Free Republic

A new indictment unveiled in North Carolina charges Daniel Patrick Boyd and Hysen Sherifi with 'conspiring to murder U.S. military personnel' at the Marine Corps base there. Raleigh, N.C. - Two men charged in North Carolina last month with plotting terrorist attacks overseas also planned to attack the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., authorities said today.

RICHMOND, Va. - It's one thing to dangle fuzzy dice from a rear view mirror, but decorating a trailer hitch with a large pair of rubber testicles might be a bit much in Virginia. State Del. Lionel Spruill introduced a bill Tuesday to ban displaying replicas of human genitalia on vehicles, calling it a safety issue because it could distract other drivers. Under his measure, displaying the ornamentation on a motor vehicle would be a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum fine of $250. He said the idea came from a constituent whose young daughter spotted an example of the trail...

WILMINGTON --Carl Persing's "public display of sexual affection" for his girlfriend on a Raleigh-bound flight last fall -- and threats to a flight attendant who asked him to stop -- landed him in a federal trial, a prosecutor said Monday. Persing, 40, of Lakewood, Ca., is charged with interfering with a flight attendant on the Sept. 15 Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix. His girlfriend, Dawn Elizabeth Sewell, 40, is charged with assisting him. Flight attendant Frank McCabe, 29, testified Monday that Persing and Sewell sat together in the second row, and that Persing was glassy-eyed. Before takeoff, McCabe said, Persing...

Just when you thought California's 20-year prison construction boom was over, here comes another election season. Gubernatorial candidates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides are falling over each other to launch a new era of prison construction. This is bipartisan, equal opportunity pandering and fear mongering, with an obvious impetus. The prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), has $10 million to spend to help or defeat a candidate for governor. How obvious is this link? Schwarzenegger recently told The Bee editorial board that Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez, a card-carrying member of the CCPOA, would be handling his prison...

Astronomers have detected a pair of supermassive black holes that are closer together than any previously discovered. The two giants are dancing around each other with only about 24-light-years between them and are expected to collide in the very distant future. "That's more than 100 times closer than any pair found before," said astronomer Cristina Rodriguez from the University of New Mexico and Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela. Rodriguez was part of the team made the discovery using the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a continent wide system of 10 linked radio-telescopes. The finding was announced today....

LAS MARTINAS, Cuba -- Thirty minutes before Jose Contreras throws the first pitch Saturday in Game 1 of the World Series, his older brother Humberto plans to ride a horse to a friend's wooden shack, where he will listen to the game clandestinely on a short-wave radio. There, with the radio resting on a bed, a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of rum nearby, Humberto Contreras will hear the call of each pitch and picture his brother on the mound challenging Houston Astros hitters at U.S. Cellular Field. "I'm always nervous, but I'm sure he's going to do...

Gina and Bob Fesmire come across as the average couple next door, taking care of the home front in jeans and sweatpants, struggling to stay one step ahead of a hectic Silicon Valley life. But they didn't realize how crazy life could be until last month, when Gina Fesmire launched the site www. downingstreetmemo.com on a whim. The site, which has become a bona fide phenomenon, features secret British documents on the lead-up to the Iraq war, first leaked to the press in England. The site has drawn 700,000 visits since the site went up May 11 with the goal...

--> Hormones vs. Culture By Michael Lamb, Ph.D. The view that fathers are reluctant caregivers may be a thing of the past. New findings show that hormonal changes of parenting are not limited to mothers. The reason we haven’t discovered the hormonal changes in human fathers before now lies in a combination of scientific progress and cultural change. Early studies on rats found that males could learn to become involved fathers after prolonged exposure to their pups but did not experience any hormonal changes. The fact that these reluctant dads could learn to nurture led to the so-called bonding hypothesis....