Free Republic

"Jodi Arias' defense team is trying hard to keep two heavily-covered events out of the Maricopa County Superior Courtroom. Lawyers have filed two motions with the court as of Feb. 13, requesting Judge Sherry Stephens prevent the retrial jury from hearing about Jodi Arias' attempt to switch out her attorney and claims that Arias wanted to kill prosecutor Juan Martinez."

Entrance to Frank's Gun Shop by Ashley Hardway In this highly unusual case, the action was all caught on video.  The gun shop owner, Frank Petro, knew the former officer, Jack O. Edmundson.  Family members said that Edmundson had been extorting Petro by impersonating a state lottery officer.  The scam was that Edmundson claimed that Petro's winnings were fraudulent, and that he would jail Petro unless Petro paid him the winnings.   Petro, as a highly regulated gun shop owner was particularly vulnerable.  Even an accusation might have resulted in the BATFE pulling his license and livelihood.   When Petro's...

With three principal exceptions -- Panamá, Colombia and Chile -- Latin American governments are oriented toward the far left. An article at Huff & Puff by a self-proclaimed leftist, Carlos González, argues than leftists should not automatically support dictators, even those "democratically elected" (whatever that may mean), when their actions traumatize their slaves citizens massively and unnecessarily. His article, published on February 24th, is titled Venezuela and the hypocrisy of the international left. As students and the middle class protest for almost two weeks in the streets of Venezuela, the international left remain silent. Why is this wide swath of Venezuelan...

Editorial cartoons often aren't pretty, to paraphrase Steve Martin's observation about the perils of comedy. But one found in the Opinion section of today's New York Times is downright ugly. The cartoon, alluding to this year's brutal winter, suggests U.S. Department of Commerce "Strategies for Dealing With the 2014 Icicle Surplus." Among them are using icicles as "locally sourced hydration devices," "temporary doorsteps," and "brainteasers for dogs." Then comes a suggestion that one immediately looks at again, in disgust and disbelief -- icicles can also be used as "self-destructing sabers for dispatching climate-change deniers." (Entire cartoon shown after the jump)...

A journey to the heart of New Guinea’s Asmat tribal homeland sheds new light on the mystery of the heir’s disappearance there in 1961 smat is, in its way, a perfect place. Everything you could possibly need is here. It’s teeming with shrimp and crabs and fish and clams. In the jungle there are wild pig, the furry, opossumlike cuscus, and the ostrichlike cassowary. And sago palm, whose pith can be pounded into a white starch and which hosts the larvae of the Capricorn beetle, both key sources of nutrition. The rivers are navigable highways. Crocodiles 15 feet long prowl...

In the English language, the word “Spartan” has come to mean austere. The culture of ancient Sparta was so harsh that mothers would send their sons off to war with the warning, “Return with your shield or on it.” Spartan austerity began at birth. New-born infants were examined and if they were not fit, they were left to die. Infanticide was not unusual in the ancient world. But, in Sparta, it was managed by the state with chilling efficiency. What mattered most was not the individual, but the nation. Weak individuals were not allowed to drain the strength of one...

INDIANAPOLIS (Feb. 21, 2014) – Indianapolis leaders responded Friday to a span of violence that left eight people dead in less about 12 hours. The violent spree began around around 9:30 a.m. Thursday at a home in the 2100 block of N. Kenyon Street where a man was found dead. His death was ruled a homicide. At 5 p.m. Thursday, 16-year-old Quinton Nance was shot and killed in the 600 block of E. 23rd Street. Hours later, four people–later identified as Hayley Navarra, Kristy Mae Sanchez, Jacob Rodemich and Walter Burnell–were found shot to death inside a home in the...

A Philadelphia faith-healing father and mother were sentenced on Wednesday to up to seven years in prison for the death of their infant son, the second of their children to die after an illness. Seven-month-old Brandon Schaible died on April 18 of bacterial pneumonia and dehydration. His parents Herbert and Catherine Schaible were found guilty of third-degree homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy.

A Missouri grade school coach has been charged in the murder and kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl whose suspected body was found in his basement with what police said was a gunshot wound to the head. Craig Wood, a football coach and teacher's aide at Springfield's Pleasant View K-8 School, was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the death of Hailey Owens, whose body police believe was found in a storage bin. The little girl was last seen walking just a block from her home at 4:48 p.m. Tuesday when a terrified couple called 911 to report her seen being...

**SNIP** Dixon asked Hughes if he had a gun, and Hughes smiled and took a sip from a beer he was holding, prosecutors said. Ross said to Dixon that Hughes had disrespected the gang they belong to, and Dixon punched Hughes in the head, causing him to hit his head on the wall and fall down the stairs. Ross kicked Hughes in the head, and Hughes became unresponsive, causings witnesses to think he already had been killed, prosecutors said. Ross and Dixon dragged Hughes outside into an alley between Central and Parkside avenues, and shot Hughes four times, killing him,...

