Free Republic

LONDON (AP) — People around the world briefly experienced problems accessing Twitter on Thursday, a day before the 2012 Olympic Games are expected to cause a spike in use of the micro-blogging site. About three hours after the San Francisco-based company first acknowledged the problem by saying its engineers were "currently working to resolve the issue," Twitter said in a statement that the "site issue" had been resolved. It did not go into further detail on what caused the glitch — the second time in just over a month that the site has been hit by problems. Visitors to the...

An internal IDF review of the takeover of the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara revealed that three soldiers were briefly kidnapped while aboard the vessel. The three were beaten when they boarded the ship and then, when they were wounded and groggy, were dragged to a room within the ship and held there. A short time later, dozens of their fellow soldiers began searching the ship. When the attacking passengers saw that soldiers had successfully seized control of the Marmara, they released the three captives, the report stated.

NEW YORK - Oil prices briefly fell below $50 per barrel Thursday for the first time since May 25, 2005, after the government reported larger-than-expected jumps in crude oil and gasoline inventories. Oil has dropped 17 percent since the end of 2006 amid weeks of mild winter weather in the U.S. Northeast, a key consumer of heating fuels, and growing energy stockpiles. "There's no doubt that this is significant," said Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading Corp. "If you're a bull, the only thing you can hold your hat on is they didn't close below $50." The price for a barrel...