Free Republic

Two young men, identified by police as leaders of a banned University of Wisconsin fraternity, were arrested for an alleged horrific hazing incident. Fraternity president Brayden J Klein and vice president Samuel N Vane, both 20, were taken into custody by the Madison Police on Wednesday. The officers arrived at the location at 8.20pm after they received an ‘anonymous tip' about the events that were taking place at the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, located along the 100 block of Langdon Street, Madison, about 80 miles west of Milwaukee. They allegedly found 30 half-clothed teens covered in ‘food, condiments, and other...

Typhus, a flea-borne bacterial disease, is on the rise in Los Angeles County, with the latest localized case reported in the Wilshire Center neighborhood, public health officials said Tuesday. The disease is spread to humans by infected fleas that commonly live on rats, opossums, stray cats and other animals. Common symptoms include headaches, chills, muscle aches and rash. The Wilshire Center case is the second localized typhus outbreak this year, according to the LA County Department of Public Health. There were at least seven symptomatic cases linked to the outbreak, health officials said. Six of the seven patients had to...

A grotesque homeless encampment continues to expand on Manhattan’s West Side and now covers 12 city blocks with theft, drugs and prostitution flourishing in broad daylight Under new rules in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, the NYPD is no longer authorized to clear the encampments. The city Department of Homeless Services is in charge of conducting the sweeps, but it hasn’t done so. One vagrant went so far as to call the mayor “awesome” for allowing the unsanitary encampment to thrive and halting police raids that once cleared out the unsightly settlements. “Most people would agree that leaving people on the...

Residents of a liberal city in Missouri have been complaining to officials that it stinks of cannabis everywhere they go. In Rock Hill, Missouri, a small city with a population of around 4,700 in the St Louis metropolitan area, the number of complaints about cannabis odor shot up in the second half of 2025. The city received 99 complaints about stinky weed between April and December of last year. Rock Hill's city administrator Garrett Schlett told the St Louis Post-Dispatch the number represents a significant uptick from previous years. Missouri legalized medical marijuana use in 2018, and recreational use was...

New York federal Judge Paul Engelmayer’s temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s access to Treasury documents happened so fast it’s unlikely he carefully read the case filings. The filings from the 19 suing Democrat state attorneys generals were so voluminous, and Engelmayer’s order was entered so quickly, that it could not possibly have been the product of reasoned judicial analysis and reflection. The stench is so bad, questions of possible corruption must be answered.Engelmayer is the first judge ever to grant a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the president of the United States that also forbids a cabinet secretary...

A Russian spacecraft docked to the International Space Station (ISS) didn’t just bring supplies to the ISS—it also brought a foul odor. The unpleasant aroma was strong enough to prompt astronauts to close the hatch connecting it to the rest of the space station and initiate anti-contamination procedures. The Progress 90 cargo ship arrived at the Russian module at 9:31 a.m. ET on Saturday, November 23, delivering about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for members of the Expedition 72 crew on board the ISS. After opening the hatch between Progress and the Poisk module, the crew noticed a...

Residents say they've had to put up with foul smells in their village for years and they feel ignoredPeople living beside a farm turned sustainable waste disposal plant and sandstone quarry claim the smell from the huge site is so foul they can’t sell their houses and sometimes can’t open their windows. Residents in Gelligaer in Caerphilly say they’ve been beset with issues for 20 years as a result of the work. The Bryn Group - owned by the Price family who have been at the site formerly known as Gelliargwellt Uchaf farm for five generations - tells of how...

It’s not just prissy European tennis players who can’t stand it. Every single person who visits New York City is disgusted by our unofficial new scent: marijuana. And the truth is, so are most sane New Yorkers. As The Post reported on Friday’s front page, everywhere you go in the five boroughs now reeks of pot. Expense-account restaurants such as Nobu 57 and ritzy stores like Saks Fifth Avenue have the musty whiff of a college dorm room. Puffing stoners are turning the subway’s 123 into CBD. Even the US Open in Flushing Meadows is practically an open-air drug market....

Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh admitted on CNN Business’ Markets Now that he still hasn’t washed his now decade-old pair of jeans. And he doesn’t plan to, either. He also slammed the old wives’ tale about freezing your jeans to preserve the color and shape. “If it’s the pair I’m thinking of, he will spot treat them or worst case hand wash if needed. But never in the washing machine,” a Levi’s spokesperson said.