Dear Mommy,I'm Sorry I am in Heaven now, sitting on Jesus' lap. He loves me and cries with me; for my heart has been broken. I so wanted to be your little girl. I don't quite understand what has happened. I was so excited when I began realizing my chance. I was in a dark, yet comfortable place. I saw I had fingers and toes. I was pretty far along in my developing, yet not near ready to leave my surroundings. I spent most of my time thinking or sleeping. Even from my earliest days, I felt a special...

A Pennsylvania woman has admitted to killing a man she met through a Craigslist advertisement and claimed to have killed more than 20 other people across the country. Miranda Barbour, 19, claims in an interview with the Daily Item of Sunbury, Pa., to have killed at least 22 other people in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California in the last six years. Barbour reportedly claimed it was part of her involvement in a satanic cult, though she offered few details of the murders she claimed to have participated in. “I can pinpoint on a map where you can find them,”...

A teen satanist in a Pennsylvania prison claims she has killed nearly two dozen people in different parts of the country, according to a report in a local newspaper. "When I hit 22, I stopped counting," Miranda Barbour said in an jailhouse interview with local newspaper the Daily Item in Sudbury. She added in the interview that ran on Saturday that she just wanted to be honest. Barbour, 19, has been charged with the murder of a man allegedly lured to a rendezvous through Craigslist. She said she participated in killings in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California, the newspaper...

Hotel Selling Cooked Human Meat Found In Onitsha * Police Arrests 11 With Fresh Human Head On Thursday Onitsha police arrested 11 people after they discovered 2 fresh human heads in a hotel (name withheld) very close to the popular Ose-Okwodu market in Anambra state.2 AK47 rifles & other weapons were also discovered in the hotel. The arrest followed tip-offs from area residents on Thursday morning. The hotel owner, 6 women and 4 men were arrested. After police got access to the hotel, they made a startling discovery of two human heads wrapped in a cellophane bag, two AK47 rifles,...

FULL TITLE: Terminally sick children have been secretly given deadly overdoses by British doctors in illegal mercy killings, claims retired GP British doctors have secretly killed terminally sick children by giving them 'huge' overdoses of painkillers, it was claimed yesterday. Hours after Belgium became the first country in the world to allow the euthanasia of children, a retired GP suggested it was already happening, informally, in Britain. Dr Michael Irwin told an LBC Radio debate: 'It has happened in this country, very quietly. I know of one or two children over the last few years.'

The reaction to Wendy Davis’ statement that she could support a ban on late-term abortion if there were more deference given to patients and physicians has caused angst in a Democratic base already upset over Davis’ support of Open Carry laws. Amanda Marcotte at Slate.com called it a betrayal (emphasis added): "Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis made her name and kick-started her campaign for governor by filibustering an anti-abortion omnibus bill, standing and talking for 11 hours straight in support of abortion rights. So it comes as a surprise — and frankly, a betrayal — to learn that Davis told...

Police found the bodies of sisters Susan — naked and doused with chemicals — and Sarah Wolfe at the foot of their basement stairs about 12:45 p.m. Friday with single gunshots in their heads... ...Detectives are reviewing surveillance video from the Port Authority that shows Susan getting off a bus at the same time as an unidentified man...

Via Charles Cooke, who notes that between this and her newfound support for open carry, Davis would probably qualify as a tea-party candidate in a blue state like Connecticut.At the rate we’re going, she’s going to end up filibustering a pro-choice bill before November. Davis, a Fort Worth senator and the likely Democratic nominee for governor, told The Dallas Morning News’ editorial board that less than one-half of 1 percent of Texas abortions occur after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Most of those were in cases where fetal abnormalities were evident or there were grave risks to the health of the...

Former U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna has won parole and will be released from Fort Leavenworth on March 14, his mother, Vicki Behenna, said Wednesday. Behenna, who was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone, learned early Wednesday morning and called his parents in Edmond, where he will return next month. “We go between tears and laughing,” Vicki Behenna told The Oklahoman. “I’m just so thankful. I’m just so very very thankful. It’s wonderful.”

Political narratives are necessarily reductive, invariably gauzy and thus often misleading," writes the New York Times Magazine's Robert Draper in a 7,000-plus word profile of Texas Democratic candidate for governor Wendy Davis. Draper favorably examines the complicated biography of Davis, which the Dallas Morning News revealed is different than the one told by her campaign. While Draper acknowledges that key facts of her biography remain disputed, he insists that "female politicians were far more constrained than men in how they recounted their stories. "A man could break the mold of American virtue. A woman challenged stereotypes at her peril," he...