Free Republic

New York City Police are hunting a 22-year-old man who attacked two officers trying to arrest him in Manhattan after he allegedly raped four-year-old twins in Pennsylvania. Isaiah John Metz, 22 - also known as Decklyn McBride - of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, allegedly raped two four-year-old twins in Goldsboro, Pennsylvania, while on parole for assaulting an officer. Metz currently has 115 counts of sex-related charges against him in York County, including three counts of raping a child under 13, and 99 counts of sexual abuse involving picture and video, according to public records. Police received a tip that Metz was staying...

Full TITLE: "Teenage history fanatic, 18, discovers a First World War bomb near his home in France - only for it to blow up, leaving him without a finger and riddled with 50 pieces of shrapnel" Treasure hunter Paul Aiden was hunting for coins in a forest near his home in Metz, France, earlier this month when his metal detector started going off. Thinking he had struck gold, the 18-year-old began digging through the dense undergrowth before a massive explosion sent him flying backwards. Woodworker Mr Aiden admitted that by the time he realised he had struck on a WWI...

31-year-old Jonathan Metz was in trouble in the basement of his West Hartford home. On Sunday he was working on his furnace when, somehow, his left hand became trapped beneath the boiler. Unable to free himself he called for help but no one heard. 2 days into his ordeal he made a fateful decision. Dr. Scott Ellner, St. Francis Hospital: "With tools he had within reach he attempted to amputate his own arm. He nearly did it but not completely." Dr. Ellner says Metz did succeed in saving his own life. Crush injuries release toxins into the bloodstream. Toxins that...

American military officers are expressing concern over the spreading use of makeshift bombs beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to other countries in the region, as well as in East Asia and South America. Improvised explosive devices, as the military calls them, have been the largest killer of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, showing up with devastating effect in Pakistan and India, but also with less notice in Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Colombia, Somalia and parts of North Africa. Even Russian security forces have faced the devices in the republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan, although attacks...

Metz Fresh, LLC announced it found traces of Salmonella bacteria in its spinach bags and is voluntarily recalling them, even though none has apparently been infected. This case comes nearly a year after a nationwide outbreak of illness was traced to a batch of bagged California spinach that was tainted with a deadly strain of E. coli bacteria. The spinach was sold to retail outlets and food service providers across the United States and Canada under the Metz Fresh label in 10-ounce and 16-ounce bags, as well as in 4-pound cartons and in 2.5-pound four-pack cartons, with tracking codes 12208114,...

I often wonder what he was thinking that morning as he crossed that swollen river into Germany. Perched up on the half track, I’m sure the vast majority of his concerns that morning were for the young kids at his feet, buck privates piled into the back of the clattering machine that was half tank and half truck. But I’ll bet one corner of his mind that November morning in 1944 was thinking about going home. Home was Lewiston, Maine. A small town in Maine dominated by old brick textile mills and a smelly river flowing by it. His father...

Top News Story Stop Iranian "Death to America" Celebration Scheduled for February 6th at the Marriott of Bethesda, MDM From: The Office of Iran of Tomorrow Movement To : John. W. Marriott Jr., CEO Marriott International, Inc. 10400 Fernwood Dr. Bethesda, MD 20817 January 28, 2005 It has recently come to our attention that the Director of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Washington D.C., Mr. Ali Jazini, has reserved a large section of the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center for a celebration of the “Twenty Sixth Anniversary of the glorious victory of...

Top Story Iran would make any aggressor pay dearly: armed forces commander TEHRAN, Jan. 30 (MNA) -- The commander of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Salimi, said here on Sunday that Iran will sound the defense as soon as the enemy starts to beat the drums of war. The Iranian Armed Forces regard all foreign threats against the country as serious and are ready to respond to them, he told the Mehr News Agency. “We regard any threat as serious, although it might not be new or likely to be materialized. They have been threatening the Islamic...

Top News Story Iran’s Khamenei warns EU may reconsider nuclear cooperation(AFP)29 January 2005 TEHERAN - Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned European powers Saturday that they must take their nuclear negotiations with Iran seriously, otherwise Tehran will reconsider its cooperation.“The Europeans negotiating with Iran should know that they are dealing with a great, cultured nation... if Iranian officials feel that there is no seriousness in the European negotiations, the process will change,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the Iranian media.His comments followed the emergence of reports that the EU was hardening its stance towards Iran and calling...

