Free Republic

His peers are playing video games or riding their bikes, but Roger Holloway is spending his spring break fulfilling a very personal mission — giving his infant sister a proper burial. His father is dead. His mother is in a hospital trying to beat a drug addiction. So the responsibility for properly naming and burying the sister he never knew, who was stillborn nearly a year ago because of his mother's drug use, fell squarely on Roger's 11-year-old shoulders. Today, thanks to Roger's determination and the kindness of strangers, the baby girl, known in the official record only as "Fetus...

It's just a headline now... This should be interesting... HEB (Regional Grocery Store) 'Spam-Type Product' Re-labeled 'Pork' In US, Called 'Beef' For Arab Buyers. Details Monday At Noon, Only In The Lightning

Israeli Cabinet authorizes 'severe and harsh' response to kidnapping of its two soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas, PM's office says.

WASHINGTON — Straining to find ground troops to maintain its force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has begun deploying thousands of Air Force personnel to combat zones in new jobs as interrogators, prison sentries and gunners on supply trucks. The Air Force years ago banked its future on state-of-the-art fighter jets and billion-dollar satellites. Yet the service that has long avoided being pulled into ground operations is now finding that its people — rather than its weapons — are what the Pentagon needs most as it wages a prolonged war against a low-tech, insurgent enemy. Individual branches have...

KABUL, Afghanistan - The last radio contact was an urgent appeal for help. Night was falling, a rainstorm threatening, and four Navy SEAL commandos were surrounded by about a dozen militants in rugged, wooded mountains. They needed reinforcements. That hurried call set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the U.S. military's deadliest blow in Afghanistan, and the greatest loss of life ever for the elite force of SEALs. Nine days after the ambush and subsequent downing of a U.S. special forces helicopter with 16 troops aboard, U.S military officials in Kabul and Washington are starting to...

The saga of San Antonio as a candidate for a Major League Soccer franchise has been the subject of much discussion among MLS followers in recent weeks. In fact, it has been rather more entertaining than some of the league's games have been so far this season. Bandied about as an idea for several weeks beforehand, outgoing Mayor Ed Garza announced a concrete plan to bring MLS to San Antonio in mid-April. Garza offered tempting terms to the league: 20 rent-free dates per year at the Alamodome for 25 years, costly upgrades to the venue, construction of a training facility,...

Retired Army Col. David Hackworth, a decorated Vietnam veteran who spoke out against the war and later became a journalist and an advocate for military reform, died Wednesday in Mexico, where he was receiving treatment for bladder cancer, his wife said. He was 74. "He died in my arms yesterday morning," his wife, Eilhys England, said Thursday. Hackworth, a syndicated columnist for King Features, advocated a streamlined military and improved conditions for troops.

If one New Mexico state senator has his way, the lyrics to the classic 1959 song by the late Marty Robbins will have to be changed from 'out in the west Texas town of El Paso' to 'out in the eastern New Mexico town of El Paso.' State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pena is encouraging New Mexico to sue Texas for the return of the city of El Paso and all of El Paso County, which he says was 'maliciously stolen' from New Mexico, 1200 WOAI news reported today. I think we should broaden our effort to reacquire El Paso,...

No further info... Just a large explosion reported.

BRISBANE, Australia - American troops will train with new U.S. military equipment in Australia under a pact being negotiated by Washington and Canberra, a prominent defense analyst said Friday. Ross Babbage, head of the Australian National University's Strategic Defense Studies Center, told New Ltd. newspapers that the agreement would include testing smart bombs and communications equipment. Australian and U.S. troops also would train together in new warfare tactics, Babbage told Sky News on Friday. "What effectively it will mean is we will have the most advanced capacity to test new ways of conducting military operations and potentially will have, even...

It was political pandemonium Sunday night when a public television debate allegedly turned disorderly, leading two candidates in two seperate races to file police reports against their opponents. First, News 4 WOAI learned U.S. Representative District 20 candidates Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, Roger Scott and a third candidate had just finished an on-camera debate at the KLRN-TV studio, when the executive producer there says he heard a loud altercation off-camera. That producer told News 4 WOAI the shouting could be heard in the background of another debate already in progress. Republican candidate Roger Scott said by phone Sunday night he has...

Sting has been an ardent activist for many causes, but he's not getting involved in the U.S. presidential election. He and fellow singer Annie Lennox said they admired the efforts of two dozen musicians on a tour aimed at ousting President Bush, but couldn't join them because they are British citizens. "It wouldn't be our place to do that, we're guests in this country and we don't have a vote," Sting said in a recent phone interview. "Some of my friends are on that tour and I think it's laudable what they're doing." The "Vote for Change" tour features Bruce...

1200 WOAI'S Bud Little reports exclusively today that Mayor Ed Garza has asked City Manager Terry Brechtel to resign, and is trying to get support from city council to fire her if she refuses. Councilman Carroll Schubert, who is not part of the oust Brechtel effort, tells 1200 WOAI's Bud Little the move at city hall reminds him of a 'coup in a third world country.' "Mayor Garza called me last night late and told me that was the case, that he has six other individuals, plus himself, who are ready to call for the resignation of the city manager....

HOUSTON - Seven Texas children were discovered abandoned at a Nigerian orphanage, suffering from disease and malnutrition, and have been brought back to the United States. Child Protective Services, which received emergency custody of the children Monday, is investigating accusations that the children's adoptive mother abandoned them in Nigeria in October and later went to work in Iraq as a private contractor. The Houston woman, whose identity was not released, allegedly left them at a Nigerian school that later discharged them for nonpayment of tuition. The children returned to Texas on Friday. Three of the children were hospitalized with malaria...

Quarterback Quincy Carter will be released from the Dallas Cowboys, ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli has learned, and an official announcement is expected this afternoon. Carter, a four-year veteran out of Georgia, did not practice with the team Wednesday. There was no immediate word as to why the Cowboys planned to cut Carter. Carter, 26, started all 16 games last season, when the Cowboys went 10-6 and got back in the playoffs in head coach Bill Parcells' first year with the club.

I guess with John Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his running mate, he really does want to stand up for all Americans, from those worth only $60 million to those worth in excess of $800 million. In one of the many stratagems Democrats have developed to avoid telling people what they believe, all Edwards wants to talk about is his cracker-barrel humble origins story. We're supposed to swoon over his "life story," as the flacks say, which apparently consists of the amazing fact that ... his father was a millworker! That's right up there with "Clinton's stepdad was a...

I'm just curious as to how other Freeers feel about this movie. So far I feel Sellek and the rest have done a fine job, though I am not a WWII historian. Just curious on others feelings. Æ

ATLANTA (AP) — Arizona's Randy Johnson became the oldest pitcher in major league history to throw a perfect game, retiring all 27 hitters to lead the Diamondbacks over the Atlanta Braves 2-0 Tuesday night. The 40-year-old left-hander struck out 13 and went to three balls on just one hitter - Johnny Estrada in the second inning. Estrada fouled off three straight 3-2 pitches before going down swinging. It was the 17th perfect game in major league history, the 15th since the modern era began in 1900 and the first since the New York Yankees' David Cone against Montreal on July...

Report from the Task Force on Changing the UIW Mascot Introduction The Revised Edition of the Scribner-Bantam English Dictionary (originally published in 1979 and reissued in 1991) lists the following definitions for the word, crusade: 1) any of several military expeditions by the Christian nations during the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims; 2) any vigorous concerted action for the advancement or defense of some cause; 3) to engage in a crusade. noun—crusader. It is interesting to note that this dictionary follows the common practice of arranging the senses of use “according to...