Free Republic

The food service director of an impoverished Illinois school district was charged with stealing $1.5 million of food — most of which was chicken wings. Vera Liddell, 66, allegedly began stealing from the Harvey School District during the height of COVID-19, local TV station WGN reported. The station reported that Liddell ordered more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings for the district with school funds, but took all the poultry for herself. “The food was never brought to the school or provided to the students,” court records claimed.

Buffalo wings are such an ingrained part of American culture that, if you didn't already know, you'd assume that their origin dates back further than to 1964, when Teressa Bellissimo prepared the first batch for a voracious group of her son's friends in the kitchen of Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y. It's hard to imagine life without such a culinary creation that's so versatile that it can be created in hundreds of styles, served boneless or bone-in, taste great with dozens of dips, and served as either an appetizer or a meal. Wings are now on the menu at virtually...

Super Bowl Sunday usually means three things: Food, friends and family gathered around the television and a "wait 'til next year" attitude for Browns fans. The most important of the three might be the food. Super Sunday is not only the biggest day in football, it is also one of the biggest days of the year for eating. According to the National Chicken Council, almost one billion wings, 5 percent of all wings consumed annually, will be downed on Super Bowl Sunday.

I JUST FLEW IN FROM BUFFALO (and boy, did it ever suck!)(not Buffalo; the flight) Why is commercial air travel in this country such a miserable experience anymore? Seems that every aspect of it has lost any enjoyment. It's gotten to the point that I avoid traveling altogether. While booking flights online has never been easier, flights cost more, take longer, include more tightly-scheduled stops and come with significantly diminished levels of customer service. No detail with which to nickle-and-dime the passenger appears to be too small, too petty. Even the boarding process has lost the semblance of order it...

Mothers of invention BY DAVE BARRY Miami Herald (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Sept. 1, 1996.) People often ask me how America became the world's greatest economic power, as measured in Remote Control Units Per Household (RCUPH). My answer is: ``Inventions.'' Americans have always been great inventors. To cite one historic example: Back in 1879, a young man named Thomas Alva Edison was trying to develop a new light source. One day, he was messing around in his laboratory with some filaments, when suddenly a thought struck him: The letters in ''Thomas Alva Edison'' could be...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) _ Cheered by thong-wearing ``Wingettes'' and about 20,000 spectators, two dozen beefy, costume-wearing competitors gobbled and slurped up plates of chicken wings in sports talk radio station WIP's 11th ``Wing Bowl.'' Perennial winner Bill ``El Wingador'' Simmons, 41, of National Park, N.J., outgorged other favorites including Larry ``Buzzsaw'' Shaitelman, 32, Chris ``Beefeater'' Coyne, 33, and Doug ``Damaging Doug'' Canavin, 31, in the annual competition to see who can keep down the most wings. Simmons ate 154 wings for the victory at the Spectrum. The event began in 1993 when the station conceived the idea of a chicken-wing eating...

President Bush began his day with a call to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and discussed the continued path to peace in Israel. After Bush had his daily intelligence briefings, he headed to a local food bank to help pack food for need families this Christmas. Later in the day, the President signed the the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2002. Enjoy your daily dose of Dubya!