Free Republic

So I'm sitting at SeaTac airport. By my count there are no less than 8 people within earshot loudly playing videos, video chats, or in 1 case having a conversation over speakerphone. It's obnoxious. A bunch of noise I don't want. The interesting thing to me, and this holds with observations I've made over the last couple years, is this: every single person doing this is over 50 years of age. There are plenty of younger people playing videos, music, making phone calls, etc, but they're all using headphones. So what happened? I'm in my thirties, and I'm pretty sure...

A British man accused of public disorder after joking about blowing up a flight has gone on trial in Spain. Aditya Verma made the comment on Snapchat on his way to the island of Menorca with friends in July 2022. The message, sent before Mr Verma departed Gatwick airport, read: "On my way to blow up the plane (I'm a member of the Taliban)."

Hello all, FR seems as good a group as any to ask a firearm related question: I have a 4.6" Smith and Wesson M&P 2.0 (10mm) I'd like to put a light on. I've never had a pistol with a light before, and am finding myself a bit overwhelmed by the sheer variety of choices. Any recommendations? I don't particularly mind it being toward the heavier end of things, since that'll help calm down the relatively lightweight M&P's muzzle snap. (I tell ya, you get spoiled by the good recoil manners of a 1911 sometimes...) This is a gun I...

A family from Nyssa, Oregon is sharing their story about how a deep fryer sent their 22-month-old baby to the burn unit. Engaged couple, Dakota Fraizer and Alyssa Miracle, are Amara Fraizer's parents. On March 3rd, they say while cooking dinner, Amara reached for the deep fryer which had boiling vegetable oil in it. "When it hit her head, she closed her eyes and turned her head, she probably saved her own eyes,” said Fraizer. The oil spilled all over her body. The couple said they immediately dialed 9-1-1. Not long after, Amara was life-flighted to Saint Alphonsus in Boise...

Women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke made an appearance on Turlington Plaza on Wednesday to encourage students to utilize early voting for next week’s presidential election. Fluke stopped at UF as part of her “It’s On You” Youth Early Vote Campus Outreach tour. About 40 students gathered by the potato statue to listen.

Washington, D.C.– The EPA made the surprise announcement through its Ohio office today that it will regulate campaign signs and flyers in an effort to protect the environment from their harmful effects. "Unprecedented numbers of Romney/Ryan signs have broken out this across the country, hand equally unprecedented numbers are being defaced and thrown away clandestinely" said EPA spokesperson Heidi Griesmer. "There has already been an alarming number of wildlife die-offs related to the sign pandemic." On Wednesday, Ohio Department of Natural Resources personnel reported finding a pond overflowing with defaced Romney/Ryan signs, destroying its value as a habitat for fish...

<p>SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A Santa Ana man on Friday faced false imprisonment and other charges for allegedly trying to kidnap a 10-year-old boy.</p> <p>KNX 1070′s Mike Landa reports police responded to a call shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Thursday from Delhi Park at 505 E. Central stating that a soccer coach was unsuccessfully attempting to detain 55-year-old suspect Victor Joseph Espinoza.</p>

UPPER DARBY — A Philadelphia woman is facing drug-dealing charges after allegedly concealing 36 glass vials of suspected cocaine in her vagina, police said. The bizarre incident involved a person who was allegedly buying drugs and felt threatened after being ordered to get more money at 4:52 a.m. Saturday at the Wawa convenience store, 460 S. 69th St. Ashley Bellamy, 22, of the 2300 block of North Bouvier Street, and Marcus Gibson, 23, of the 4500 block of North 18th Street, both of Philadelphia, were arrested and charged with drug violations. “The call came in from an individual buying drugs...

*snip* "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that," Perdue said. "You want people who don't worry about the next election." The comment -- which came during a discussion of the economy -- perked more than a few ears. It's unclear whether Perdue, a Democrat, is serious -- but her tone was level and she asked others to support her on the...

What's the current polling look like on the McCaskill/Akin race in MO? Last I knew his campaign was trailing a tongue of flame and rapidly approaching 0 AGL, but that was forever ago in political time. I have a vague impression that that's no longer the case anymore, however. What's up right now? I don't have a feel which polls are least skewed/inaccurate for Missouri. I'm having trouble finding sources that aren't just opinion pieces after the debate.

