Free Republic

At least nine people--including two teenagers--were wounded in separate shootings in the early hours of the new year, authorities said. The new year’s first apparent victim of gun violence was a 29-year-old man shot in the mouth and shoulder after a fight broke out at a bar on the West Side, police said.

The Friendswood Junior High principal who outraged some parents by allowing an Islamic group to make a 40-minute presentation to students last month is now off the job. In a two-sentence statement sent late Wednesday, the school district said Robin Lowe "has accepted another administrative position effective immediately."

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Under pressure in a caustic campaign debate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday night the American people "know where I stand" and accused her rivals of distorting her record and slinging mud "right out of the Republican playbook.""There's nothing personal about this," countered former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who joined Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in bluntly accusing Clinton of forever switching positions on Social Security, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and other issues."What the American people are looking for right now is straight answers to tough questions, and that is not what we have...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said if he wasn’t elected president, the population of African-American males is likely to either wind up in prison or dead. At an MTV/MySpace.com forum Thursday, Edwards responded to a question about inner-city kids partaking in violence by saying there was no “silver bullet” to fight the problem. “We start with the president of the United States saying to America, ‘we cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America....

ABC-TV decides not to air Bush's news conference... Developing... (not a whole lot right now.)

Palestinian Media Watch today has photos of a white kitten being swung around by its tail on Hamas-TV. "The latest episode of a popular Hamas children's TV show features its main character cruelly swinging cats by their tails and throwing stones at caged lions in the Gaza zoo. ... The episode of Tomorrow's Pioneers features a costumed adult playing Nahool the Bee at the zoo, tormenting domestic cats and lions. The lions become so enraged by the abuse that one of them repeatedly tries to attack Nahool." How will the animal-loving Left will find an excuse for this behavior? What...

So the annoying, insane former tub o' lard, Star Jones has been fired from anti-male yenta-fest "The View," a/k/a "The Spew." One down, 3 more old biddies (and one younger annoying one who pretends to be a conservative but is just an inane airhead) to go. The best part about this whole thing is that we get to watch the forever annoying Baba Wawa (Barbra Walters to those not in the know) and Jones fighting about it all over the place, not to mention Walters openly lying about the whole thing (and getting caught with a million different stories). It's...

Angelina Delivers Due Date By Sarah Hall Wed Apr 26, 3:08 PM ET The paparazzi detail on the Brangelina Baby Watch beat just got some bad news. Contradicting reports that she's due to pop any day now, Angelina Jolie has delivered word that she's not quite eight months pregnant. That means anxious shutterbugs can expect another full month of dodging Namibian officials, not to mention Jolie and Brad Pitt's aggressive security goons, if they want any chance of capturing the money shot of the most important and beautiful baby ever to be born, ever.

NEW YORK - A day after Katie Couric announced she was leaving for CBS, NBC has chosen Meredith Vieira as Matt Lauer’s new partner on the “Today” show. NBC scheduled a news conference for Thursday afternoon to announce its new “Today” host, and confirmed in a statement that Vieira had been selected. “Meredith's vast experience as an award-winning journalist, as well as talk show host, make her the ideal candidate for this job,” said network CEO Jeff Zucker.

IT'S OFFICIAL: US WEEKLY MAG TO CLAIM JESSICA SIMPSON AND NICK LACHEY SPLIT, SAY REPS... DEVELOPING...FLASH: NBCNEWS CUTS STAFF ON EVE OF HOLIDAY: LAYOFFS EARLIER IN WEEK, SAYS SOURCE. AT LEAST 15 STAFFERS CUT FROM 'DATELINE', CUTS REACHED CNBC FOREIGN BUREAUS... DEVELOPING...