Free Republic

Katherine Helmond, the seven-time Emmy-nominated Texas actress who played the feisty, man-crazy mother Mona Robinson on the long-running ABC sitcom Who’s the Boss?, has died. She was 89. Helmond, who earlier starred as the wide-eyed socialite sister Jessica Tate on another popular ABC comedy, Susan Harris’ daytime-serial spoof Soap, died Feb. 23 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at her home in Los Angeles, her talent agency, APA, announced.

Almost three thousand British troops in southern Afghanistan have successfully transported a huge hydroelectric power turbine through Taleban territory. In one of their biggest operations in Helmand, a convoy of 100 vehicles took five days to move the massive sections of the turbine 180km (112 miles). The $6m (£3.4m) turbine will produce electricity for an extra 1.9m people. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the operation was a reminder of Nato's "fundamental purpose" in Afghanistan. The operation to increase the output of the Kajaki dam in southern Afghanistan is part of a development project which has been planned for two years.

Joan van den Dungen, EINDHOVEN - Two girls from Helmond (Dutch city), aged 14 and 15, have been sexualy assaulted this weekend by players of a soccerteam made up of immigrant youths from Rotterdam in the tropical swimmingparadise 'De Tongelreep' in Eindhoven. Police and employees of the swimming pool managed to detain six suspects after they feeled up and kept harrassing the girls. According the director of the swimmingpool, Arie Heesterbeek, the boys struck shortly before leaving after their supervisor went to the reception to call them out of the water by the intercom. "They tried to get away, but...