Free Republic

Elise Finch, the beloved and well-known meteorologist at CBS New York, has died. She was 51. Finch died at a local hospital on Sunday, according to the network’s announcement Monday morning. Her cause of death was not announced. “This is a very difficult morning for our CBS 2 family,” morning news anchor Cindy Hsu said on Monday’s broadcast, fighting back tears. […] Prior to joining CBS New York, Finch worked on NBC’s “Early Today Show” and MSNBC. …

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. ... I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS...

Bridgeport, CT Mayor Bill Finch (D) thanked MSNBC anchor Al Sharpton for “fighting the good fight on climate change” during a report on Winter Storm Juno on Monday’s “PoliticsNation.”

ALBANY, N.Y. — An off-duty state trooper accused of running over a man lying on a rural upstate road was arrested Tuesday on a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident. Brian Beardsley, 32, was driving with his girlfriend at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday when his pickup ran over Chad Finch, Fulton County authorities said. They said the couple drove off after turning around, confirming a pedestrian was in the road and calling 911. Deputies found the 29-year-old Finch dead from massive injuries near his home in Providence, not far from a restaurant he'd visited earlier and left...

BROADALBIN -- A car driven by an off-duty state trooper likely hit a Northville man who was found dead in the road, and the victim had a previous DWI conviction for striking a teenage girl, authorities said. The Fulton County Sheriff's Office said the trooper, Brian Beardsley, 32, was driving with his girlfriend on county Highway 110 around 2:41 a.m. Sunday when he struck Chad E. Finch, 29, of South Shore Road. Deputies say the original call to police was made by an unidentified woman who reported that she saw what appeared to be a body in the southbound lane...

KNOXVILLE - A former Knox County administrator is standing trial today on charges she offered up fake receipts to account for more than $2,000 in questionable expenses. Cynthia Finch, who served as community grants director under former Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, is being tried in Criminal Court on charges of forgery and fabricating evidence. Finch was indicted in 2009 and accused of fabricating receipts for about $2,200 in FedEx/Kinko's charges. The charges - two counts of forgery and one count of fabricating evidence - came after Finch's departure from the county's administration, a string of audits involving the county...

KNOXVILLE - A Criminal Court jury this afternoon convicted former Knox County Community Services Director Cynthia Finch of two counts of felony forgery but acquitted her of fabricating evidence. The jurors found she was guilty of forging an invoice for $1,759, a Class D felony punishable by two to four years in prison. She also was convicted of forging an invoice under $500, a Class E felony that has a sentence of one to two years. Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood said sentencing would be set later. The jury acquitted her of fabricating evidence. The verdicts were returned after about...

Enlarge Image Buried gem. Researchers have uncovered "fossil virus" inside the zebra finch genome. Credit: Peripitus/Wikimedia The hepatitis B virus and its ilk have been around for a long, long time. A newly uncovered "viral fossil" buried deep in the genome of the zebra finch indicates that the hepatitis B family of viruses—known as hepadnaviruses—originated at least 19 million years ago. Together with recent findings on other viruses, the work suggests that all viruses may be much older than thought. No one knows exactly where or when viruses originated. They don't leave fossils, so scientists have begun scouring the...

More than two dozen finches were rescued late Saturday night from an Ashland house of horrors, where authorities said the male birds were henpecked into fighting to the death for mates in close quarters, purely for the merriment of warped gamblers. “There were feathers all around and there was no food or water for the birds. It’s also possible they were breeding them. It’s unbelievable,” Ashland police Chief Scott C. Rohmer said.

New York State Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, a Republican, is calling on the CEO of CBS to fire David Letterman for crude comments he made about Sarah Palin and her daughter. In the letter to CBS chief Les Moonves, Kolb said he took Letterman to task for the "shockingly inappropriate" jokes. “As the proud father of a daughter, and as a husband, I wanted Mr. Moonves to hear from me directly about Mr. Letterman’s disparaging remarks," Kolb said in a written statement. “Firing Mr. Letterman would send a clear message that CBS will not tolerate any of its employees...

Last night (Thursday, Oct. 14) on CNBC's low-rated show McEnroe, star softball pitcher Jennie Finch declared she's a conservative! The drop-dead gorgeous Olympic gold medalist was a guest on the show after Ann Coulter had talked about her new book, "How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)." The conservative Coulter had gotten into a heated debate with the liberal McEnroe and a previous guest, who was also liberal. After a commercial break, McEnroe implied that Coulter stormed off the set abruptly after her segments instead of staying for the remainder of the show, which is usually the custom....

Jennie Finch, the pitcher for the U.S. Olympic softball team, which won the gold this summer, was asked who she was voting for by an interviewer on CNBC. She didn't give an answer, but she said she "leaned conservative." I know she isn't as famous as her counterparts in the baseball world, but it's good to know her politics.

<p>Is former Gov. Kirk Fordice's second divorce worthy of the media circus it produced?</p> <p>Nope.</p> <p>Newsworthy? Marginally. Fordice is a public figure and people remain interested in his life story. To that extent, the story was newsworthy.</p> <p>Did we need to see that?</p>