Free Republic

Representative Tom Reed held a press conference Wednesday afternoon at his Corning campaign office after a brick was thrown through a window overnight. Reed was joined by his family, Corning Mayor Bill Boland, State Assemblyman Phil Palmesano, and a small group of supporters outside of his office. “This type of violence is completely unacceptable,” said Reed, “to the coward who did this… this will not deter us.” The Congressman says that Corning Police are investigating the vandalism and that there are cameras in the area when the brick was thrown around 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday. No campaign staffers were inside...

Hollywood star Tracy Morgan is urging people to extend grace to President Donald Trump as he leads the country through the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Morgan, known for his TBS series “The Last O.G.,” appeared on NBC’s “Today” on Tuesday, where he talked openly about all kinds of (weird) things. Toward the end of the interview, though, he offered a defense of Trump.

The watch commander who was on duty when a Salt Lake City police officer arrested a University Hospital nurse last summer is appealing his demotion, claiming it was “excessive discipline.” Lt. James Tracy was demoted to the rank of officer last month after the police chief determined Tracy made the “completely unreasonable” order that Detective Jeff Payne arrest nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26, after she refused to allow Payne to draw a patient’s blood.

The nutty Florida Atlantic University professor who suggested the Sandy Hook school massacre was staged is at it again, blogging that the Boston Marathon bombing was some sort of government drill.

Note: Video included at link. SNIPPET: "Now, law enforcement officials appear increasingly concerned Al-Shabaab members are trying to come back to America. But these members aren't disenchanted young men like Hassan, seeking to escape the terrorists' hold. Rather, the concern is that they are returning either to recruit more members or perhaps to plot attacks here." SNIPPET: "Al-Shabaab represents a "threat to the whole nation, all of the world," Ahmed told the IPT. "Everywhere they could recruit somebody they will try – Europe, North America, Australia, Africa…And they want to disrupt world peace." Ahmed warned that Al-Shabaab's main focus in...

Somalis in U.S. draw FBI attention War at home seen as lure The FBI is expanding contacts with Somali immigrant communities in the U.S., especially in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, fearing that terrorists are recruiting young men for suicide missions in their homeland. FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson, spokesman for the Twin Cities FBI field office, described the effort as community outreach. Many members of the Somali community are concerned over disappearances, he said.

Federal authorities have arrested a Virginia man for allegedly helping hundreds of Somalis, possibly including ones with terrorist ties, enter the United States illegally. Anthony Joseph Tracy, 35, was arrested earlier this month, after admitting to U.S. authorities that he helped about 272 citizens of war-torn Somalia come to the United States illegally, according to documents filed in federal court. Tracy allegedly set up a business in Kenya, Noor Services Limited, that procured fraudulent Cuban travel visas for Somalis, who would then travel from Kenya to Cuba and, ultimately, to the United States, according to court documents. He allegedly traveled...

TRACY — One man was booked on a civil rights violation and hate crime enhancement, and another on suspicion of vandalism, after police found racist graffiti on a Tracy office building Saturday night. Police initally were called to Lowell Avenue and Tracy Boulevard on a report of two men fighting, said Sgt. Tony Sheneman. When they responded, officers found a substantial amount of freshly scrawled graffiti on the back of a dentist's office and on a nearby vehicle. The graffiti was derogatory toward African Americans and Jews, Sheneman said. One of the men in the fight, 20-year-old Jacob Hicks of...

As charges of murder with special circumstances — kidnapping, lewd or lascivious acts on a child and rape by a foreign object — were read to defendant Melissa Huckaby, 28, a stream of tears rolled down her face. If convicted, Huckaby, who is accused of killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, of Tracy, could spend her life in prison or become one of a handful of women on death row in California. After Tuesday's arraignment, San Joaquin County District Attorney James Willett said his office isn't ready to decide whether to seek the death penalty. "She's having medical evaluations in context of...

Studies show as many as 15 percent of children in wealthy nations are physically abused by guardians each year, but the alleged torture of a boy who stumbled into a Tracy fitness club battered, half-starved and in chains last week stands out for its cruelty, a leading child abuse expert says. Cases that severe are "not a very common thing." But they continuously pop up, said Carole Jenny, a pediatrics professor at Brown University's medical school. Underfunding and a lack of resources for child protective services is a huge problem, said Jenny, who called what authorities say happened to the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A husband and wife have been charged with torture and other counts after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday. Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, were arrested late Monday, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for police in Tracy. They had been taken into custody for questioning earlier in the day at their home in Tracy, where the emaciated boy was allegedly held against his will. A search of the home turned up evidence implicating...

Islamabad (PTI): A US diplomat had a narrow escape on Tuesday when she was attacked by unidentified gunmen while going to office in Pakistan's north western town of Peshawar. Lynne Tracy, Principal Officer in the US Consulate in Peshawar, was attacked by the gunmen in the University Town area of the capital of North West Frontier Province. Tracy escaped unhurt in the attack, TV channels reported.

On December 20, 1974, a cluster of thunderstorm is detected north of Darwin, Australia. Then the next day, the low pressure system develops into a tropical depression. Then the depression develops into a tropical storm and hurricane. The Australian meteorlogy agency predicts that Tracy will miss Darwin and move out and dissipate. However it is not the case. Tracy makes a b-line for Darwin. Many people are evacuated from Darwin and some never returning. Conditions in Darwin worsen on December 24th, which is Christmas Eve. It is overcast and raining hard. Then the hurricane makes landfall on Darwin on Christmas...

The real political news in Vermont has been buried under recent headlines announcing the retirement of Sen. Jim Jeffords: The Vermont House has approved the most radical health care proposal ever to gain majority support in a state legislative chamber. In its early days in the Union -- after 14 years as an independent republic -- Vermont was a bastion of 18th century radicalism dedicated to principles of "liberty and property." But shaped by the state's traditional town-meeting democracy, succeeding generations of Vermonters tempered this radical individualism. Until recently, however, Vermonters had steadfastly resisted big-government collectivism. This great leap forward...

<p>TOKYO -- Nintendo's Game Boy Advance hand-held machine will work as a videophone with an attachment that comes with a digital camera, earphone and microphone and is expected to go on sale in December only in Japan.</p> <p>The Campho Advance from Kyoto-based Digital Act, which makes mobile and Internet equipment, slips into the top of the Game Boy Advance just like any video-game cassette.</p>

Pentagon officials said Tuesday a fierce sandstorm in Kuwait might have caused the fatal crash of an Army helicopter. The UH60 Black Hawk went down about 1 a.m. Tuesday Kuwait time some 30 miles northwest of Kuwait City, where night training exercises were under way. The Army says the cause of the crash is under investigation, but strong winds and blinding sand were reported in the area overnight. The Pentagon identified those killed Tuesday as Spc. Rodrigo Gonzalez-Garza, 26, of Texas; Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Moehling, 35, of Florida; Chief Warrant Officer John Smith, 32, of Nevada; and Spec. William...

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers were killed in Kuwait on Tuesday when their helicopter crashed during desert training in what U.S. officials said was an apparent accident. The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter went down near Camp New Jersey, a temporary U.S. military base 30 miles north of Kuwait City, while conducting night training, a U.S. military statement said. The four were the only people aboard. "There is no indication that hostile fire might have caused the crash, which was apparently an accident," Marine Corps Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told Reuters in Washington. The cause of the...