Free Republic

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) denied authorizing force-feeding – a practice that international groups have said amounts to torture – during his time at Guantanamo Bay, according to a new interview. In an interview airing Thursday on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” DeSantis said the allegations that he authorized force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay were “absolutely” wrong, saying that he did not have the authority to do so. “I was a junior officer. I didn’t have authority to authorize anything,” he told Piers Morgan. “There may have been a commander that would have done feeding if someone was going to die, but that...

Throughout Christmas day, people could be seen pulling up to areas known for their homeless population, handing out blankets, bags, food and drinks, all in the spirit of giving. Yet the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is urging the public not to give back like this. Officials are telling people to donate to shelters and help serve food through organizations such as Catholic Charities, The Salvation Army and the Las Vegas Rescue Mission. In fact, during the Thanksgiving holiday, LVMPD issued several citations carrying a $1,000 fine for people who pulled over and fed the homeless. City officials say they...

The admonitions were in emails from employees at Reedy Creek Emergency Services. Reedy Creek is the Disney-controlled taxing district that provides government services to the theme parks and surrounding areas. The emails were obtained through a public-records request made after an alligator snatched 2-year-old Lane Graves from the shore of the Seven Seas Lagoon on June 14 and drowned him while he was on vacation with family from Nebraska. The attack took place at Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. After that, many tourists came forward with their own stories of alligator sightings at Disney. One employee at the resort said...

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, Have you ever given food to a homeless person? Well, if you do it again in the future it might be a criminal act depending on where you live. Right now, there are dozens of major U.S. cities that have already passed laws against feeding the homeless. As you will read about below, in some areas of the country you can actually be fined hundreds of dollars for just trying to give food to a hungry person. I know that sounds absolutely insane, but this is what America is turning into....

An elderly woman violated her probation by leaving bread crumbs out in her yard for crows and will remain behind bars. Eighty-one-year-old Mary Musselman was first arrested last month for feeding bears in her backyard. One of the bears was euthanized over it because the Fish and Wildlife Service said the bears might learn not to be afraid of people anymore and then get aggressive. The judge in the case warned Musselman not to feed any more wild animals of any kind: A judge gave her probation at the time, and made it clear: Do it again, and go to...

A man in the Poconos said he is sad to lose an old friend he helped raise. Leroy Lewis of Bushkill said he started feeding Bozo the bear 17 years ago. Through the years, Bozo grew to be a huge part of Lewis's family. Lewis showed Newswatch 16 many pictures of his furry friend and said the friendship never scared him. "I could lay on him, I could pet him, I could do anything, he never bothered me, that's the truth," said Lewis. Lewis said he raised the bear since it was a cub and believes that's when Bozo's mother...

NEWPORT – It's been one year since a Lincoln County circuit court judge booted Karen Noyes from her Yachats home for feeding black bears. Today, Noyes , 62, has a new home, a court appeal and is due to appear on Animal Planet. All in all, said Noyes, "I'm OK." That's not to say the past year has been an easy one. Noyes was convicted last summer on charges of harassing wildlife for feeding black bears at her house despite repeated warnings to stop. Judge Thomas Branford sentenced her in June, ordering her to vacate her home by Aug. 31....

OYSTERVILLE — Is Monte Miller — the man state officials accuse of causing the largest bear removal case in state history — a nature lover or a menace?Talk to the people in this tiny Long Beach Peninsula village and you'll hear both points of view. And just about everybody here is talking about the 10 black bears that were recently euthanized or relocated after years of being hand-fed by the 71-year-old Miller."I don't know how you live long enough to have gray hair and not know that feeding bears is the worst thing you could do for them," said...

NEWPORT -- A Lincoln County jury on Tuesday found a Yachats woman on trial in connection with feeding black bears guilty of one count of chasing and harassing wildlife. She was acquitted, however, of five counts of recklessly endangering another person. The Lincoln County district attorney's office brought the charges against Karen Noyes, 61, after the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife responded to a call from Noyes and found pictures in her house of her feeding the bears. She was originally charged with four counts of chasing and harassing wildlife. But Judge Thomas Branford moved to consolidate the multiple...

NEWPORT - When Dena Pickner awoke to a commotion at her Yachats house last June, she expected to find a raccoon. Instead, she climbed out of bed and saw a black bear coming through her dog door. "His head was stuck and he couldn't get out," Pickner told those in a court room at the Lincoln County Courthouse here this morning. "He grunted, backed up and took the dog door with him." Two weeks later, the black bear was dead, one of four shot to death in a four-week period last summer in Yachats. Now a Yachats woman is on...

