Free Republic

On Friday, an 11-year odyssey to bring Brandon Burlsworth's story to the big screen will reach its conclusion when Greater opens in 400 theaters in 20 states. "You will laugh and cry," said Chris Severio, the actor who plays Brandon. Judging by the trailer, you will indeed do both.

The United States Postal Service has revealed on the Federal Business Opportunities website its plans to purchase bullets. This announcement has attracted the attention of Infowars and libertarian reporter Ben Swann. For a couple of years media has reported large government purchases of bullets raising the suspicions of government critics. In 2012 the Christian Post reported, "The Internet has been buzzing with conspiracy theories and rumors as to why the U.S. Social Security Administration made a bid last month for 174,000 hollow-tipped bullets." In 2013 Fox News reported, "The Homeland Security Department wants to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds...

Pensacola Beach, Florida —During the 2012 Sea Turtle Triathlon in Pensacola, Marines helped carry a young boy over the finish live after his prosthetic limb broke. The boy, 11-year old Ben Baltz of Valparaiso, Florida, was diagnosed with bone cancer in his right leg, his fibula and his tibia had to be removed, according to CNN iReport. He walks with a mechanical knee and a prosthetic walking leg, which he switches out when he plays sports. On Sunday, Ben competed in the Sea Turtle Kids Triathlon in Pensacola. He had completed the 150-yard swim, 4-mile bike ride and half of...

HAZLEHURST, GA (WTOC) - Jeff Davis Tax Commissioner mulls removing Christian signs Posted: Aug 16, 2012 6:28 PM EDT Updated: Aug 16, 2012 8:02 PM EDT By Dal Cannady - bio | email Jeff Davis Tax Commissioner Susie Kersey said she's received nothing but compliments for the plaques of scripture and other inspirational messages displayed in her office lobby. But a national organization that monitors the separation of church and state notified her they had received a complaint. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent her two letters asking her to remove them.

LYONS, GA (WTOC) - The house at 220 Harden Chapel Road sat quiet Monday morning, a striking contrast to what erupted before dawn Saturday. Norman Neesmith told Toombs County investigators he awoke just before 4 a.m. to some noise and found two young men inside his home. "They were invited in the house by, I'd describe her as, his granddaughter who is age 18," explained Toombs County sheriff Alvie Kight. The sheriff said an underage female, friend of the granddaughter, was also there. Sheriff Kight said Neesmith and his late wife had served as foster parents for several children, including...

FORT STEWART - The familiar pattern of war deployments was visible once more this weekend as members of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team began deploying to Fort Irwin and the National Training Center in California. Members of Crazy Horse Troop, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment gathered at their headquarters Friday evening to pass out last-minute instructions and to bid farewell to loved ones before leaving for a month-long training exercise. It was a similar scene in August, when soldiers of the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team left for NTC. The unit now is making final preparations...

HOLDENVILLE, Oklahoma -- An Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper suspended for a fight with a paramedic in May is on paid administrative leave again after being accused of using excessive force. This is the second time in five months that Trooper Daniel Martin has been placed on paid administrative leave. Martin was suspended earlier this year after cell phone video surfaced showing the trooper chocking a paramedic. During his suspension in July, Trooper Martin was forced to undergo counseling for anger management, but a Holdenville man said that anger was on display once again. Martin's latest scuffle involves a Holdenville man,...

GUANATANAMO BAY, CUBA (WTOC) - Their day starts with a sound that awakens every sense and establishes one of extreme urgency. But after the gates clang shut behind them, guards at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center say they simply go to work. "You never know what's going to happen,'' said guard Jamie Mirabueno. "So you've got to be intense about it.'' Uncertainty and intensity are tacit working conditions at Gitmo, to be expected in the unpredictable job of standing watch over detained enemy combatants, accused terrorists whose intentions, attitudes and actions can be unknown. "It's very stressful, I can be...

The 17th-century metal worker who prepared a tag to mark cargo heading for the New World could have never imagined that his craftsmanship would eventually be leaving the planet. Upon completion of its journey however, his small metal marker etched with the name of its destination, "Yames Towne" will have logged more than four million miles over four centuries, traveling from England to the early American settlement and then, 400 years later, on a round trip to the International Space Station (ISS) [image]. NASA is flying the tag, along with four commemorative coins to honor early American explorers. They will...

LOS ANGELES — A man dressed as Chewbacca was arrested after police said the street performer head-butted a tour guide operator in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Frederick Evan Young, 44, of Los Angeles was booked Thursday for investigation of misdemeanor battery, police Lt. Paul Vernon said. Police said the 6-foot-4 street performer was seen arguing Thursday afternoon with a tour guide who had expressed concern the Star Wars wookiee impersonator was "harassing and touching tourists" in violation of city law. The city passed ordinances last year seeking to crack down on the colorful assortment of actors who...

