Free Republic

It was hard to miss seeing Manny Garcia either out for a run or coaching soccer in his hometown of Mission, Texas, in 2014. He was out running almost every morning before his teaching job at Nikki Rowe High School, and then back out to coach the soccer team in the afternoons. He was healthy, though the runs were to shed a few unwanted pounds to get him below 200. That was his only goal, at least until January 2, 2014. He had finished soccer practice and mowed the lawn, so he lay down to watch TV. That was the...

NEW YORK - ON buttons, posters and websites, the image was everywhere during last year's presidential campaign: A pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE. Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay. The image, Mr Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in...