Free Republic

The massive elm tree that shaded the corner of East Main Street and Yankee Drive was sick. Like so many others in so many of America's towns in the 1950s, it was stricken with Dutch elm disease. Tree warden Frank Knight was so smitten with the tree that he couldn't bear to cut it down. After all, it had been standing sentinel in this New England village since before the American Revolution. Over the next half-century, Knight carefully nursed the tree, spraying for pests and pruning away the dreaded fungus, even as the town's other elms died by the dozens....

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- Frank Knight's decades-long battle to save New England's tallest elm served as an inspiring tale of devotion, so it is fitting that he will be laid to rest in a coffin made from the tree he made famous. Knight, who died Monday at 103, had affectionately referred to the 217-year-old elm nicknamed Herbie as "an old friend." The massive tree succumbed to Dutch elm disease and was cut down two years ago. Wood from the tree was made into a casket, a secret that was kept from Knight.

LOS ANGELES A federal judge ruled Friday that a Palestinian man whom the government had denied citizenship based on alleged ties with a terrorist group should become a citizen, the man's lawyers said. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Aiad Barakat, one of the so-called "L.A. eight," will be naturalized, said Ahilan Arulanantham, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who litigated the case. Barakat's citizenship application had been denied last year by immigration officials, and his lawyers appealed in federal court. "The judge listened and found him to be credible," said Arulanantham. "It was very fact intensive testimony that...