MACON, Georgia: Macon Mayor Jack Ellis has converted to Islam and is now working to legally change his name to Hakim Mansour Ellis. Ellis, who was raised Christian, said Thursday that he became a Sunni Muslim during a December ceremony in the west African nation of Senegal. "You do it because it feels right," said Ellis. "To me it's no big deal. But people like to know what you believe in. And this is what I believe in." Ellis said he has been studying the Quran for years and that his new religion was originally practiced by his ancestors before...

BALTIMORE — Prison officials and poison control centers can add a new substance to their list of intoxicants — hand sanitizer. A usually calm 49-year-old prisoner prompted a call to the Maryland Poison Control Center after guards found him red-eyed, combative and "lecturing everyone about life." Other inmates and staff reported the unidentified prisoner had been drinking from a gallon container of hand sanitizer, which is more than 70 percent alcohol, or over 140 proof, the center's director wrote in an article appearing in the February issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. That call was one of about...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, who is wanted in the Philippines for alleged terror financing, was killed in Madagascar in what appeared to be a burglary, the victim's brother said Wednesday. Jamal Khalifa, who was married to a sister of the al-Qaida leader, was killed when gunmen broke into his house in a Madagascan village on Tuesday, his brother Malek Khalifa said in a phone interview from his home in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. Malek, who was distraught when recounting his brother's death, said between 25 and 30 armed men broke into Jamal's house "while...

OLD TOWN, Maine — When members of the Bare Nekkid Mainers rent the Old Town Bowling Center, all they really need are the shoes. "Hey, you can't go skinny-dipping at this time of year," Hessa, who organizes the gatherings and wanted to be identified only by her first name, told the Bangor Daily News. Self-described naturist nudists, the Bare Nekkid Mainers belong to an international organization and participate in nudist events throughout the year. The group used to bowl in Albion, but their venue there closed. During the three events held at the Old Town center since September, the one-story...

Should Zell Miller be honored with a statue on the grounds of the state Capitol? House lawmakers are expected to take up that question Wednesday when Republicans argue the former U.S. senator and Georgia governor deserves a monument in his honor. The maverick Democrat was lambasted by his own party and praised by Republicans after he gave the keynote address at President Bush's 2000 Republican nomination. Since then he has backed leading GOP leaders, including Gov, Sonny Perdue's re-election.

Fish have the reasoning capacity of a 4- or 5-year-old child when it comes to figuring out who among their peers is "top dog," new research shows. Stanford University scientists made the discovery—said to be the first demonstration that fish can use logical reasoning to figure out their social pecking order—by studying fights among small, highly territorial, spiny-finned fish called cichlids, common in freshwater in tropical Africa, including in Lake Tanganyika in central Africa. Logan Grosenick, a graduate student in statistics, and his colleagues found that a sixth fish could infer or learn indirectly which were the 1st through 5th...

ATLANTA - An archivist was going through historical records at the state archives when he came across a forgotten piece of history. Gregory Jarrell was looking at microfilm Wednesday when the date, "March 2, 1777" jumped out at him. He went to the vault and pulled out the bound volume that had the original document. Jarrell had found what archivists think is Georgia's only official recording of the Declaration of Independence. State Archives Director David Carmicheal said the handwritten document was probably recorded by a scribe or clerk after Congress dispatched a copy of the original document from Philadelphia to...

ROME (AP)—The world's most famously enigmatic woman may have shed some of her mystery. An amateur historian said Friday that he has found the final resting place of the woman some believe inspired Leonardo da Vinci's most renowned painting, the "Mona Lisa.'' A death certificate shows that Lisa Gherardini—the Renaissance woman some believe was the model for the "Mona Lisa''—died on July 15, 1542, in Florence and is buried in a convent in central Florence, Giuseppe Pallanti said. "Maybe Leonardo chose a woman like many others,'' Pallanti, a high school economics teacher in Florence, told The Associated Press. "She was...

Next Superman Has More Baddies? Michael Dougherty, co-writer of last year's Superman Returns, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming sequel will feature at least one villain drawn from the DC Comics franchise. Or more than one? "Maybe," Dougherty said coyly in an interview on the set of his upcoming supernatural horror film Trick 'r Treat in Vancouver, Canada, on Jan. 15. "It's [Mr.] Myxyzptlk," he added, with tongue in cheek. Dougherty said that it's likely he and his Superman Returns writing partner Dan Harris will again work with Singer on the sequel. "We're talking," Dougherty said. "We're bouncing ideas...

LONDON (AP)—There is nothing kind or gentle about a hanging. It is a process scientifically designed to break the neck and choke a person to death as efficiently as possible. In the recent Iraqi executions, former president Saddam Hussein and two of his accomplices, his half brother and the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were hanged from a gallows. In such judicial hangings, the victims are typically dropped a distance greater than their height through a trapdoor. At this point, the rope becomes rigid, and the force of the noose should break the victim's neck, causing immediate paralysis and...