Free Republic

A former employee and another woman in hoodies and painted faces were arrested after they walked into a Costa Mesa restaurant, at least one of them with a bat, and started vandalizing and disrupting the establishment Saturday afternoon, the Costa Mesa Police Department said in a news release. Passion Shenay Coleman, 27, walked in at about 1:30 p.m. and smashed a television, table settings and plates with a bat, causing thousands in damages at the restaurant in the 3300 block of Bristol Street in the South Coast Plaza area, police said. Restaurant staff recognized her as a former employee. Another...

Arab MKs livid as Knesset plenum passes bill that toughens the punishment handed out to rock throwers. Picture The Knesset on Monday evening approved the second and third readings of a bill that toughens the punishment handed out to rock throwers. 69 MKs voted in favor of the bill, while 17 voted against. The law stipulates that the offense of obstructing an officer by throwing rocks or other objects is punishable by five years in prison. The law also establishes a hierarchy of punishment for offenses involving the throwing of rocks or other objects at a vehicle in motion. .....

Two months ago, Taylor Herrick rode in an open convertible waving to blue-and-gold-wearing Bulldog boosters who hailed her as Pardeeville High School’s Homecoming queen. On Saturday, she perched on the gate of a pickup, showing off the 13-point buck she’d bagged, just minutes after the opening of Wisconsin’s nine-day gun deer hunting season. It would be hard to venture a guess as to which event made Taylor smile more brightly. The pickup holding the big buck was parked in front of the Angie Williams Cox Library in downtown Pardeeville, and Taylor was tickled to share her story with passers-by. She...

An 18-year-old Liverpudlian supermodel lashed out at a semi-naked feminist protester on the catwalk after she tried to lift her skirt at Paris Fashion Week. Hollie-May Saker, who is signed to Models1 and has been likened to a young Kate Moss, allegedly punched the topless woman following the storming of two Femen activists on to the stage during a show by designer Nina Ricci.

Airline workers put Christmas trees on ticketing counters Monday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, shortly after trees in public spaces were removed because of a rabbi's complaint that holiday decor did not include a menorah. Customer service agents with Frontier Airlines pooled their money Monday morning to buy four 1-foot-high Christmas trees, which they placed on the airline's ticketing counter. Atop a Delta counter, workers put up a tree several feet tall. The airlines lease space for ticket counters from the airport and can display trees there if they want, said the airport's director, Mark Reis. He said he didn't mind...

The U.S. Justice Department is trying to determine whether Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., got improper help from an Israeli lobbying group. Harman of California is the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee. Time Magazine reports she may have received a boost from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wanted to remove her from the committee. Harman left a voice mail for the magazine calling any suggestions of improper conduct "irresponsible, laughable and scurrilous." She has retained Ted Olson, the lawyer who formerly served as President George W. Bush's solicitor general.

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi guerrilla ambush on a U.S. tank column north of Baghdad backfired on the attackers Friday, as the Americans quickly turned the tide and hunted down and killed 27 of the assailants.</p> <p>The skirmish was part of the continuing, four-day-old "Operation Peninsula Strike," intended to root out and destroy Saddam loyalists and Baath Party (search) fighters who have been harassing coalition forces. About 100 Iraqi fighters have been killed in four days of fighting, the U.S. military said.</p>

The message might not have sunk in the first time J.C. Adams killed a man who tried to rob his convenience store. The 74-year-old store owner hopes it will this time: "Go to work and make your own money. Quit trying to take mine." In a virtual repeat of a scenario played out less than three years ago, Adams shot and killed an armed man Thursday night who allegedly tried to hold up the store Adams has owned for a quarter century. Police said a second accomplice was wounded in the holdup at the Pac-A-Sac store on Lawrenceville Highway. A...