Free Republic

A letter sent to the White House has tested positive for cyanide. The Secret Service, to make certain, has sent the letter out again to confirm that it indeed has come in contact with the deadly poison. The letter was received Monday at the White House Mail Screening Center and chemical testing today showed that it contained cyanide. This is a breaking news story and we'll update as more information becomes available.

Iraq uncovers al-Qaeda 'chemical weapons plot' The authorities in Iraq say they have uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons, as well as to smuggle them to Europe and North America. Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said five men had been arrested after military intelligence monitored their activities for three months. Three workshops for manufacturing the chemical agents, including sarin and mustard gas, were uncovered, he added. Remote-controlled toy planes were also seized at the workshops. Mr Askari said they were to have been used to release the chemical agents over the target from a "safe" distance of 1.5km...

A “mommy blogger” accused of killing her 5-year-old son by poisoning him with lethal doses of salt — and documenting his demise online — was a monster who “seemed to relish in the attention and sympathy she got from having a sick little boy,” prosecutors charged Tuesday. Lacey Spears burst into tears as her murder trial got under way in Westchester County Court in White Plains and prosecutors accused of her being a “calculated child killer” in little Garnett-Paul’s 2014 death.

LONDON — It has consumed more than eight years of maneuvering, obstruction and a widow’s dogged legal campaign, fought often on a shoestring. But finally, on Tuesday, a public inquiry is set to begin its quest for an answer to the question that has driven the whole process: Why did Alexander V. Litvinenko have to die? On Nov. 1, 2006, Mr. Litvinenko, a former officer of the Soviet K.G.B. in self-exile in London and a vocal critic of President Vladimir V. Putin, sipped tea from a poisoned pot, took sick and died 22 days later. Only after his death did...

The release by Julian Assange's web site Wikileaks of classified documents reveals that U.S. military intelligence discovered chemical weapons labs, encountered insurgents who were specialists in the creation of toxins, and uncovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, Washington, DC officials and the news media have ignored this information.

Poachers kill 300 Zimbabwe elephants with cyanide • Cyanide has been used to kill 300 elephants in Zimbabwe's biggest nature reserve - three times the original estimate - as new photos show the scale of the slaughter Poachers in Zimbabwe have killed more than 300 elephants and countless other safari animals by cyanide poisoning, The Telegraph has learned. The full extent of the devastation wreaked in Hwange, the country's largest national park, has been revealed by legitimate hunters who discovered what conservationists say is the worst single massacre in southern Africa for 25 years. Pictures taken by the hunters, which...

**SNIP** Health law expert Timothy Jost says that the ACA is actually two separate bills, the result of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's strategy to get the Senate version through the House without opening it to amendments. That second companion bill, Jost says, specifically provided for exchanges run by the federal government in states that do not have their own. Just as important, he says, the Congressional Budget Office analyses presume subsidies to customers in all 50 states — proof that Congress always intended to provide assistance to income-eligible consumers whether or not their states opened exchanges. It's possible that...

Five people have died and 21 others have been hospitalized in a listeria outbreak linked to caramel apples, federal health officials said today.. A total of 28 people infected with listeria have been reported from 10 states, according to a statement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Eleven of the cases are in the Midwest: five in Missouri, four in Minnesota and two in Wisconsin.

Revolutionaries posing as cooks infiltrated an ISIS camp and poisoned meals in a bid to kill as many fighters as they could. Sources in the Syrian Free Army said a dozen Islamic State militants perished after eating a contaminated lunch at the Fath El-Sahel camp, where 1,200 are based. The rebels who hatched the plot were a group of defected Syrian soldiers who are fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The Times of Iraq reported that witnesses said around a dozen were killed and 15 transferred to nearby field hospitals. The 'cooks' immediately fled, along with their families, with the...

SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah couple and three of their children found dead in their home last month were likely poisoned, their bodies found together in a locked room with cups next to each of them, and empty bottles of methadone and nighttime cold medicine in a trash can. Police in Springville aren't saying who killed the family or whether one of the parents might have been involved. Toxicology results have not determined an exact cause of death, but search warrants obtained Wednesday say the family was likely poisoned.

