Free Republic

Veteran character actor Joseph "Joe" Turkel has passed away. The actor is best known for his key roles in genre classics Blade Runner and The Shining, but had an immense body of work stretched across five decades. Per Variety, Joe Turkel passed away at ​​St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., survived by his two sons Craig and Robert, and his brother David. While his cause of death is not currently public knowledge, the actor was 94 years old. Though he had not actively been in films or television since the late 1990s, his impact on popular culture was enormous.

His agent confirmed the star died in the Netherlands on Friday after a short illness. Hauer played the murderous replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, which was directed by Ridley Scott and also starred Harrison Ford. The actor's funeral was held on Wednesday.

A knife-wielding man killed seven children and injured 12 others as they returned home from school in northwestern China on Friday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest such rampages in the country in recent years. A suspect was detained and the injured children were receiving treatment, the propaganda department of Mizhi county in Shaanxi province said. The attack took place at around 6.10pm local time, the department added. County police said initial investigations suggested that the 28-year-old male suspect was a former pupil at the middle school, where he had been bullied. They believe he may have turned his...

Even 35 years after the release of the original Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s future feels like an invention modern cinema is still trying to catch up to. Other movies’ notions of nuclear-blasted dystopias or whiz-bang Jetsons kitsch seem to pale next to the haunting, soulful specificity of his vision: the Fritz Lang-meets-’40s-noir metropolis; the paranoid-android flair; the deeply un-sci-fi moments of melancholy. It was enough in some scenes just to watch the smoke curl from Sean Young’s cigarette, or follow the dust drifting through a bleached-white sunbeam.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) A California automotive start-up is hoping their prototype supercar will redefine car manufacturing. The sleek race car dubbed 'Blade' didn't come off an assembly line - but out of a 3D printer. Kevin Czinger of Divergent Microfactories has spent most of his career in the automotive industry. One day he realized that no matter how fuel-efficient or how few tailpipe emissions the modern car has, the business of car manufacturing is destroying the environment. "3D printing of metal radically changes that. By looking at 3D printing not for that overall structure but to create individual modular structures that can...

It is one of Hollywood's classic films. So fans of Blade Runner will be delighted that Harrison Ford is set to reprise his role of Rick Deckard in a newly-announced sequel to the 1982 smash-hit. The 72-year-old actor will return to the cult classic in the screenplay written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green and directed by 'Prisoners' filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.

Harrison Ford may be reprising yet another beloved film character he made famous decades ago. In late April it was confirmed the 71-year-old actor would pick up a Lightsaber once more to play Han Solo in the JJ Abrams-directed reworking of Star Wars. Then on Thursday Deadline reported Ford was being asked to step back into his role as Rick Deckard in the sequel to his 1982 science fiction thriller Blade Runner.

BANNED steroid drugs were found in Oscar Pistorius’s house after he shot dead lover Reeva Steenkamp. Police also discovered a blood-stained cricket bat in the Blade Runner’s mansion in Pretoria, South Africa — and evidence of heavy drinking before the 3am shooting. Cops are now probing a theory that Pistorius may have blasted Reeva in an explosion of fury caused by the performance-boosting steroids. They are investigating whether murder suspect Pistorius was in the grip of “roid rage” — a side-effect of high doses of the outlawed drugs. Officers who searched the 26-year-old’s home after lover Reeva was killed in...

I'm changing reserve assignments to the DC area and am hoping somebody can tell me what restrictions exist on carry of concealed blades (since I can't carry my Sigma).

<p>PHOENIX - It was a day of reckoning for the Phoenix boy who accidentally brought a penknife to school in his backpack.</p> <p>The school was considering expelling fifth grader Zane Champion, citing its zero-tolerance policy against weapons.</p> <p>After a long night of deliberations, the school board decided not to expell Champion. The governing board met with Champion's family for nearly three hours Tuesday night at the Arizona School for the Arts in downtown Phoenix.</p>

SAMUEL Joseph Wurzelbacher, Rick Santelli, and Jim Cramer owe much of their 15 minutes of fame to Saul Alinsky, a Chicago Marxist who died in 1972. Mr. Alinsky is considered to be the father of "community organizing" as the path to social revolution. A year before his death he published a book, Rules for Radicals, which distilled what he had learned from his experiences, his reading of Marx and Lenin, and from his associations with crime boss Al Capone and labor leader John Lewis. Rule 11 is: "Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don't try to attack...