A Superior Court judge has ordered a new election on Oct. 2 in the deadlocked Democratic primary for the 5th General Assembly District. Judge A. Susan Peck scheduled the new vote after an uncounted absentee ballot with the potential to decide the race was opened in court Wednesday afternoon — and was found to be cast for the third candidate in the race. The absentee ballot was in an envelope marked "deceased," but election officials found out Tuesday that it was cast by an elderly Windsor woman who is alive and living in a local nursing home. The uncounted ballot,...

Does anyone have a list of all the economy news headlines saying the last 18 months of bad news is "unexpected?" I could swear a saw a good list somewhere, but I can't find it.

<p>Officials are executing a controlled breach of a dam in Mississippi this afternoon to prevent it from failing, and local authorities in Louisiana have ordered the mandatory evacuation of as many as 60,000 people downriver as a precaution against potential flooding.</p>

Security and medical officials in Kibaale District have registered a case in which a man allegedly went in an isolation ward at Kagadi Hospital and stole a cellular phone from one of the Ebola patients. The 40-year-old resident of Kyakabugahya LCI in Kagadi Town Council travelled about three kilometers to the hospital to apparently obtain a phone estimated to be valued at Shs60,000 more than two weeks ago. The suspect allegedly broke into the isolation ward on the night of Tuesday August 14, undetected by hospital guards. The patient, who has since succumbed to the deadly hemorrhagic fever, then reported...

The Battle for Featherville has begun. Fire crews moved from a defensive to an offensive posture Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning as they took the fight to the Trinity Ridge Fire, which has burned over 105,200 acres of prime forest land in Elmore County. With favorable weather conditions Wednsday, firefighters began setting controlled burns along the ridge west of Featherville on the northern part of the Pine-Featherville corridor. But it will be a race against a storm front expected to hit this weekend that could cause erratic and unpredictable behavior with the fire. *snip* In the Pine-Featherville area, there are...

Los Angeles (CNN) -- A man charged with breaking into LL Cool J's home Wednesday morning faces a long prison sentence if convicted because of his previous convictions, the prosecutor's spokeswoman said Thursday. Jonathan Kirby, 56, suffered a broken nose, jaw and ribs when he encountered the muscular rapper-actor inside his Sherman Oaks, Caklifornia, home, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An unmanned experimental aircraft failed during an attempt to fly at six times the speed of sound in the latest setback for hypersonic flight. The X-51A Waverider was designed to reach Mach 6, or 3,600 mph, after being dropped by a B-52 bomber off the Southern California coast on Tuesday. Engineers hoped it would sustain its top speed for five minutes, twice as long as an X-51A has gone before. But the Air Force said Wednesday that a faulty control fin prevented it from starting its exotic scramjet engine and it was lost.

The New Hampshire hospital lab technician indicted last week for infecting 31 people with Hepatitis C might have infected "tens of thousands" of patients in at least 13 hospitals, ABC News has learned. David Kwiatkowski, a former lab technician at Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire, had allegedly been stealing the Fentanyl syringes intended for patients, injecting his own arm and then refilling those empty syringes with another liquid-like saline, according to a statement from the United States Attorney's Office in New Hampshire. Since Kwiatkowski tested positive for Hepatitis C in June 2010, he passed it on to the hospital patients...

To all the people moping and crying and declaring that all is lost: please read this Medal of Honor citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty at Saipan, Mariana Islands, 19 June to 7 July 1944. When his entire company was held up by fire from automatic weapons and small-arms fire from strongly fortified enemy positions that commanded the view of the company, Sgt. (then Pvt.) Baker voluntarily took a bazooka and dashed alone to within 100 yards of the enemy. Through heavy rifle and machinegun fire that...

BOISE - Triple murderer Paul Ezra Rhoades was executed this morning despite repeated last-minute appeals, in Idaho’s first execution since 1994 and only its second since 1957. “The time of death is 9:15,” Mountain time, Idaho Department of Corrections spokesman Jeff Ray announced. “The procedures are complete.” In his final words, Rhoades took responsibility for one of the murders, but not the other two. A friend of the family of one of the victims, who was in the chamber witnessing the execution, said, “The devil has gone home.” Unlike the last person executed in Idaho, double murderer Keith Eugene Wells,...