Free Republic

Former ABC News show anchor named managing editor of cable channel. NEW YORK - Ted Koppel has joined the Discovery Channel to make news documentaries, bringing his former top producer and eight other ex-"Nightline" staff members, the cable channel announced Wednesday. Koppel was named managing editor of Discovery, and his first program for the network is due next fall. The longtime ABC News anchor left "Nightline" after 25 years in November. The late-night news show he originated has continued on ABC with three new anchors.

Diamond brand dog food recalled after toxin detected in 23 states. Contaminated dog food which was sold in 23 states killed nearly two dozen dogs and sickened 18 more, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The deaths and illnesses sparked an FDA investigation into the pet food made by the Diamond Pet Food Company at its Gaston, S.C., manufacturing plant. The FDA said so far 23 animal deaths have been linked to the pet food. The company, based in Meta, Mo., issued a recall of 19 varieties of dog and cat food on Dec. 21 because some of the...

Number of protesters has doubled in the past week, U.S. official says. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The number of detainees on hunger strike at the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay more than doubled in the last week to 84, an official said Thursday. Forty-six detainees joined 38 already on strike on Dec. 25, said Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, who added that the number of fasting detainees “routinely fluctuates.” “On the anniversary of Sept. 11, the number of strikers spiked to 131,” Martin said. “They steadily decreased over the weeks and months until Dec. 25, and...

LOS ANGELES - Billy Crystal won't be singing his movie parodies at the Oscars in March. Crystal tells Variety that he was asked last week to host, but he had to turn down the job. Crystal's one-man show "700 Sundays" opens in Los Angeles next month, he's going to direct a movie and is writing another book.

Dec. 21, 2005 - Back in the 1980s, when I was living in Johannesburg and reporting on apartheid South Africa, a white neighbor proffered a tasteless confession. She was "quite relieved," she told me, that new media restrictions prohibited our reporting on government repression. No matter that Pretoria was detaining tens of thousands of people without real evidence of wrongdoing. No matter that many of them, including children, were being tortured—sometimes to death. No matter that government hit squads were killing political opponents. No matter that police were shooting into crowds of black civilians protesting against their disenfranchisement. "It's so...

Group sex among consenting adults not a threat to society, it says. Group sex among consenting adults is neither prostitution nor a threat to society, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Wednesday as it lifted a ban on so-called “swingers” clubs. In a ruling that radically changes the way courts determine what poses a threat to the population, the top court threw out the conviction of a Montreal man who ran a club where members could have group sex in a private room behind locked doors.

Dec. 26, 2005 - Jan 2, 2006 issue - Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son Casey in the war, staked out President George W. Bush at his Crawford, Texas, ranch last August looking for answers about U.S. involvement in Iraq. She spoke with Martha Brant from London, where Sheehan addressed the International Peace Conference and is currently the subject of a one-woman play . . . One thing that has prevented the peace movement in America is the media. I spoke with 5,000 people in North Carolina on March 19, 2005, and the press called the protest "insignificant."...

Cedric Griffin talks to Austin police amid investigation of Longhorn athletes. AUSTIN, Texas - Texas standout cornerback Cedric Griffin has talked with police, a lawyer advising the player said Friday night, amid reports authorities are investigating an alleged assault and a robbery they believe might have been committed by Longhorns athletes. Police would not identify the suspects, say how many are being investigated or if they are members of the second-ranked Longhorns football team, which is scheduled to play top-ranked Southern California in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 4 for the national title. The Houston Chronicle and News 8 Austin...

Firm to pay $5.35 million in FTC's largest civil penalty protecting consumers. Updated: 11:46 a.m. ET Dec. 13, 2005 WASHINGTON - DirecTV Inc. will pay $5.35 million to settle charges that its telemarketers called households listed on the national do-not-call registry to pitch satellite TV programming, Federal Trade Commission officials said Tuesday. The proposed settlement, if approved by a federal judge in Los Angeles, would be the FTC’s largest civil penalty in a consumer protection case. The DirecTV complaint, filed by the Department of Justice at the FTC’s request, named the company and five telemarketing firms it hired, as well...