Top News Story United States and Europe Differ Over Strategy on Iran By ELAINE SCIOLINO Published: January 29, 2005 ARIS, Jan. 28 - President Bush's second term has barely begun, and Iran is already shaping up as its most serious diplomatic challenge. But conflicting pronouncements by Mr. Bush and his national security team have left Iran frustrated and angry about the direction of American policy, and the Europeans more determined than ever to push Washington to embrace their engagement strategy. To the outside world, the administration seems divided over whether to promote the overthrow of Iran's Islamic Republic -...

Top News Story Iran Will Never Dismantle Nuke Program PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) - Iran has vowed never to dismantle its uranium enrichment programme, a day after a confidential EU document showed that France, Britain and Germany had told Tehran they would not settle for anything less. Iran has temporarily frozen its enrichment programme, [DZ note: not really] a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel in nuclear power plants or weapons, but insists that atomic fuel production is a sovereign right it will never abandon. Asked whether Iran would dismantle the programme, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Gholamali Khoshroo,...

Top News Story USAF playing cat and mouse game over Iran Richard Sale, UPI Intelligence Correspondent:The U.S. Air Force is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Iran's ayatollahs, flying American combat aircraft into Iranian airspace in an attempt to lure Tehran into turning on air defense radars, thus allowing U.S. pilots to grid the system for use in future targeting data, administration officials said. "We have to know which targets to attack and how to attack them," said one, speaking on condition of anonymity. ... "These Iranian air defense positions are not just being observed, they're...

Top News Story Iran Sees Nuclear Enrichment As a Goal By GEORGE JAHNAssociated Press Writer Confidential talks between key European powers and Iran are deadlocked on the key issue of uranium enrichment, with Tehran refusing to scrap such programs and banish fears it wants to make atomic arms, according to a summary of the last meeting made available Tuesday to The Associated Press. The summary of the last meeting on the issue involving representatives of France, Britain, Germany and Iran states that Tehran's position remains "the goal of maintaining" its enrichment program, while the European powers continue to insist...

Top News Story U.S. INTELLIGENCE OBTAINS IRANIAN NUKE PLANS WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S. intelligence community has obtained plans for what was described as an Iranian project to develop a nuclear warhead.Officials said the plans were obtained by the CIA in November from an unidentified source. They said the source relayed more than 1,000 pages of technical drawings and documents of an Iranian nuclear missile warhead design.In November, 2004, officials said, the CIA had sought to confirm the authenticity of the Iranian documents. The Iranian documents -- first reported by the Washington Post on Nov. 19 -- were said...

Top News Story AMERICAN ACTIONS FOR REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN "INEVITABLE" By Safa HaeriPosted Saturday, January 22, 2005  E-mail this page    Printer-friendly page "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" PARIS, 23 Jan. (IPS) Slowly but surely, the United States is preparing local and international public opinion for concrete action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, now tagged as the main "outpost of tyranny", Iranian and western analysts and diplomats say.In...

Top News StoryIran student to be flogged 74 times, serve 2 years in prison Sat. 22 Jan 2005 Iran Focus Tehran, Jan. 22 – An Iranian medical student was sentenced to two years prison time and 74 lashes by Iran's Revolutionary Court on political charges, according to a state-run news agency. Reza Ashrafpour, a young man studying dentistry in Iran's University of Medical Sciences had been charged with "acting against national security", "propaganda against the regime", "spreading panic in society", and "insulting the Supreme Leader". It is believed that authorities were looking to convict Ashrafpour for the past two...

Top News Story World press electrified by Bush vision "Hold on to your hats, this may be the most ambitious presidency ever." That's the message from one Israeli paper after President George W Bush's inauguration - a message echoed across the world's press. For China's press his speech raises the question whether Washington will head further down a "unilateral" path in foreign relations. One Polish paper heralds the speech as the dawn of a conservative revolution, while in Germany and Turkey there's a bleak forecast for the new Bush era. At precisely the moment when critics claim he is...

Top News Story Thursday, January 20, 2005 · Last updated 8:50 p.m. PT Cheney puts Iran at top of trouble list THE ASSOCIATED PRESS     Vice President Dick Cheney addresses the crowd at the Texas/Wyoming Ball at the Washington Convention Center Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview hours before he and President Bush were sworn in for a second term, said Iran now tops the list of the world's potential trouble spots.Iran is pursuing "a fairly robust new nuclear program" and "is a noted sponsor of...