SOUTH OF KARBALA, Iraq — Four soldiers from the 2nd brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, with red sores on their faces and hands, were sent by ambulance to a rear MASH unit Tuesday. They were told they would be examined for possible contact with nerve or blistering agents. Once at the 30th medical brigade's mobile hospital at the 101st's headquarters south of Karbala, the soldiers were isolated from other troops and photographed. A doctor at the MASH, Maj. David Wolken, interviewed each soldier and measured his pulse and heart rate in a tent with a dirt floor. One soldier...

--snip-- Some eager, inexperienced consumers have overindulged on the pot-infused food and then shown up in emergency rooms sweating and paranoid. Edibles were linked to the death of a Wyoming college student in Denver. "There's been anecdotal evidence that some of the new consumers in the legalized market were not very well informed in terms of how to safely take that product," said Lewis Koski, Colorado's marijuana enforcement director.

Austin Goncalves, 15, is recovering after going into a coma. He went into the coma after he got fish poisoning from a snapper in the Bahamas. Austin is finally eating food for the first time in week. “I’m on anti-seizure medication,” he told WTSP. Earlier this month, Austin caught a mutton snapper that his mom cooked for dinner. “I couldn’t eat, couldn’t breath,” Austin told the station. “This was very serious,” his mom, Karen Goncalves added. “It could have ended our lives.” Austin, his friend, Karen, and her boyfriend were all suffering from Ciguatera, which is a potentially fatal illness...

A Maryland mother was arrested Monday after she poisoned her young sons with eye drops, police in Pennsylvania said. State police in Gettysburg announced they had arrested 23-year-old Samantha Unger, of Thurmont. She allegedly told state police in Gettysburg that she put drops of Visine into water and juice for her 3-year-old and that her 1-year-old became sick by drinking them accidentally. Unger faces charges of aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of children. A police affidavit says both children became sick this spring, and the older boy required hospitalization. Doctors at Hershey Medical Center suspected poisoning, and tests found...

Female scorpions may sting more quickly to compensate for their slower running speed, new research shows. And that sluggish running, and extra female fierceness, may be a result of the extra weight they carry from pregnancy, the researchers said. "The females are heavier, and they can't sprint as fast," said study co-author Bradley Carlson, an ecologist at The Pennsylvania State University. "Heavier ones have to compensate for that by stinging more." [In Photos: Top 10 Deadliest Animals ] Top 10 Fastest Land Animals Past studies had suggested that female scorpions tended to be extra aggressive, wielding their venom-packed stingers more...

The FBI is looking for a man who lives in the San Francisco apartment where agents found a large stash of what appears to be the deadly poison ricin. On Saturday, FBI agents searched the apartment, which belongs to Ryan Chamberlain, according to KGO, an ABC affiliate. The FBI said Chamberlain could be armed and dangerous. The apartment search was expected to resume Sunday. Chamberlain owns a Nissan that reportedly could be rigged with explosives. The FBI did not evacuate apartments during the search, and FBI spokeswoman Alice Heller said there was “no threat to public safety.” She said agents...

Mummy blogger Lacey Spears is being investigated after her son died of a suspected salt overdose. Five-year-old Garnett Spears died suspiciously in January from acute sodium poisoning, reports the Daily Mail. Lacey built a following blogging about her son's illness for many years, dubbing her son "Garnett the Great". A source close to the investigation told Fox News, "It's evident by the nature of what was found in his body that somebody, in effect, poisoned him.” ...

<p>World look: Do not say that you did not see!!</p>

A teenage girl is in jail after authorities said she poisoned her grandmother's food on Easter Sunday. Tyt'ana Lisa-Nicole Johnson, 17, of Harrison Street, poured insecticide and termiticide into a cooking pot of collard greens while Gaylon Moody, 51, her grandmother, was at an Easter church service, according to arrest warrants. In a phone interview Thursday night, Moody said the incident happened because she took away Johnson's cellphone. "She was on punishment. I had taken her cellphone from her. She got mad because I took her cellphone from her, and she poisoned my food," Moody said. "I'll tell you one...

A warning for dog owners--poisoned meatballs have been found in the Twin Peaks neighborhood again. San Francisco Animal Control officers spent hours Saturday morning looking for them. They found 21 meatballs that are similar to the ones found last summer. Most of them were found near Crestline Drive and Parkridge Drive. Officer have posted dozens of signs to alert pet owners. So far, they have not heard of any pets sickened or killed by the meatballs. But at least one dog died last July after eating poisonous meatballs. Those meatballs left to poison dogs then were potentially lethal to humans.