Free Republic

DENVER -- The city of Aspen and Pitkin County may tell homeowners what kind of doorknobs to install because of bear break-ins. Kevin Wright, district wildlife manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, recently urged Pitkin County commissioners to amend the local land-use code to mandate round doorknobs, which are far more difficult for bears to open than lever-style doorknobs. There are some issues with the idea. "The Americans with Disabilities Act requires businesses to have lever action doorknobs," according to Tyler Baskfield, communications manager with the Division of Wildlife.

NEW YORK, May 6 (Reuters) - Nasdaq Operations (NDAQ.O) said it will cancel all trades executed between 2:40 p.m. to 3 p.m. showing a rise or fall of more than 60 percent from the last trade in that security at 2:40 p.m or immediately prior.

... A British hairdresser died after her cigarette ignited a leaking bottle of hydrogen peroxide bleach which then blew up in her car as she drove along a quiet country lane ... "We want to warn people how volatile hydrogen peroxide is, even if it is kept in the boot of a car. Jennie’s friends have all said they carry it," added her mother Pauline Mitchell.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The police in El Salvador have begun an investigation into whether a man suspected of leading a trafficking ring involving Central American and Caribbean women and girls is also a legal adviser to the Americans charged with trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without permission. . . . Judge Saint-Vil also said he thought that the photo of the trafficking suspect in a Salvadoran police file appeared to be the same man he had met in court. He said he intended to begin his own investigation into whether a trafficking suspect had been working with...

Guerlaine Antoine pushed aside a tub full of laundry, wiped her soapy hands on her T-shirt and rushed barefoot to bring out photos of the 8-year-old boy she entrusted to 10 American Baptists. “Do you think I would give this child away?” she said . . . An empty house in an unfinished subdivision in Meridian, Idaho, is listed on the nonprofit incorporation papers filed in Idaho for the organization. The address was listed in November on papers Laura Silsby filed to establish New Life as a nonprofit. Two days after the papers were filed, records show, Ms. Silsby sold...

In an extraordinary phone call, a 3-year-old saved a life in Maple Shade, New Jersey. . . . Within minutes, police & paramedics arrived at the Maple Shade home where the little boy unlocked the door and then let them in. However, Jaden was wise enough to lock the dog in the bedroom so he wouldn't get in the way.

You can't expect a bank that is dumb enough to sue itself to know why it is suing itself. Yet I could not resist asking Wells Fargo Bank NA why it filed a civil complaint against itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Fla. [snip] "The primary reason is to clear title and ownership interest in a property to prepare it for sale," Waetke said in an email exchange. "So it really is not Wells Fargo vs. Wells Fargo." Yet court documents clearly label "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as the plaintiff and "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as a...

When a North Carolina woman accused the federal government last week of abusing the Patriot Act to imprison her teenage son for allegedly making bomb threats, the mother's allegation caused quite an uproar, including calls to free 16-year-old Ashton Lundeby. But a new report by Wired News suggests that, not only was the teenager an online superstar in rogue tech communities for his prank phone calls, but his mother may have known all along that the boy was conspiring with others to make bomb threats. Lundeby, known online as "Tyrone," allegedly had progressed into selling his services as a threatmaker,...

The first Italian bus to boast an atheist advertisement rolled out Monday and certainly did not have God on its side. No sooner had the bus — carrying the message, "The Good News Is There Are Millions of Atheists In Italy; The Excellent News Is They Believe In Freedom Of Expression" –- hit the streets of Genoa when it suffered battery problems and had to go straight back to the depot for repairs, UPI reported.