"The White House could answer [Ford’s request] very quickly by asking the FBI to reopen its background check and to take into account the accusation that's been made and to gather the evidence about what can be known. So far, they haven't done that," Clinton said. "And as someone who has watched this process unfold over many years, there does have to be some direction given to the FBI to pursue an investigation."

'God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here' (Newser) – Springtime in one small Alabama town smells more like manure than magnolias this year—and it's going to get a lot worse as the weather gets warmer. Dozens of freight cars carrying some 10 million pounds of human waste, enough to form a malodorous train more than a mile long, have been stranded in a Parrish rail yard for two months awaiting transfer to a landfill site, and residents say they can't take the stench for much longer, NJ.com reports. They say the freight cars...

Gee, I wonder why? After all, many of them haven’t yet been identified. Ken Vogel explains that the publicity surrounding the influence-peddling schemes at chez Clinton has potential donors looking elsewhere, but … does that apply to those who still want to buy influence? Hmmm. Actually, the fact that so little goes to charity — and that the rate (6.4% in 2013) has become so public — is what has them rethinking their commitments:

A 30-foot gray whale has turned up dead under the Washington state ferry terminal in downtown Seattle, where its stench is wafting into the noses of thousands of daily commuters...officials believe the whale may have been there for about a week. [Photo in Comments].

The al-Sadd battalion was guarding the chemical weapons factory and warehouse. However, the battalion has since withdrawn to Misratah, leaving a stockpile of deadly weapons vulnerable to theft. The current number of guards at the chemical weapons site, which contains 9 tons of mustard gas and dozens of barrels contaminated with chemicals, is just two men armed with Kalashnikov rifles. Hamzah al-Shaibani, spokesman for the “17 February revolution committee” said in a telephone interview with Asharq al-Awsat yesterday that: "We appeal to the United Nations and the Transitional National Council to protect and secure the area, because it represents a...

I had this big aha last night on the way home from rehearsal. They were saying that the Obama campaign is selling tshirts that say 'Born in the USA' (or something like that) with a long-form birth certificate on it. And his mug, of course. Call me skeptical, but I wondered if Donald Trump were not, perchance, part of Obama's campaign? He jumps in, stirs the pot, makes the birth certificate a BIG DEAL, Obama releases it to glorious fanfare and much publicity, because now it's front and center. Trump bails. Obama sells tshirts. It stinks to high heavens to...

One week after moving into our new home, my wife became concerned with a new revelation. She had been out on our deck, enjoying a sunny spring day, when a pipe sticking three feet out of the ground began to spew bubbles. My reply? “Oh, it’s no big deal.”Ever notice, when folks have a problem on their hands, they often do not realize it? Or they minimize the problem, so they do not have to address it?Amo 4:10 I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and...

ISTANBUL – Arab league chief Amr Moussa accused Israel on Thursday of continued "atrocity and assault" in the Middle East in violation of human rights and international law. Moussa, speaking at an economic forum between Turkey and Arab nations, said "Israel is the main reason for the black hole in the region."

Remember the old saying, "Once burned, twice shy"? It's supposed to mean that when one has a bad experience, one should be more cautious in similarly dangerous circumstances. California got burned in the early 1990s when Leon Black, fresh off a career with the scandal- tainted Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond shop, set up his own investment firm and persuaded the state's new insurance commissioner, John Garamendi, to seize a supposedly insolvent Executive Life. Executive Life had a fat portfolio of junk bonds that Black had helped assemble, and Garamendi allowed him to broker a deal with some French buyers...

June 28, 2006, 7:12 a.m. Bears a Close WatchChina knows our next Treasury secretary well. By Frank Gaffney Jr. As the Senate Finance Committee considers President Bush’s nomination of Henry Paulson to be the next secretary of the Treasury, the question is not whether he will be confirmed. That seems assured, as senators in both parties behave like star-struck groupies in the presence of a Wall Street “master of the universe,” whose net worth, from his time as a senior executive of Goldman Sachs, is estimated to be on the order of $600 million. Rather, the question is: Will any...

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- The KCBS newsroom received calls Friday afternoon reporting an unusual and unpleasant smell in San Francisco. Most of the callers reporting the odor were in the city's Sunset and Richmond districts. A city spokesman said the sewage treatment plant didn't report having any problems and that everything appeared to be functioning normally. A Public Utilities Commission spokesman did say that he smelled something unusual in the Civic Center area. The stench could also be smelled for a time in the financial district.