Free Republic

A Philadelphia abortion doctor has been charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman patient and seven babies that prosecutors say were born alive and then killed with scissors.

SAN FRANCISCO Three robbery suspects who were allegedly inside a van that crashed and killed a city police officer during a chase were charged with murder Thursday, and a fourth was being held on suspicion of murder. Steven Wayne Petrilli, 19, of Hayward; Carl Lather, 20; and Nicholas Smith, 22; also were charged with manslaughter, evading police and robbery, according to the San Francisco District Attorney's office. Jessica Chamberlain, 20, who also was a passenger in the van, was arrested but not yet charged. Police are still trying to determine why officer Nick-Tomasito Birco, 39, joined in Wednesday's pursuit of...

LUFKIN, Texas -- The would-be teen mother arrived by ambulance last May, her belly bruised, the twin fetuses she carried for five months gone and her lips tightly sealed. Authorities assumed 16-year-old Erica Basoria had been beaten and charged her boyfriend, 18-year-old Gerardo "Jerry" Flores, with murder under the state's new law protecting the unborn. But it wasn't that simple. Basoria told authorities she had been trying to kill the fetuses for weeks and finally asked Flores to help by stepping on her stomach. "When I was four months pregnant, I began to show, and at that time I decided...