Free Republic

Child sex trafficking is said to be the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise, with an estimated two million child victims being abducted and sold into sexual bondage annually. The true numbers may be even higher; the dark world in which child traffickers operate does not lend itself to easy quantification. And despite occasional acknowledgment of this massive crisis by the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, and the FBI, relatively little has been done to bring the trafficking kingpins to justice or to break up the trafficking networks.According to a 2012 UNICEF report, around 30 million children were trafficked globally...

Replacing babies with pets stifles a person’s capacity to give and receive love, as it wrongly directs our greatest earthly affections toward ourselves.In a recent Fox News piece, sociologist Andrea Laurent-Simpson writes of the emergence of “multispecies families,” explaining that in “child-free families…dogs and cats paw in to fill a longing to nurture” and would-be grandparents “readily shift over to spoiling the granddog as their daughters and sons choose instead to pursue lucrative careers.” But this is neither good nor new.The ancient historian Plutarch began his life of Pericles with an anecdote about Caesar, who, upon seeing “wealthy foreigners in...

Overnight protesters in Portland, Oregon decided to set fire to the city’s famous downtown Elk statue. The sculpture was donated to the city by Mayor David Thompson in 1900 and was created by American artist Roland Hinton Perry. The fountain and sculpture are officially designated as Portland Historic Landmarks by the city’s own Landmark Comission. The installation is formally known as the David P. Thompson Fountain

Two Ohio State football players were arrested Wednesday and accused in the rape and kidnapping of a woman earlier this month at their shared Ohio apartment. Jahsen Wint and Amir Riep, both 21, are facing two felony counts of rape and kidnapping. Columbus police alleged that the pair forced a woman to falsely admit on video that she engaged in consensual sex after being assaulted by the two men on Feb. 4, The Columbus Dispatch reported, citing a police affidavit.

Barnard freshman Tessa Majors was stabbed to death a few days ago in a park near her college campus. The tragic crime happened on the steps of a park where Majors encountered three young teens who attend a middle school nearby: The New York Post reported that Tessa Majors, 18, was discovered by a school security guard inside Morningside Park near West 116th Street and Morningside Drive around 5:30 p.m. She had been beaten and stabbed by a group of three or four men at the base of some stairs. Majors was taken to the local hospital but didn’t make...

The 16-year-old charged with murdering two British holidaymakers in Florida was freed by a judge two weeks ago after he was arrested over an armed robbery, it emerged today. Shawn Tyson, who allegedly shot James Cooper and James Kouzaris in the back as they ran away, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon following the incident. However as it was his first offence he was released from custody while police investigated the case. He will now be charged as an adult and, if convicted of first-degree murder of the two Britons on Saturday evening, could face the death...

The Pentagon is denying reports that Gen. David Petraeus will leave his post as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan at the end of the year. Contrary to the "sensational speculation by one of the London papers" Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that though Petraeus will not stay in his post "forever," a date for his departure has not been determined, and the general has not quit. "Obviously he will rotate out at some point, but that point has not yet been determined and it will not occur anytime soon," Morrell said. "Until then, he will continue to...

With a cry of “there is no God but Allah!” two young Somali girls ages 18 and 15 were executed before hundreds of witnesses in a spray of bullets in Mogadishu, Somalia, yesterday. The girls were sent to their deaths by Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim ... These executions come amongst a string of Al Shabab- sponsored whippings, amputations and executions such as those suffered by the two young women — – all in the name of Islam and overseen by judges whose only qualifications are that they are men who claim to know the Koran.

A new mosque is now being planned in New York near "Ground Zero," two blocks from where the World Trade Center used to be. This mosque is headed by an Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf... It is crucial to study the supremacist ideology of Islam and to recognize, for example, that the building of a mosque especially at Ground Zero is viewed by Muslims as a decisive victory over the infidels in Islam's march to establish its ultimate goal: the submission of all others to Islam and to Sharia Law. On a daily bases, in so many parts of the world,...

TTP Leader Hakimullah Mehsud Declares: 'From Now On, the Main Targets of Our Fidaeen [Suicide Bombers] Are American Cities' The first, which the YouTube page titled "Hakeemullah Mehsud is Alive and Healthy and Delivering news about Attacks on USA," is 2:17 long, and shows a still satellite image of North America with a still image of Hakimullah Mehsud. Speaking in Urdu, he states that the date is April 19, 2010 and threatens bombings in U.S. "states & cities"; as he speaks, explosions are shown taking place across the map. (To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2463.htm. NOTE: You...

