Free Republic

Nineteen people were arrested and 25 chickens were confiscated Sunday when Pleasant Grove police busted a cockfighting operation. Those attending the event in a barn near 180 West and 40 South in Lindon were allegedly charged admission and allowed to place bets on the fights, according to Capt. Cody Cullimore. Officers raided the fight around noon. In addition to the adults arrested, several children ages 8 to 10 were detained and later released to their parents. Several people escaped. The organizer of the event was not present because he is currently in jail on other charges, Cullimore said. Five dead...

A German cannibal is taking legal action to stop the release of the horror film "Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story," which he claims is based on his life. Keri Russell ("Felicity") stars as a graduate student researching imprisoned cannibal Simon Grobeck (Thomas Kretschmann). Russell is drawn into Grobeck's world and becomes obsessed with the Internet cannibal community. "Butterfly" is scheduled for a March 9 release in Germany. But not if Armin Meiwes, who was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for eating a man he met over the Internet, has his way. In a statement Monday, Meiwes's lawyer, Harald Ermel,...

There's no physical evidence that the family who gave the Donner Party its name had anything to do with the cannibalism the ill-fated pioneers have been associated with for a century and a half, two scientists said Thursday. Cannibalism has been documented at the Sierra Nevada site where most of the Donner Party's 81 members were trapped during the brutal winter of 1846-47, but 21 people, including all the members of the George and Jacob Donner families, were stuck six miles away because a broken axle had delayed them. No cooked human bones were found among the thousands of fragments...

A German inventor says he's found a way to make cheap diesel fuel out of dead cats. Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal cadavers. They are heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbon which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter. He said the resulting "high quality bio-diesel" costs just 15 pence per litre. Koch said the cadaver of a fully grown cat can produce 2.5 litres of fuel - meaning around 20 cats are needed for a full tank. He said: "I tank my car with...

Alligators stalk streets of New Orleans 08.09.05 6.20am Alligators are stalking the flooded waters of New Orleans and rescuers fear that they will eat the bodies of Hurricane Katrina's victims. Michael Rieger, of the federal emergency agency, said patrol boat crews had seen many alligators in the floodwaters. Authorities have just started the operation to recover what could be thousands of bodies in the floodwaters, on the streets and trapped in homes. Rieger said: "There are a lot of people who are never going to be found. There are a lot of alligators in the water, and alligators love that...

Randall Robinson, an activist and Harvard-educated lawyer whose past activities include founding the TransAfrica organization, encouraging black Americans to sue for reparations, and then loudly emigrating in protest from the U.S. to the Caribean island of St. Kitts, now claims that black Hurricane victims are "eating corpses to survive." A quick scan of major news networks and a Google search on the phrase "hurricane victims eating corpses to survive" uncovers absolutely no support for this outrageous claim. While that's hardly the final word when it comes to proof, it's more evidence than Robinson offers for his bizarre claim. Ordinarily, I...

The department was all astir, there was a lot of laughing and joking due to all the new officers, myself included, hitting the streets today for the first time. After months of seemingly endless amounts of classes, paperwork, and lectures we were finally done with the Police Academy and ready to join the ranks of our department. All you could see were rows of cadets with huge smiles and polished badges. As we sat in the briefing room, we could barely sit still anxiously awaiting our turn to be introduced and given our beat assignment or, for the lay person,...

WEST HAVEN, Vt. (AP) -- Talk about culinary irony -- rabbit meat is in short supply. Despite the critters' proclivity to reproduce, demand for rabbit meat has surged in recent years and breeders are struggling to supply the many trendy restaurants adding it to their menus. "We could easily be doing 1,000 a week. The demand is there,'' says Langis Anctil, whose Champlain Valley Rabbitry farm in West Haven, Vt., is working full tilt to raise that many bunnies a month. Of course, it's not that rabbits don't reproduce fast enough -- it's just an 11-week cycle from birth to...

Published: August 2, 2005 The phoenix had nothing on the ivory-billed woodpecker. It is hard to keep track of how many times this near-mythic bird, the largest American woodpecker and a poignant symbol of extinction and disappearing forests, has been lost and then found. Now it is found again. Even the most skeptical ornithologists now agree. They say that newly presented evidence shows that at least two of the birds are living in Arkansas.

