Free Republic

The weeping mother of the crazed teen gunman who carried out a mass shooting at an Oregon elementary school insisted her son was “a good boy” and that she would have tried to prevent the massacre if she could. Shauntai May Nickerson, the mother of 16-year-old John J. Griffin II, waved off reporters on the porch of her apartment complex as she smoked a cigarette and cried, the New York Times reported. The mother insisted Griffin — who killed three students and one teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday — was “a good boy, he really was” and...

It's lonely at the top. That's what the Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, discovered when the only other store in the world -- located in Australia -- announced it was closing. Although Sandi Harding, the general manager of the Oregon Blockbuster, is excited that hers is the last Blockbuster on the planet, she expressed her condolences for friends at the Australia store. "We all have a kinship with the other Blockbusters," Harding told CNN. The Oregon location has been open for more than 20 years. It offers customers the newest movie releases, but Harding says the classic older titles are the...

PORTLAND, Ore. – As a lay liturgical minister and a cantor, Wilma Hens was a leader at for years at her Roman Catholic parish in the central Oregon city of Bend. But then Bishop Robert F. Vasa issued a two-page "affirmation of faith." It tells lay ministers and cantors that, if they want to continue in their roles on the altar, they must accept the church's teachings opposing abortion, contraception, gay relationships and other issues. Hens couldn't agree, so she quit, publicly. She stood at a microphone at St. Francis of Assisi Church last month and told the congregation she...

<p>Gay men and women in Bend won't enjoy the same protections against discrimination that other minorities have in this city for at least the time being under a plan endorsed by the Bend City Council on Wednesday night.</p>