Inaugural No-Nos: Strollers, Coolers, Backpacks and More... The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has posted on its Web site a number of tips to keep in mind for those planning on attending the Jan. 20 swearing-in ceremony and parade. Among the list of items banned from the festivities are baby strollers, coolers, backpacks, thermoses, umbrellas and signs. Go here for the full list and other tips about what to wear and what to expect.

IT WAS an agonizing nine months for all involved, but the long and contentious dispute between The Blade and its unions is finally over, and our managers and returning employees can once again pool their talents in the joint enterprise they love: producing the best daily newspaper they can. Our new labor contracts reflect that our business is much different from the one many of us knew years ago, and we are grateful that our employee organizations came to accept the unavoidable. All of us were frustrated by the dictates of that new reality, and saddened that lockouts and layoffs...

A samurai sword wielding vigilante has come to the rescue of two Police officers when they were attacked by an armed gang in South Shields, England. A group of men had forced their way into a house and were ransacking the place when passing plain-clothes officers were alerted by a woman inside screaming. The criminals outnumbered them and were armed with a hammer, knives and chains and attacked the Police officers. As one of them stabbed at a Policeman with his knife, a mysterious do-gooder appeared from nowhere and attacked him with a samurai sword. One of the burglars began...

Knife amnesties have no real impact on reducing knife crime, according to a Metropolitan Police report. An eight-week Met Police amnesty over the summer showed that, after a slight dip in knife-related crime, levels were back to normal within weeks, it said.

KNIVES are no different than guns -- they both are "tools of death," says the mother of stabbing murder victim Andrew Moffitt. Paulette Moffitt has not failed to notice that knives have been used in two major crimes making headlines this week -- the brutal attempted murder of Karen Parker who was found in Britannia Park and the slaying of Sami El-Ghazal in a parking lot. "A knife and a gun, the only difference is that the gun makes noise. They both take lives," she said, yesterday during a dedication ceremony of a plaque to honour her son. The Moffitt...

(Windsor Locks-WTNH, Aug. 25, 2006 Updated 2:56 PM) _ State police tell News Channel 8 that this morning a passenger reported a prohibited item on an inbound U.S. Airways flight from Philadelphia to Bradley International Airport. The crew was alerted to the item just as it was scheduled to land; the plane landed safely around 9:00 a.m. on Friday. There were 50 passengers and five crew members onboard. All remained onboard for about 20 minutes as officials searched the airplane. A utility knife was found on one of the seats of the plane. Transportation Safety Administration and state police are...

REGRETTABLY, The Blade today finds itself in a labor dispute with the people who traditionally have mattered most to the company: our employees and their families. We wish it were not so. We wish that it had not become necessary to utilize a management prerogative with an unfortunate sounding name - a lockout. So we believe it is instructive to explain for our readers, and indeed, for our own workers, why we are at this point. The simple truth is that The Blade is bleeding financially and cannot continue to operate indefinitely under such circumstances. The company would not be...

One of the region's top cops has called for a ban on pointed blades so that they cannot be used as lethal weapons. The Chief Constable of Northumbria police Mike Craik said he would like to see implements like kitchen knives only being sold with rounded ends to make them safer. He explained: "You rarely get victims who are sliced to death . . . they are usually stabbed. "So, the problem is pointed knives. If you ask chefs how many times they need to use pointed knives they'll tell you they don't need them at all." Mr Craik spoke...

Knife amnesty nets 17,700 weapons Over 17,700 weapons were handed in during the first week of the national knives amnesty, the Home Office said. Machetes, meat cleavers and axes as well as knives were among the haul of 17,715 surrendered to the 43 police forces across England and Wales. Home office minister Vernon Coaker said the results were "encouraging". The five-week amnesty, running until 30 June, allows people to surrender knives at police stations without fear of punishment. Mr Coaker urged those who had not yet handed in their weapons to do so. "The initial figures for the first week...