Nobel prizewinner took short cuts to show that the way gulls feed is instinctive. Herring gull chicks instinctively peck at red spots on their parents' bills to beg for food.Imagebroker / Alamy One of the most famous experiments in biology isn't the solid piece of work it's usually portrayed as, say Dutch researchers who have replicated the study. Instead, it's more like an anecdote that became slightly more legendary each time its author retold the story.The work in question was done in 1947 by the Dutch researcher Niko Tinbergen on the begging behaviour of herring-gull chicks. At the time, the...

I was perusing the Kids and Parenting section of MSNBC and found an article entitled: Drinking water can hurt babies under 6 months. According to Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, MD. "Babies younger than six months old should never be given water to drink [because] consuming too much water can put babies at risk of a potentially life-threatening condition known as water intoxication."

Gene 'links breastfeeding to IQ' The government advises breastfeeding for first six months A single gene influences whether breastfeeding improves a child's intelligence, say London researchers. Children with one version of the FADS2 gene scored seven points higher in IQ tests if they were breastfed. But the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study found breastfeeding had no effect on the IQ of children with a different version. The gene in question helps break down fatty acids from the diet, which have been linked with brain development. Seven points difference is enough to put the child in the top...

TWRA ANSWERS PUBLIC CONCERNS OVER BEAR SITUATION The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) has received numerous calls about its decision to euthanize a female black bear that injured an individual in Sevier County last Friday. Bob Nichols, Regional Manager wanted to advise the public concerning TWRA’s decision. “The problem with this and most bear problems in Tennessee is people, or rather what people do or do not do, said Nichols. “This particular bear was day active (not normal for a "wild bear" especially with cubs), in the middle of a condominium complex, (not in a natural area at a natural...

The Legislature's years-long record of woefully underfunding the state's chief political watchdog agency is a shameful act of negligence that few people have noticed. Not anymore. State Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, has introduced legislation (SB 1120) that would give the Fair Political Practices Commission the $9 million annual budget it has long requested. A self-interested Legislature, wary of healthy scrutiny, has starved the agency of funds, forking over just $6 million annually in the past several years. Forced to cut costs, the FPPC has slashed the staff that keeps an eye on California's 15,000 elected officials from 91 in 1990...

CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq — Work occasionally stops at this former Iraq air base near Balad, where mortar rounds land as insurgents try to disrupt soldiers’ jobs. But even though shelling is a major concern, what really bothers some 69th Signal Company cable dogs is going down manholes into water-filled concrete tunnels where rats, lizards, snakes, wasps and mosquitoes abound. The section is working two shifts a day to complete the task requiring a portion of the company’s 3rd Platoon to run telephone cable for a new area. “Anaconda is growing, and more people means more phone lines,” said Sgt. Victor...

Wis. Law Already Protects Mothers. MADISON, Wis. -- Asking a breast-feeding mother to cover-up could soon cost people in Wisconsin $200. A proposed bill by state Sen. Fred Risser would protect mothers who breast-feed in public from being harassed. Under Wisconsin law it is perfectly legal for a woman to breast-feed her child in a public place. But while the state law may be behind the mother, the public isn't always behind the law, Madison television station WISC reported. Michelle Morgan said she has run into problems trying to breast-feed her son, Ian, in public. "A woman basically said to...

Much has been said or written about the Terri Schiavo case, but the bottom line is that there was no moral justification for killing her because she had an inherent right to life and there was no clear evidence that she wanted food and water withdrawn. The morally correct course of action would have been to let her family take care of her. Nobody would have been harmed by that. Indeed, as radio host Julian Tepper points out, even if she had wanted to exercise a right to die, the autopsy results showed that she was not in a position...

Charles R. McNabb was five months into a hunger strike — his 5-foot-9 frame withered to less than 100 pounds — when he was wheeled into the Airway Heights prison infirmary last year. The prison medical staff wanted to insert a feeding tube. McNabb, convicted of arson, wanted to continue starving. He was remorseful, he had told jailers, for badly burning his stepdaughter. Was it a case of a patient's right to deny medical care, or of the state's obligation to avert a prison suicide? The Washington State Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that the Department of Corrections (DOC) was...