Free Republic

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) - Raleigh police said a 10-month-old baby choked on a pinecone and died at a Raleigh day care on Wednesday. According to police, the baby found the pinecone in the yard outside A Hug A Day, which is located at 2705 Adcox Place. Officials said it happened during the day at the southeast Raleigh day care. Neighbors were shocked to hear the news. "I see people coming early in the morning, dropping kids off, picking kids up. I see kids play outside," said Mikea Nash. "I want to say my condolences to the family."

SAN FRANCISCO — A Navy veteran is suing after what his lawyer describes as a 16-pound pine cone fell and crushed his skull in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1juNiqP ) that Sean Mace is suing the U.S. government, the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior and San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park for $5 million. Mace's attorney Scott Johnson says the veteran was relaxing under a non-native pine tree at the maritime park when the cone fell, causing an irreversible brain injury. Johnson says Mace has had two surgeries and requires a third. The park...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2007 – For volunteers with South Riding, Va.-based Operation Pinecone, Halloween is over and the Christmas rush has begun. “We have 25 camps, four hospitals (and) two humanitarian aid contacts,” said Mary Hacker, who founded the group two years ago after deciding to super-size a care package originally planned for one family friend deployed to Iraq. “A neighbor came by, saw what I was doing, and said she had wanted to do something to help the troops but that she didn’t have a contact over there,” Hacker explained. Word spread through Hacker’s rural Virginia neighborhood and,...