Updated: 10:20 p.m. ET Dec. 9, 2005 - Unless California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger grants his appeal for clemency, Stanley (Tookie) Williams is scheduled to be executed late Monday night at San Quentin State Prison, where he has been on death row since 1981 following a conviction for quadruple murder. Williams spoke Friday with NEWSWEEK’s Karen Breslau by phone from his cell on San Quentin’s death row. Excerpts: Why do you want to go on under the conditions you live in? Williams: First and foremost, I have the heart, the fortitude and the redemption to fight. I’m not culpable. I’m not...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the government can seize a person’s Social Security benefits to pay old student loans. Retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the decision that went against a disabled man, James Lockhart, who had sued claiming he needed all of his $874 monthly check to pay for food and medication. Lockhart, 67, a former postal worker who now lives in public housing in Seattle, has heart disease, diabetes and other health problems. He has about $77,000 in student loan debt....

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - He has led civil rights marches, scolded the nation's leaders and even run for president, but the Rev. Al Sharpton now wants to do something completely different -- star in his own television sitcom. Sharpton, in an interview with Reuters on Friday, confirmed a report in Daily Variety that he would soon be filming a pilot for a family show called "Al in the Family" that would revolve around his larger-than-life personality. "I don't know if I am a good actor or not but I will be playing myself and I have been practicing that for...

They say better late than never but......

Abrams asks why men looking for underage sex were allowed to walk free. TRANSCRIPT - During "Dateline NBC's" recent hidden camera investigation, 19 were caught going to a suburban home where they thought they'd be meeting with sexually available teens. Some made a run for it when they went into the kitchen and saw NBC's Chris Hansen waiting. One came into the house completely naked and sat down in the kitchen, where Hansen met him and kindly handed him a towel to cover himself up. A rabbi was so upset at being caught that he even seemingly went after Hansen....

This should be real good if you don't take anything he say seriously - And who does?

‘He Had No Choice’ - The wife of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin on why her husband wants a new trial, his life in prison and his desire to have a child. Yigal Amir, the right-wing extremist serving a life sentence for assassinating Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin a decade ago, is demanding a new trial. Though he admitted in court to pulling the trigger and was even filmed in the act, the 35-year-old religious Jew now claims new evidence suggests there might have been a high-level plot to kill Rabin--and that Amir’s bullet therefore may not have been the fatal one. The...

Louisiana governor blasts feds over out-of-state rebuilding contracts. Hundreds of people rallied at the state Capitol Saturday, pushing state officials to give more hurricane reconstruction work to Louisiana residents. “This is not just a New Orleans struggle,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spoke along with the Rev. Al Sharpton. “Our nation’s character is on trial. This is our nation’s challenge.” The storms left as many as 296,000 Louisiana residents without jobs, costing $300 million in unemployment benefits, state officials say.

Ringleader of $12.7 million scheme hauled from courtroom before sentence. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The ringleader of a scheme that bilked investors out of millions of dollars was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday, but not before the screaming defendant was removed from the courtroom. Janet Mavis Marcusse was convicted of defrauding 577 people of $12.7 million and laundering the money through bank accounts opened under the names of nonexistent churches. Marcusse, 49, spoke for more than an hour at the hearing, accusing the government of setting her up. She walked away from the lectern as U.S. District Judge...

DETROIT - An advertisement in a local weekly newspaper has caused some controversy over its words and a photograph, Local 4 reported. The full-page ad on the back page of this week's The Michigan Citizen carries the headline, "Lynching Is Still Legal in America," and bears a photograph of three black men being lynched. The ad was purchased by the Citizens for Honest Government with the intention of depicting Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick as a victim of media lynching, Local 4 reported. The price of the ad was not disclosed, but according to the rates posted on the newspaper's Web site,...

Teen threw frozen bird through windshield, crushing woman’s face. A teen who severely injured a woman by tossing a 20-pound turkey through her car windshield was sentenced to six months in jail after his victim requested a light sentence. Ryan Cushing, 19, also received five years of probation Monday and was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment and do community service. Victoria Ruvolo underwent a 10-hour operation to repair her crushed face and spent a month in the hospital following the incident last November. She said she requested a light sentence for Cushing because she wanted to give him a second...