Free Republic

Acclaimed geneticist William French Anderson was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for molesting an employee's daughter who took martial arts classes at his home. Before sentencing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael E. Pastor noted an extraordinary number of letters supporting Anderson, including one from a Nobel Prize winner. But the judge said Anderson had caused "incalculable" emotional damage to a victim he described as an insecure and trusting immigrant. "Because of intellectual arrogance, he persisted and he got away with as much as he could," the judge said. Anderson, 70, was convicted last July of one count...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1, 2005 - Nationally acclaimed marathoner, Shirley Pratt, noted for her 21-run salute to veterans will be on hand to greet Army Reserve runners participating in the Army 10-Miler this Sunday. Pratt will be joining Lt. Gen. James Helmly, Chief of the Army Reserve along with noted actor and recently appointed Army Reserve Ambassador James McEachin in greeting Army Reserve runners and celebrating their completion of the race. Army Reserve soldiers from throughout the United States will be participating in this year’s event. They will be celebrated at the completion of the race at the Army Reserve’s “Hoohah”...

Dr. Claude H. Organ Jr., an internationally known surgeon and medical educator who was the second African American to serve as president of the American College of Surgeons, died Saturday in Oakland. He was 78. Organ was editor of the prestigious Journal of American Medical Association publication Archives of Surgery for 15 years. He came to Oakland in 1989 to establish and lead the University of California, Davis/University of California San Francisco East Bay Surgery Department, now the UCSF-East Bay department of surgery. There, he oversaw the training of dozens of surgeons, including several African-American women, a population severely underrepresented...

"The creation of the United States of America is the central event of the past four hundred years." Thus does Walter A. McDougall of the University of Pennsylvania begin the first volume of his acclaimed new American history, Freedom Just Around the Corner (HarperCollins).Not surprisingly, this central event has evoked a wide range of opinions. Tens of millions of immigrants have voted with their feet to slough off prior allegiances and join the boisterous experiment that makes "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" its official goal.The result has been an astounding success. "We dominate every field of human endeavor...

Acclaimed wetland was result of leaky pipe An ecologically-acclaimed wetland in the grounds of a school in Taiwan turned out to be the product of a leaking water pipe. The wetland was the pride and joy of students at Taipei's Kungkuan Elementary School for almost three decades. The school had just received a £130,000 grant to turn the wetland into an ecology park to house butterflies and insects, reports the China Times Express. The embarrassment surfaced after water authorities, acting on a report by a nearby resident, checked the school's water pipes and found the leak last month, the paper...