SYDNEY, Australia - A movie fan had his nose bitten off outside an Australian cinema in an argument over the quality of the violent new Bruce Willis movie "Sin City," police said. The 19-year-old victim underwent surgery to reattach the tip of his nose following the brawl Sunday night outside a movie theater in Bathurst, 125 miles west of Sydney. Bathurst police Inspector Cameron Lindsay said the victim and his attacker got into a fight over the merits of the film, an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about a wicked metropolis filled with tough guys and gorgeous dames. The...

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A 73-year-old Kenyan grandfather reached into the mouth of an attacking leopard and tore out its tongue to kill it, authorities said Wednesday. Peasant farmer Daniel M'Mburugu was tending to his potato and bean crops in a rural area near Mount Kenya when the leopard charged out of the long grass and leapt on him. M'Mburugu had a machete in one hand but dropped that to thrust his fist down the leopard's mouth. He gradually managed to pull out the animal's tongue, leaving it in its death-throes. "It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds...

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian woman was found to be carrying 51 live tropical fish after custom officials were alerted by "flipping" noises coming from beneath her skirt as she arrived at Melbourne airport. On closer inspection, officers discovered the woman had strapped on an apron of plastic water-filled bags containing the fish, the Australian Customs Service said in a statement on Tuesday. "During the search, customs officers became suspicious after hearing 'flipping' noises coming from the vicinity of her waist," said the statement. The 43-year-old woman arrived in Melbourne on a flight from Singapore last Friday. Customs are still...

Family's Dog Eaten By Alligator After Chasing Ducks To Pond POSTED: 7:12 am EDT April 29, 2005 UPDATED: 7:16 am EDT April 29, 2005 ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- An Orange County family is devastated after one of their dogs was attacked and killed by an alligator on Thursday. R.J. Trudell opened the door of his Hunter's Creek home to feed some ducks in the yard. Gizmo, one of the Trudell's Jack Russell terriers, darted out the door and ran after the ducks, chasing them into the pond. That's when an alligator grabbed him. "The first thing I yelled was, 'Kathy,...

Morning Edition, April 28, 2005 · A group of wildlife scientists believe the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct. They say they have made seven firm sightings of the bird in central Arkansas. The landmark find caps a search that began more than 60 years ago, after biologists said North America’s largest woodpecker had become extinct in the United States. The large, showy bird is an American legend -- it disappeared when the big bottomland forests of North America were logged, and relentless searches have produced only false alarms. Now, in an intensive year-long search in the Cache River and White...

A diner bit into a segment of human finger while digging into a bowl of chili at a San Jose Wendy's restaurant Tuesday night, Santa Clara County health officials said today. The woman, who asked officials not to name or even describe her, spit out the well-cooked digit and reportedly warned other diners to stop eating. She then became sick to her stomach. Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Martin Fenstersheib said today the woman was horrified "due to the unpleasant sensation of having this (object) in her mouth." But he said the finger had been cooked at a high...

New York -WABC, Feb. 10, 2005) — A boil water advisory has gone out to 17 area towns this morning. All are serviced by the same water treatment tank where the body of a missing New Jersey woman was found last night. Eyewitness News reporter Ken Rosato is at the scene in Totowa with more. The medical examiner arrived at the Passaic Valley water treatment plant last night. It was clear, the news would be grim. They had found the body of a woman missing for several days. The discovery led officials to declare a boil water advisory for several...

Breaking...

Chris Giorni knows his plops. As a herpetologist, his ear is trained to distinguish the distinctive belly-flops of rare frogs landing in remote ditches, creeks and coves. But oh what a splash one of his latest discoveries has caused. Lying in wait, khakis waist deep in water, camera at the ready, Giorni says he encountered a California red-legged frog on a piece of Half Moon Bay property slated for one of the biggest developments the coast has seen in two decades. Giorni's photos of the threatened frog have put the brakes on the controversial Wavecrest Village. They've also raised suspicion...

A KDUM Exclusive POSTED: 9:55 pm EDT September 26, 2004 In un-American fashion, the First Lady, Mrs. Bush glared at a reporter and told him to "shove it". Completely bewildered by the comment, Michael Gearnsly turned away and left the room feeling the complete lack of understanding demonstrated by Mrs. Bush. The Republicans have been very successful as of late in creating momentum, but this story will soon be picked-up across the country, a certain atrocity considering the upcoming debate.