Free Republic

April 25 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts town is under siege from an apparently territorial pileated woodpecker being blamed for damaging more than 25 vehicles in the area. Rockport resident Janelle Favaloro managed to capture a photo of the culprit caught in the act of targeting a vehicle with its jackhammer-like beak

ROCKPORT — A local temperance leader from the 1850s and nostalgia for the past kept Rockport from opening a liquor store for 162 years, according to historians and residents. On Saturday afternoon, that changed.

ROCKPORT, Texas — On Saturday, in an area just north of Holiday Beach in Aransas County, ‘two highly valued canines were destroyed’ by suspects believed to be in the country illegally, a Texas Sheriff says. The two tracking dogs were a part of a kennel belonging to Joe Bramen from Refugio County that have in the past been instrumental in locating individuals with Dementia and Alzheimer’s that wondered away from their homes. The dogs were deployed to assist Aransas and Refugio County Deputies, DPS Troopers and a large contingent of Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Wardens who had responded to...

ROCKPORT, Mass. -- An offhand remark suggesting the woman head of the town's governing board "go back to the kitchen" has landed a veteran local official in hot sexism water. Sarah J. Wilkinson, 35, chairwoman of the board of selectmen and mother of two young children, filed a complaint with the board for what she called an inappropriate, sexist comment.

President Barack Obama has told relatives of victims of the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that his most important responsibility is keeping the U.S. safe. Obama met with about 40 family members on Friday to explain why he believes closing the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will make the country safer and ensure justice for the terror suspects being held there. Obama is concerned that terror suspects have been held for years without trial. He has signed an executive order to close the facility within a year. One woman who attended said...

ROCKPORT, Mass. - This seaside town that was the site of a "revolt against rum" by hatchet-wielding women in 1856 is ready to pop the cork after nearly 150 years of being alcohol-free.Residents on Tuesday voted to allow the sale of alcohol by restaurants, but to ban liquor stores and bars from opening. Last year, the Legislature approved a home rule petition allowing the measure to be placed on the town ballot. Except for a brief period in the 1930s, the sale of alcohol has been forbidden in Rockport since 1856, when Hannah Jumper and her gang of 200 women...