Free Republic

... The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published. The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.” The photo shows Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Maine, who was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush Aug. 14 in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, according to The AP. Gates...

Annie Leibovitz is as famous as the people she photographs but now the genius behind the lens is close to financial ruin -- a victim, some say, of her own relentless artistic ambition. Among the qualities making Leibovitz, 59, the most sought after portrait photographer in the world are legendary perfectionism and the pouring of resources into lavish sets. Over the course of her long career, nothing has been too extreme in Leibovitz's pursuit of the perfect picture. She put former action icon and current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on top of a mountain, submerged black actress Whoopi Goldberg in...

<p>Ahmadi Vadhidi, whom President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has designated Iran's next defense minister, was head of the notorious al Qods Brigades which ordered and organized the bombing attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994 that left 84 people dead.</p>

Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends. The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration. Bart McEntire, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told SPLC researchers that this is the most growth...

On Aug. 5, the day of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inauguration as president, Tehran officials said they could not confirm or deny Iran was holding three American journalists detained on July 31 while crossing from Iraq into Iran on the Kurdistan border. According to DEBKAfile's Iranian sources, Tehran is preparing to claim the three captives, Jewish Americans, are Israeli spies, arousing fears in Washington and Tehran that the newly elected president plans to use his captives as a stick to humiliate the Obama administration and force an apology for the way it treated him. Ahmadinejad is furious over the White House's refusal...

A Gahanna police officer pleaded guilty this morning to speeding charges after he was ticketed last month for traveling almost 150 miles per hour on a motorcycle. Gahanna Officer Christopher Thomas, 33, received a speeding ticket eight days after he was caught going 149 mph on I-70 near Buckeye Lake, and then only after the Ohio Highway Patrol made a courtesy call to his department. Trooper Jason E. Highsmith, 35, who was riding his motorcycle near Thomas, received a ticket for going 147 mph four days later. Licking County Municipal Judge W. David Branstool fined Thomas the maximum $150 and...

President Obama's Wednesday night criticism of Cambridge, Mass., police has drawn a rebuke from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). The criticism comes after Obama said Cambridge police officers acted "stupidly" when they arrested Henry Louis Gates, a friend of the president's, after he broke into his own home. Gates was arrested on disorderly conduct charges, which were then dropped. The president said it highlights ongoing problems with race relations in the U.S. Jim Pascoe, executive director of the FOP's legislative office, noted that before Obama made the remarks, the president acknowledged that he was only vaguely familiar with what...

Graduating midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis are being told in writing to leave at home or in their vehicles all "ceremonial swords" and anything else "that might be considered a weapon or a threat by screeners" for Friday's outdoor commencement ceremonies featuring an address by President Barack Obama.

I'm thinking of playing on line poker for money. I've never done so. Can anyone give advice on which venues to use and which ones to avoid? Which ones charge the least overhead? I'm talking abut modest amounts of money--less than $5k. Can anyone give me some advice here?

Cheered wildly by U.S. troops, President Barack Obama flew unannounced into Iraq on Tuesday and promptly declared it was time for Iraqis to "take responsibility for their country" after America's commitment of six years and thousands of lives. "You have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country," the president said as he made a brief inspection of a war he opposed as candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief. "That is an extraordinary achievement." total of 4,265 U.S. troops have lost their lives in Iraq since March 2003, and Obama said...

Here are the facts: 1. Mr. Obama has a Muslim name. 2. Mr. Obama's father was Muslim. 3. Mr. Obama attended school in Indonesia where he was registered as a Muslim. At this school he took Islamic classes. (I am not sure if the classes require the recitation of the Muslim call to prayer). 4. Mr. Obama refered to "his Muslim faith" in an interview with ABC news on 7 Sept 08. 5. A Muslim is anyone who recites the Muslim call to prayer..in public. 6. Sharia law dictates that apostates from Islam should be put to death. 7. Mr....

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Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told the Christian Broadcasting Network he had a theology degree, he told voters in Iowa he had a theology degree, he repeated the claim in last month's CNN YouTube debate ... but, his campaign now says, it was not true. Huckabee's claim began unraveling following his offhanded comment about Mormonism in a New York Times interview last weekend. Reporter Zev Chafets wrote: "I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. 'I think it's a religion,' he said. 'I...

AMES, Iowa (AP) - Campaigning for his wife, former President Clinton says that when they were starting out he was so struck by her intellect and ability he once suggested she should just dump him and jump into her own political career. That didn't happen, of course, and on Monday he gave an Iowa crowd his version of why it didn't. "I thought it would be wrong for me to rob her of the chance to be what I thought she should be," said Clinton. "She laughed and said, 'First I love you and, second, I'm not going to run...

A diplomatic train wreck eight years in the making appeared all but certain yesterday as U.S., European and Russian mediators admitted failure in a last-ditch attempt to reach a deal in the volatile standoff over the fate of the Serbian province of Kosovo. "After 120 days of intensive negotiations, the parties were unable to reach an agreement on Kosovo's status," negotiators said in a report to be officially delivered Monday to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "Neither side was willing to yield on the basic question of sovereignty," the mediators stated. In the face of Russian objections, NATO foreign ministers meeting...

Our next president will likely face a Russia led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, determined to stand up to a West Russians believe played them for fools when they sought to be friends. We pushed NATO into Moscow's face, bringing six ex-Warsaw Pact nations and three ex-Soviet republics – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – into our Cold War alliance and plotted to bring in Ukraine and Georgia. We pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty over Moscow's objection, then announced plans to plant ABM radars in the Czech Republic and anti-missile missiles in Poland. Putin has now responded in kind,...

local MP Paul Muite urged the Kenyan Wildlife Service to help contain their aggressive behaviour. Mr Muite caused laughter when he told parliament that the monkeys had taken to harassing and mocking women in a village. They estimate there are close to 300 monkeys invading the farms at dawn. They eat the village's maize, potatoes, beans and other crops. And because women are primarily responsible for the farms, they have borne the brunt of the problem, as they try to guard their crops. The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts They say...

Esperanza Brooks bragged about her discreet girls and high-end clientele. But the cheerleading coach turned moonlighting madame name-dropped to the wrong people and landed in jail last week. Las Vegas police arrested Brooks, 36, and four associates last week after a two-week investigation into the local prostitution ring. The investigation started when a tipster told detectives about a cheerleading coach at Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy who might be running a prostitution service. When an undercover detective called Brooks, she said her girls were clean and only serviced upscale clients, a police report said. She later boasted that she had...

When the FBI asked Congress this spring to provide $3.6 million in the war spending bill for its Gulfstream V jet, it said the money was needed to ensure that the aircraft, packed with state-of-the-art security and communications gear, could continue to fly counterterrorism agents on "crucial missions" into Iraq. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the bureau has made similar annual requests to maintain and fuel the $40 million jet on grounds that it had a "tremendous impact" on combating terrorism by rapidly deploying FBI agents to "fast-moving investigations and crisis situations" in places such as Afghanistan. Interactive...

ATLANTA (AP) - The honeymooner quarantined with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was identified Thursday as a 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawyer whose new father-in-law is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of TB. Bob Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law, 31-year-old Andrew Speaker, to federal health authorities. He said only that he gave Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease. The CDC had no immediate comment. "I'm hoping and praying that he's getting the proper treatment, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically," Cooksey told The...