Free Republic

Spring break celebrations devolved into chaos at the annual Orange Crush gathering in Savannah as shocking videos show topless brawls and mounds of garbage washing into the ocean. The Orange Crush is a college spring break party on Tybee Island in the popular Georgia resort town. One video showed piles of trash along the coastline being swept into the ocean.

WELLINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) - Transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard has been selected as part of the New Zealand women's team for the Tokyo Olympic Games, the country's Olympics committee said on Monday. Hubbard, who competed in men's competitions before transitioning in 2013, will become the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics after weightlifting's governing body modified qualifying requirements for Tokyo.

A man who farms near Pender, Nebraska, went to extraordinary lengths to save his life after his left leg became trapped in a machine on his farm. In the early afternoon of April 19, Kurt Kaser, a lifelong corn, soybean and hog farmer, was transferring grain from one bin to another when he stepped into a grain auger. The machine ate away at his left leg and sucked the 63-year-old toward the machine. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said Tuesday. “I was afraid it was going to suck me in more. I about gave up and let it...

In an exclusive interview with Sun Online on the 55th anniversary of the assassination today, Clint, 86, reveals how he will never be able to forget the shocking and gruesome image of the president's last moments. And, tragically, even now Clint still believes “he should have been faster” - and blames himself for the president’s death.

TORONTO - A man organizing tonight's cougar convention in Toronto says he hopes hundreds of older women prowl the area for younger men. Rich Gosse says he dated older women when he was a young man, but has since become older than the cougars so can't date them anymore. He says he hopes so-called cougar women and young men, who he calls cubs, will find a lasting relationship at the one-night convention. One woman will be also crowned Miss Cougar Canada, and win a cougar cruise. The convention starts at 7 p.m. at Tattoo Rock Parlour on Queen Street West.

White House correspondent Helen Thomas told Robert Gibbs that since Obama will not “take on” the NRA it makes it seem he “backs away from everything.”

Chertoff, Gonzales, Abrams Have Baggage President George W. Bush has appointed three more officials with unsavory baggage from previous government roles. Let's hope they have learned something from their past misdeeds. One of the nominees -- Michael Chertoff -- is expected to be confirmed shortly as secretary of the Homeland Security Department, replacing Tom Ridge. Chertoff headed the Justice Department's criminal division in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. White House legal counsel Alberto R. Gonzales -- the replacement for John Ashcroft as attorney general -- did not get the usual pass accorded Cabinet appointees. The Senate vote on his...

Helen Thomas, the angry old warhorse who has squatted in the front row at every presidential press conference since the Zachary Taylor administration, ‘fessed up to her liberal bias in a Canadian TV interview. “I’m a liberal,” Thomas admitted, “I was born a liberal. I’ll be one ’til I die. What else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth?” So Thomas was born that way. She can’t help it. Her blatant liberal bias is genetic. It’s in her DNA. It’s like being left-handed or blue-eyed. I...

How strange is this? The nation’s chief law enforcement officer cannot say whether “waterboarding” is illegal. At a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged under questioning that he would feel tortured if he were waterboarded, but he staunchly refused to say whether it was illegal. A heinous technique dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, waterboarding involves strapping a prisoner down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create a sensation of imminent drowning. Mukasey -- whose confirmation for the Cabinet post was championed by two Democrats, Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein...

SNYDER, Okla. Snyder Police Chief Tod Ozmun, Mayor Dale Moore and City Councilman Clifford Barnard are resigning in the midst of a controversy over Ozmun's wife appearing nude on a Web site. Ozmun had said earlier he would not step down, but now says he's fed up with the controversy and that the situation has become a media circus. Moore says he finds nothing wrong or illegal with what Ozmun's wife was doing and he doesn't want to work in what he calls "a community like this." Barnard also says he's disgusted with the situation that's brought national media attention...

Posted on Fri, Sep. 17, 2004 ASSAULT WEAPONS Death back on the market BY HELEN THOMAS hthomas@hearstdc.com Assault weapons will soon be back on America's streets again -- thanks to President Bush and Congress. Bush let die the 10-year ban on the deadly weapons -- good for mass murder -- by not taking a vigorous leadership role to persuade Congress to extend the ban. His spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters that Bush would sign an extension if it crossed his desk, saying that the president's views ``are well known.'' ''Congress is well aware of the president's position,'' said McClellan. But...