Free Republic

A schoolgirl who went to court to claim her right to die but changed her mind has celebrated graduating from university. Hannah Jones was just 13 when, left drained by debilitating surgery to cure a fatal heart condition worsened by a lengthy cancer battle, she refused to have a transplant. Her decision stunned the world when she calmly stated she would rather die than undergo more hospital trauma and simply wanted to live her last days in peace. She made history by fending off a legal bid by medics to force her to have treatment for heart failure. Hannah in...

A California attorney who has made a name for himself suing thousands of businesses and governments across the state over alleged violations of federal disability access law now is taking aim at enterprises in Willits and Ukiah. Thomas Frankovich and his disabled Willits client have filed eight separate federal discrimination lawsuits affecting more than two dozen Mendocino County businesses since late December, accusing the defendants of failing to provide adequate access for disabled people as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The lawsuits affect restaurants in Willits and Ukiah, a Willits book store, a Ukiah car dealership and a...

The proud British owner of a Ferrari 430 Scuderia had one hour to enjoy his $260,000 luxury vehicle this week before it was turned into a flaming pile of twisted metal. South Yorkshire Police responding to an accident on Thursday found themselves staring at the charred remains of a black Ferrari and the owner — miraculously alive with a few cuts and bruises — in a local field.

William Stewart Boyd drove to a South Side church 13 years ago to turn over his late father’s handgun to Chicago police as part of a buyback program aimed at keeping derelict firearms off the streets.A Cook County judge in domestic relations cases, Boyd expected the weapon to be inventoried and destroyed like thousands of others over the years. He was wrong.Instead, the gun mysteriously turned up eight years later next to the body of a young man shot to death by a Cicero police officer. The cop – with a history of discipline problems – is now off...

Had they called it “Obamasurance”, which it is, instead of Obamacare, which it never has been, it may never have become law in the first place. And voters today would be fully aware of the type of end run the Republicans are trying to employ to save that which is most profitable to them and nothing else. With Democrats the name they put on legislation is never accidental. “Affordable”? “Care”? Right. Under FDR they named “Social Security” and it really wasn’t. Under LBJ they gave us “Medicare”, and that wasn’t either. “Civil Rights” is one of the most profaned terms...

The Warrant Officer Cohort consists of today’s Army’s technical experts and, in celebration of that expertise, the cohort commemorated nearly a century of service with the generally accepted thing worthy of any birthday celebration – cake. The cohort turned 99 Sunday, and many Fort Rucker members celebrated with a cake cutting ceremony at the Warrant Officer Dining Facility July 6 to commemorate the ongoing service and leadership that warrant officers provide, said CW5 John D. Howze, U.S. Army Warrant Officer Career College deputy commandant. “Warrant officers have been a critical part of militaries around the world,” he said during the...

Intelligence committee chairman David Nunes revealed in a letter to DNI Dan Coats that he has uncovered hundreds of requests to unmask the identities of Americans found in overseas intel reports during the last year of the Obama administration and that most of them carried no official justification. Nunes says most of the requests came from White House political aides and were not related to intelligence or national security work.  He also says some of the requests to unmask identities were for Trump campaign and transition aides. The Hill:

The new samples come from Sidon, a coastal city in Lebanon. Marc Haber, a geneticist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, U.K., extracted enough DNA from the ancient skeletons to sequence the whole genomes of five Canaanite individuals, all around 3700 years old. Haber’s first mission was to figure out who the Canaanites were, genetically speaking. Ancient Greek sources suggested they had migrated to the Levant from the East. To test that, Haber and colleagues compared the Canaanite genomes to those of other ancient populations in Eurasia. It turned out the Greeks were half right: About 50% of...

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said his vote Friday against “skinny repeal” of Obamacare was a vote for bipartisanship. In fact, it was the opposite, rewarding Democrats for passing Obamacare without working with Republicans in the first place, allowing them to establish a beachhead for government-run health care, which they will now be able to protect. Whatever happens going forward, they will regard their initial partisanship as having been worth the effort. McCain said in a statement after casting the decisive “no” vote in the wee hours of Friday morning: “I’ve stated time and time again that one of the major...

