Free Republic

<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) – New York State environmental officials are trying to nip a huge, dangerous plant in the bud.</p> <p>The giant hogweed, a monster plant with flowers the size of umbrellas and sap that causes blisters and blindness, is spreading across New York. The Department of Environmental Conservation is asking for help locating outbreaks.</p>

U.S. forces found, targeted and killed in a Somali desert city the senior al Qaeda operative who masterminded the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa and had since spent a decade in hiding, The Washington Times has learned. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who is one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, was the target of a U.S. missile strike on a residence in Dobley, a small town in southern Somalia near the Kenyan border, according to a U.S. military official who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the operation.

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to declare the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, dead. Olmert was in Germany last week, and the Germans are the chief mediators between Israel and Hezbollah on this issue. The likelihood that they are dead increases with every day that goes by with no sign of life from them. Israeli security sources confirmed last night that the intelligence community is reassessing the kidnapped soldiers' situation and is likely to make "difficult decisions" on the matter in the coming weeks. But Israel is...

ChesapeakeBarbara Rockwell has a soft way about her. Light brown hair swirls around her face, adorned by oval-framed glasses and gold elephant earrings.Her voice is comforting and doesn't become loud or sound angry when she takes delight in a certain man's death."The fact that he got blown up in a car," Rockwell said, pausing, "I don't know who did it, but I'd like to thank him."The man against whom she has held this grudge for more than 24 years was a Hezbollah commander named Imad Mughniyeh. The reason she held it is that her son, Marine Cpl. Michael Caleb Sauls,...