Free Republic

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived back at her California home on Wednesday after suffering a fall in “very high” heels and undergoing hip replacement surgery during her trip to Europe. The California congresswoman, 84, was spotted apparently talking into a pink cellphone in a black vehicle outside her San Francisco home in the first pictures of her in the US exclusively obtained by The Post. “Speaker Pelosi is well on the mend and continues to work,” her spokesperson Ian Krager told The Post. Pelosi was visiting a World War II battlefield site in Luxembourg on Friday when she fell...

[Catholic Caucus] Unhinged Miscreants Desecrated the Body of Cardinal PellIt was appalling to learn that a person or persons unknown desecrated the body of Cardinal George Pell before it was returned to Australia. We are told that this happened after the autopsy, that his body was inadequately embalmed, that he was left undressed and that his nose had been broken. This indicates a level of vindictiveness that is hard to fathom, and shows how little regard the perpetrators had for Pell’s family: the ones most affected by this sad event. One can only wonder at the motive: a true Christian...

A condemned killer's fight to receive surgery for agonizing hip pain pushed Kentucky officials into an uncomfortable debate over security, politics and even the possibility of inviting scorn from Fox News pundits. Emails and memos obtained by The Associated Press show corrections officials struggling for a year to reconcile their duty to provide medical care with the political ramifications of spending tens of thousands of dollars for surgery on a man they plan to execute. A key problem would turn out to be security issues that led several hospitals to balk at treating inmate Robert Foley, who still hasn't had...

Patients in some areas who need hip replacements and other orthopaedic operations are still having to wait more than two years for NHS treatment, figures show. Almost one in four waits longer than 12 months for an operation after referral by their GP. For 3 per cent, the delay is twice that. The average wait is 40 weeks - ten weeks longer than across all specialties. The figures on Health Service performance were published as part of a progress report on the Government's pledge to treat all patients in 18 weeks. Just 35 per cent of those needing hospital admission...