As we scroll through our Timelines and see the myriad of posts about Trans rights and Trump's latest ban on transgender individuals in the military, something like this makes us stop and double back. Kelly Sharp wrote an opinion piece for Eagle Rising on Jewel Shuping, a woman who identifies as "transblind," claiming she felt destined to be blind and purposely poured drain cleaner into her eyes. WHAT? The video attached to the article feels like something straight out of TLC's "My Strange Addiction." There are some mental or emotional imbalances at play but it begs two questions: 1) Why...

Significant find is said to be undamaged and in excellent conditionA telegraph machine that could hold vital clues about the sinking of the Lusitania has been salvaged from the bottom of the sea. The transatlantic liner – the biggest passenger vessel in the world at the time she was launched – was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of County Cork in May 1915. She sank in just 18 minutes with the loss of 1,201 lives, including 94 children. The ship was en-route from New York to Liverpool. Many of the 696 crew were from Liverpool and, of...

House lawmakers are seeking an independent investigation into IT staffers of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the congresswoman is expected to testify, reports the Washington Free Beacon.

House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Thursday called for a new special counsel — to investigate Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Loretta Lynch. In a letter addressed to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Republicans said they were writing to "request assistance in restoring public confidence in our nation's justice system and its investigators, specifically the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)." The lawmakers said they presumed investigation of potential Russian influence on the U.S. presidential election was covered by special counsel Robert Mueller, but that they "are not confident that...

Sara Carter, Award Winning National Security Correspondent for Circa, joined Brian Kilmeade today to discuss her breaking news regarding leaks from within the FBI. Sarah has uncovered that the General Counsel for the FBI, James Baker, is allegedly under criminal investigation by the Department of Justice for leaking classified information. "I would be stunned if it was not true." Carter says, "The FBI just doesn't let stories like this run if there is no validity." Sara is also perusing the allegations of the unmaking of names by the Obama administration. "It appears to those who have viewed these documents...

<p>The U.S. economy revved up this spring after a weak start to the year, fueled by a surge in consumer spending. But the growth spurt still fell short of the optimistic goals President Donald Trump hopes to achieve through tax cuts and regulatory relief.</p>

Picturesque island is on the market but horrific past may put off potential buyersEver fancied owning your own island? How about this little beauty off the south-west coast of Scotland? The picturesque island of Little Ross Island has gone on the market and could be all yours for just £325,000. However, its haunting past may scare off would-be buyers. Little Ross made headlines nearly 60 years ago when lighthouse keeper Hugh Clark was murdered by a colleague. Two visitors discovered Mr Clark's body in 1960 and his assistant Robert Dickson was found guilty of his murder . Dickson was...

A TEXAS teen who ran into a church half-naked saying she was raped was indicted for what turned out to be an elaborate hoax. Breana Harmon, 19, was charged on Wednesday with two counts of tampering with physical evidence and two counts of tampering with a government record, which are felonies, according to the Herald Democrat. Officials said that teen, who also uses the last name Talbott, made a false report to police on March 8 claiming to have been abducted and gang-raped behind a church in Denison, Texas. The teen turned up at the local church covered in blood...

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made it clear on Thursday what would happen if President Donald Trump fires his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. “If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay,” he told CNN. Graham also said he is looking to introduce legislation next week that would block the firing of special counsels without a judicial review. Rumors have been swirling around Capitol Hill this week that Trump is looking to dispose of Sessions and Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed to investigate Russia’s election interference, and any potential links between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign....

A 67-year-old man who previously served prison time in the murder of a 6-year-old child, pleaded guilty to a 2001 rape after investigators linked him to the scene of that crime through a pair of dentures he left behind. The dentures were part of a sex assault kit backlog that wasn't tested until recently, though authorities may have been able to identify Thomas Maupin sooner -- his name was printed on the inside of the false teeth.

Roy Eykamp is 99 years old.  He made his first gun when he was seven years old. It was a crude pistol made from a barrel he salvaged from the trash, fired with a hand held hammer, and later, strong rubber bands cut from inner-tubes and a breechblock. He used it to start his lifelong talent for making money. He shot gophers with it, using .22 shorts.The government paid a 5 cent bounty for each gopher. He made enough money shooting gophers, that when his mother confiscated his homemade gun, he was able to buy a factory one with...