Free Republic

Missing Indiana Girl Found Dead, Babysitter Held Aliahna Lemmon has emotional, physical problems; FORT WAYNE, Ind. — A missing 9-year-old Indiana girl has been found dead, and the family friend who was watching her before she disappeared was charged with murder Monday night, authorities said. Allen County sheriff's spokesman Cpl. Jeremy Tinkel said investigators found the body of Aliahna Lemmon in the county, but he wouldn't say where. He also said 39-year-old Mike Plumadore was "interviewed by police and taken into custody at 9 p.m. and charged with murder." Plumadore, who had been watching Aliahna and her sisters before she...

(Memphis, TN) 15-year-old DJ Kates and her 16-year-old sister, Jossalin Melville, were attacked by a group of kids and some parents Tuesday afternoon at Gladstone and Ridgemont in Raleigh. It happened about a mile from Raleigh Egypt High School as the girls walked home from school.

A Korean couple let their baby starve to death while they were busy raising a virtual child online, police said. The couple, from Suwon in South Korea, would leave their three-month-old daughter home alone in their apartment while they spent up to 12 hours a day playing a Second-Life style3D fantasy game called Prius Online, The Sun newspaper reports. Police said the couple had become totally immersed in the online game and neglected their real lives, giving their daughter just a bottle of milk per day. Father Kim Yoo-chul, 41, and 25-year-old mother Choi Mi-sun called paramedics when they arrived...

Couple Receives over $21 Million Dollars for "Wrongful Birth" of Handicapped Son Florida Right to Life says, "now we're holding doctors responsible to deliver a perfect baby" By Elizabeth O'Brien TAMPA, Florida, July 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A judge has awarded over $21 million dollars to a couple for the "wrongful birth" of their second handicapped son. The couple would have aborted the child if they had known about his disability, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports. Daniel and Amara Estrada have two sons who are both physically handicapped with the same genetic disorder, Smith-Lemli-Opitz, which does not allow them to...

Baby Left in Casino Garage, Parents Arrested ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - September 3, 2006 - A Camden County couple accused of leaving their 3-week old son alone in a car in a casino parking garage for several hours this weekend were charged with child abuse and child endangerment. Security personnel at Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino found the child just before 1 a.m. Saturday after some patrons reported seeing him in the back seat of the car. They notified city police, and officers Andrea Perry and Shelley Kellerman were soon able to get the child out of the vehicle....

A bouncer at Spirit, a club on West 27th Street in Manhattan, checking young women's IDs. Many say underage patrons have no trouble getting in. The velvet rope outside one of Manhattan's trendiest nightclubs was but a gateway for Michael, a 19-year-old from Long Island.  Followed by his four male friends, all 19 or 20, he sashayed past a stagnant line of 50 people waiting outside Mood NY during the early morning hours Saturday. From a pocket inside his black sports jacket, he pulled out his Bank of America credit card and whispered to the bouncer that he planned...

Colette Roberts likes to tell people that having four teenagers in the house at one time gave her plenty of reasons to get upset, but her daughter being a lesbian was not one of them. It is a story - and a pragmatic attitude - that comes in handy as Roberts tries to offer comfort and perspective to parents and family members who seek help from the Howard County chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, which she co-founded. For 10 years, Roberts has been the one at the other end of the phone when people call...

When our three-year-old, truck-loving boy developed a sudden interest in cross-dressing, we couldn't skirt the issue. By CLAIRE ROSS DUNN Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - Page A16 A couple of Sundays ago, Findley, our six-year-old daughter, decided to wear her most special dress to church: a pink chiffony number, its upper layer iced with beaded flowers and a bow. It had been bought for her first flower-girl engagement in the spring. As she pulled it on, her three-and-a-half-year-old brother Emmett decided he wanted to wear it. Trouble ensued. Lots of the kids' interaction now is about he got it first,...

<p>NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (AP) -- Living in a college dorm can mean little privacy and exposure to a lot of booze. That can make it a tough place for young adults who are in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.</p>

Hey Jim(Robinson), I've gotten some emails from people asking if Freerepublic can help them. They are dealing with unsympathetic judges(not to mention attorneys, social workers, and GAL's). This is about child custody and vistitation. There are so many horror stories out there, that I'm sticking my neck out and seeing if we can help them with positive ways to change the laws, and of course public perception :) Remember that sign I had for my first FReep? I believe that a child should know his/her real rather....and that a man should not be a victim and slave to the state....

Television presenter Donna Air and her zoo-owner boyfriend Damian Aspinall intend to place their daughter in the care of a gorilla. The couple plan to put Freya, who was born in September, in the gorilla enclosure at Howletts Zoo near Canterbury, Kent. They will then let her be carried off by the female of the group. Neither parent has any qualms about letting their daughter be taken off despite five keepers being killed by animals at Howletts and its sister park, Port Lympne, since 1980. Mr Aspinall told the Evening Standard: "It is a ritual. I'll probably give her to...

Safety of children in grocery carts: adults' personal health and safety habits. Observations of 246 children and the adults accompanying them were carried out in supermarkets. Of those arriving and leaving by automobile (n = 194), 36% of adults used safety belts, and 51.1% of children used safety belts or restraining seats. While shopping, 79% of adults lost sight of the children in their care at least once, and 73.2% were 10 feet or more from their children at least once. 48% of children climbed or attempted to climb from carts; 27% stood in carts, and 23.6% handled hazardous products....