*snip* New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said the device was found after a mounted policeman spotted a box smoking in the back of a sport utility vehicle about 6:30 p.m. "This appears to be a car bomb that the bomb squad is in the process of dismantling," police spokesman Paul Browne said. "We do not know the motive."

Four Muslim fanatics dreamed of "mounting a second September 11" with a series of bomb attacks on a US military base in Germany as well as nightclubs and restaurants used by American servicemen. The gang, two of whom were German-born but converted to Islam, plotted to detonate explosives 100 times more powerful than those used in the attacks on the London Underground in July 2005, in a "monstrous bloodbath", a court heard. Had the plot not been foiled the gang, a cell of a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, would have killed 150 soldiers, along with women and children in...

Updated: Mar 04, 2010 7:36 PM PST By Logan Smith LEE COUNTY, SC (WIS) - A pit bull was euthanized in Lee County Thursday after it attacked and killed its owner's aunt, who had been caring for it while her nephew was out of town. Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin said Ethel Baker Horton, 65, was killed off Stokes Bridge Road near the town of Lucknow while defending her 71-year-old husband, Jerry Horton, from the pit bull. "You never think of somebody dying that horrible death like that, not someone as close as she is to us," said Brenda Gillespie,...

President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials said Thursday, signaling a recognition that the administration had mishandled the process and triggered a political backlash. Obama initially had asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to choose the site of the trial in an effort to maintain an independent Justice Department. But the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in...

ENGLEWOOD, N.J. (CBS) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1 David Muneton, an eighth grade honor student, needed reconstructive facial surgery after being savagely beaten by a gang of 11 students on Dec. 18, 2009, in Engelwood, N.J. David Muneton, an eighth grade honor student, needed reconstructive facial surgery after being savagely beaten by a gang of 11 students on Dec. 18, 2009, in Engelwood, N.J. Police said as many as 11 students beat up the eighth-grader leaving him severely injured, and he may even lose his sight. CBS 2 HD spoke with some of his friends about what led to...

Two British-born Pakistanis were among eight gunmen arrested by Indian authorities following the Mumbai massacre. An explosive gun battle is now taking part as commandos attempt to take back the Taj hotel. Indian commandos are locked in a standoff with terrorists at two locations in Mumbai as the battle to save hostages intensifies. The siege is continuing at the Taj Mahal hotel in the city, which has been brought to its knees by two days of gun battles after terrorists went on the rampage. Shots are ringing out from the building and the terrorists have even fired at the world's...

Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles into a Pakistani tribal region on Friday, killing 12 people, including five foreigners, in an area known as a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud. Pakistani officials said the attack targeted a house in a remote village on the border between North and South Waziristan, where Mehsud, an al Qaeda ally, has been bottled up by Pakistani forces since early this year. Frustrated by fighters from Pakistan fuelling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and fearful of al Qaeda regrouping, U.S. forces have intensified missile attacks by pilotless drones since early September, security sources say....

Awesome beasts roved ancient site By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, Murcia The brown hyena lived in Europe 1.8 million years ago Giant hyenas, sabretoothed cats, giraffes and zebras lived side by side in Europe 1.8 million years ago. The creatures' remains were among a vast fossil hoard unearthed at an ancient hyena den in the Granada region of south-east Spain. The area appears to have been a crossroads where European animals mixed with species from Africa and Asia. About 4,000 fossils have been found at the unique site. They also include gazelles, wolves, wild boar and lynx. The...

Protest: Gays acting like beasts Right-wing and religious activists submit request to march with dozens of cows, donkeys and horses on same route where gay pride parade will be held, while citing Psalms and asking for atonement. 'We want to parade beasts because these people's acts are beastly,' explains Yesha Council representative Efrat Weiss Published: 10.31.06, 00:44 Cows, horses and donkeys are expected to march in Jerusalem next week, as part of a protest move planned by right-wing activists in response to the upcoming gay pride parade. The beast parade will be combined with a mass prayer, which will include...

I was watching Maureen Dowd on Larry King last night and something she said jumped out at me. Read the quotes in bold below. One is from Maureen Dowd and the other is from Mary Mapes. (Both were on Larry King last week-but not on the same day). Obviously, journalism standards change from story to story depending on how they can be used to smear a Republican president: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/12/lkl.01.htmlKING:[talking about Judy Miller] Was she doing her job or was she caught up in it? DOWD: I think she was too creditable. And too, you know, investigative reporting is not stenography....