<p>Can we please have a civilized thread offering our prayers for Sen. Kennedy and his family? He has just been diagnosed with brain cancer (glioma) which has a very poor prognosis. The moderators have already been forced to pull at least FOUR threads on this topic due to uncivilized posters. If you feel the urge to post something unkind, don't.</p>

WHEN Jacqueline Brown and her husband, Gavin Friedman, were in their early 30s, they lived in a condominium in Santa Monica, Calif., with a black leather Ikea couch Mr. Friedman had bought for law school, a few modest pieces from Pier 1 Imports and assorted hand-me-down furnishings. Within a few years, though, having acquired professional and financial stability — both were litigation associates at prominent law firms — they bought a house in Cheviot Hills, an affluent neighborhood in West Los Angeles, and began remodeling and decorating. During two renovations, each costing more than $100,000, they built a two-sided fireplace...

"Bankers have confirmed that at the end of last year, Jerome Kerviel had generated a colossal hidden profit for the bank of 1.4bn euros," Mr Peston said. "Among the great mysteries of the Kerviel affair is how the French bank could have failed to notice a profit of that size."

Heads are likely to roll high in the French financial establishment after it emerged yesterday that President Sarkozy was kept in the dark for three days over the €5 billion (£3.7 billion) fraud by a rogue trader at the Société Générale bank. The wrath of the President, who was apparently told only on Wednesday of trouble at SocGen, added to widespread suspicion that France’s second bank and the Banque de France were too eager to blame Jérôme Kerviel, the solitary trader. As well as Daniel Bouton, SocGen’s chief executive, Christian Noyer, the governor of the central bank, is among those...

"He finally broke and he walked them through what he had done. "They totted up his losses and by Sunday night they worked out that the losses were about £1.2 billion. The bank's bosses decided it had to cancel the bets immediately when the markets opened on Monday. "They started unwinding them on Monday morning - but because the market was failing the £1.2 billion loss became a £3.7 billion loss." Some senior City figures said the "positions" were so huge that dumping them on one day could have been enough to trigger Monday's stock market meltdown, the worst since...

THE pilot of the British Airways aircraft that crash-landed at Heathrow said he feared the flight would end in “catastrophe” as he struggled to cope with a double engine failure just two miles from touchdown. First Officer John Coward, 41, said both engines lost power simultaneously, leaving him with just seconds to bring the aircraft down. -- snip -- Investigators examining the wreckage of flight BA038 are now focusing on the theory that the crash was caused by a failure in the avionics and electronics systems that control the plane’s engines. . . . A senior industry source said: “....

When New York City’s open-armed embrace of tourists finally extends beyond the boundaries of Earth to creatures from outer space, these visitors will find themselves right at home in Madison Square Park’s sleek, shiny new public toilet. Indeed, the toilet calls to mind not a port-o-let, but rather the sort of room one imagines adjoined the personal quarters of Capt. James T. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise.

ATHENS, Tenn. -- Harold Powers was only 20 when he watched a frightening sight unfold here 60 years ago: Battle-hardened World War II veterans in a shootout with armed sheriff's deputies. The so-called "Battle of Athens" began Aug. 1, 1946, when veterans opened fire on the local jail to stop corrupt local officials from stealing an election. ... The shooting continued until the pre-dawn of Aug. 2 when the former soldiers tossed dynamite at the jail, prompting deputies and a sheriff candidate holed up with ballot boxes to surrender.

For the printing and posting convenience of FReepers, this link has clear images of all the cartoons -- much better than the fuzzy ones on the Wikipedia link. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004413.htm

In a highly unusual move, the city's health commissioner has issued an "open letter" to the Jewish community urging that it stop an ancient circumcision practice that has infected seven infants with herpes. ... some Orthodox parents insist on a "suction by mouth" method, in which the mohel puts his mouth to the wound. Excerpt: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/59665.htm

ATLANTA (AP) - As Valerie Bennett was evacuated from a New Orleans hospital, rescuers told her there was no room in the boat for her dogs. She pleaded. ``I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring,'' the 34-year-old nurse recalled Saturday. They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive. Such emotional scenes were repeated perhaps thousands of times along the Gulf Coast last week as pet owners were forced to abandon their animals in...