Nicole Mossalam. "We don't have a core membership. It's very...

Megyn Kelly tonight brought viewers the first part of her contentious showdown with Professor Ward Churchill, best known for his controversial comments about the “little Eichmanns” who were in the World Trade Center when the planes hit on September 11th. ... Churchill stood by the Eichmann comment, saying, “You do not have to be the one who turned on the gas if you’re making it possible for the gas to be there.”

If most foods created by the food industry are unhealthy, why not place a stiff tax on all of them and use the revenue to subsidize healthier food? This bold proposal, from Boston-area researchers, appears as commentary in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The researchers from Tufts University, Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital wrote that their plan would surely meet strong opposition from both the food and restaurant industries but that it could help people make meaningful dietary changes and substantially reduce health care costs. At issue is the higher cost of...

When it was revealed that the Boston Marathon bombers attended a Cambridge, Mass., mosque, its leaders were quick to disavow their actions. Elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s ideology was not their own, the leaders of the Islamic Society mosque claimed. In fact, he was admonished for an extremist outburst he made during one sermon. So, one crackpot in a congregation. Who can blame the mosque? But what about eight — including a prominent member of ISIS? As it turns out, worshippers at the Islamic Society have included: Abdurahman Alamoudi, the mosque’s founder and first president who in 2004 was sentenced to...

Fomer Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney argued Sunday that he'd make a better president than Hillary Clinton -- but that he's not planning to mount a third bid for the White House. "No question about that in my mind," he said on "Fox News Sunday" when asked by host Chris Wallace whether he'd be a better leader than Clinton. Prodded by Wallace, Romney insisted he has no plans to run but stopped short of a Shermanesque refusal. "I’m not running, I’m not planning on running," he said. Romney said that while he also would've made a better president than Barack Obama,...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)In an exclusive interview Wednesday with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren slammed former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for accepting a multimillion-dollar job with a Wall Street investment bank shortly after leaving Congress. "This is wrong," Warren said in regard to Cantor's new role as vice chairman and managing director at Moelis & Co. "People work in Washington and, man, they hit that revolving door with a speed that would blind you." She went on to claim that banks hire politicians like Cantor "not because they bring great expertise and insight, but because they’re selling...

It's unclear what happened before the video started, but what happened afterward one parent could only describe as "terrifying." Video shot by a parent of a Quinsigamond Elementary School student Wednesday afternoon of what should have been a routine school bus stop showed young children crying and screaming, seemingly unable to leave the school bus they were riding in as parents shouted at the driver to let them off. In the video, shot near the corner of Perry Ave. and Harlem Street by parent Jessica Jimenez, parents curse and shout at the driver asking why she won't let the kids...

A 32-year-old computer whiz who was raised in Stoughton is suspected of using the high-tech skills he honed at Hub colleges to spread the bloodthirsty message of ISIS terrorists on social media, according to a Herald source and news reports. Ahmad Abousamra — who was educated at Northeastern University and UMass Boston — had already been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list last year with a $50,000 reward offered for information leading to his capture and return. The FBI said Abousamra “has shown that he wants to kill United States soldiers.” He is now believed to be a...

What appears to have been a great white shark bit a kayak carrying a woman off White Horse Beach in Plymouth on Wednesday night, officials said. The two women, who were identified as Ida Parker and Kristin Orr, were taking pictures of seals about 150 yards offshore in separate kayaks, when the great white bit one off the kayaks. "I looked back at her and it came directly out of the water, underneath the boat, launched her backwards and flipped me over," Parker said. Both boats were overturned in the attack.

A proposal to build a pipeline from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania to eastern Massachusetts by late 2018 is sparking concern among many property owners in the path of the pipe. But there’s a twist to this evolving story: a proposed surcharge added to electric bills that would force every ratepayer in New England to help pay for the interstate pipeline, which is expected to cost $2 billion to $6 billion. The route proposed for the pipeline’sMassachusetts segment runs through dense forests, wetlands and small towns in the northern tier of the state. Alternative routes, or modifications to the northern...

BOSTON —Anti-gambling activists are touting a major boost from Sen. Elizabeth Warren as their campaign to repeal the state's casino law heads into the final stretch. The first-term Democrat said Monday she'll likely vote in favor of repealing the 2011 state law that opened the door for Las Vegas-style gambling in Massachusetts. The group Repeal the Casino Deal hailed the remarks as a "bold stand" by one of the state's most prominent politicians. Warren has been mentioned as a possible candidate for president in 2016, even though she has said repeatedly she's not running.

Old Ironsides sailed through Boston Harbor Friday for the last time until 2018, as the 216-year-old warship prepares to undergo a three-year restoration beginning early next year. The USS Constitution has sailed unassisted by a tug boat only twice since 1881, in 1997 and 2012. This summer it sailed with the help of a tug, but still moved by its own power. Friday was the final unassisted sail until the ship has completed its restoration. Aside from making the usual repairs for wear and tear, the restoration aims to return Old Ironsides to an image of its 1812 self... ...For...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US lawmakers on Friday "strongly condemned" what they called Beijing's harsh pre-Olympic crackdown in China's Muslim-populated far northwest Xinjiang region. The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited "credible" reports about a July 9 conviction in a closed trial of 15 minority Muslim Uighurs on terrorism charges that led to "the immediate execution of two" of them. Three others were given suspended death sentences and the remaining 10 received life imprisonment, it said. These are "abuses of due process and rule of law," said caucus co-chairmen Democrat Jim McGovern and Republican Frank...

Labor Day used to be more than a summer-closing holiday; it was a celebration of labor unions and the American labor movement. That’s easy to forget these days because labor unions don’t have much to celebrate. At the height of their influence in the 1950s, labor unions could claim to represent about 1 of every 3 American workers. Today, it’s 1 in 9 — and falling. Some have seen the shrinking size and waning influence of labor unions as a sign that the US economy is growing more flexible and dynamic, but there’s mounting evidence that it is also contributing...

After this week’s dreary news out of Kansas, we owe Hot Air readers a pleasant surprise, and this may be it. Martha Coakley, who lost a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy four years ago despite the near-total grip Democrats have on Massachusetts, may be in the process of losing another election. Republican gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker took his first lead in the Boston Globe poll series, edging Coakley barely, while neither candidate looks to be catching fire: Republican Charlie Baker has edged ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley in the race for...