Free Republic

A new type of treatment that trains immune system cells to better recognize the AIDS virus may help control the deadly and incurable infection, Australian researchers reported on Friday. Tests on monkeys infected with a similar virus shows the treatment controlled the infection, although it does not cure it, and tests are already planned in people. The treatment is called OPAL, for Overlapping Peptide-pulsed Autologous Cells, and would be categorized as an immunotherapy technique, or a so-called therapeutic vaccine, Stephen Kent of the University of Melbourne and colleagues said. Writing in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens, they...

Man accused of trying to help al-Qaida sought US public rebellion MICHAEL RUBINKAM The Associated Press SCRANTON, Pa. - A man charged with trying to help al-Qaida blow up U.S. energy facilities described in chilling detail a plan to target a natural gas refinery and wrote that it would lead to "instant rebellion" by an American public disgusted over the Iraq war... Michael C. Reynolds, 49, of Wilkes-Barre, is on trial here on federal charges of providing material support to terrorists. He was arrested in December 2005 after he tried to meet a purported al-Qaida contact near a hotel where...

Federal agents contend that a Pennsylvania man tried to work with al Qaeda in a plot to blow up the Alaska pipeline, another pipeline in Pennsylvania and a refinery in New Jersey, according to a published report. Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, has not officially been charged with terrorism, but a prosecutor at a hearing said that Reynolds tried to "provide material aid to al Qaeda" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in its Sunday editions. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that a tip from Shannen Rossmiller - a judge from Conrad,...

FORT WORTH - Skeletal remains found more than a week ago in northwest Fort Worth are those of Opal Jennings, the 6-year-old girl abducted as she played outside her grandparents' Saginaw home in 1999, DNA testing has determined. Opal died from a crushing blow to the head, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office. Her death has been officially ruled a homicide, the release states. A news conference was scheduled for Monday afternoon. The confirmation, made through DNA tests, ends an almost five-year mystery about what happened to Opal. Opal was playing with two younger...