Free Republic

After wondering aloud yesterday whether the Romneys converted Mitt's dead father-in-law to Mormonism...Yes. They did. Edward Davies, Ann Romney's father, was an atheist who was also strongly anti-religion. By the time he died, he was the only member of Ann Romney's immediate family to not convert to Mormonism. Fourteen months later, in 1993, he was baptized in a special ceremony at a Salt Lake City church. This practice requires a living person who has already been baptized to undergo the immersion in water again on behalf of the dead. No word on who this person might have been in Davies'...

The Jerusalem Magistrates' Court on Monday extended by a day the remand of an ultra-Orthodox man who is the main suspect in the snatching of the body of 25-year-old woman whose death was apparently drug-related. During the incident in question, which occurred in Jerusalem's Geula neighborhood in early February, dozens of haredim snatched the woman's body from the hands of a police officer to prevent it from being transported to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for an autopsy. The officer was allegedly attacked by a group of ultra-Orthodox men headed by the prime suspect in the case, Shmuel Bezalel. The...

video clip ALSIP, Ill. (AP) -- Three gravediggers and a cemetery manager unearthed hundreds of corpses from a historic black cemetery south of Chicago, dumping some in a weeded area and double-stacking others in existing graves, in an elaborate scheme to resell the plots, authorities said Thursday. All four were charged with felonies. Frantic relatives of the deceased descended on Burr Oak Cemetery - the final resting place of lynching victim Emmett Till and blues singers Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington - in hopes someone could tell them their loved ones' remains were not among the pile of bones that...

First Story that Broke: TWO KILLED TWO INJURED Two members of a television news crew have been killed and as many injured in a helicopter crash in the capital of Mexico's northernmost state of Baja California, Spanish news agency EFE reported Wednesday. According to state prosecutor Francisco Javier Alcazar Jimenez, the helicopter, carrying the news crew, crashed here Tuesday afternoon when it became tangled in high tension wires overhead and the pilot lost control of the aircraft. The news crew were to cover the 'Baja 1000 Road Race', in which some 500 teams from all over the world are participating...

Everyone should automatically become an organ donor in order to prevent hundreds of deaths each year, the Government's chief doctor said today. Sir Liam Donaldson called for a change in the law so only those who register their objections are exempt from donating their organs after their death. He said one person dies each day in the UK waiting for a donor and the change could increase the number of organs available. The shortage is fuelling "transplant tourism" where UK patients travel abroad and often pay for a donor organ which puts them at unnecessary risk, Sir Liam said. The...

John Hawkins apparently has taken on a mission to prove that the Bush Administration is not creating a North American Union to replace the United States, or a new currency -- the Amero -- to replace the U.S. dollar. Recently, in a blog debate on this website, I exchanged views with Mr. Hawkins. When Mr. Hawkins declined to respond in what the editors termed “Round 4” of that debate, I concluded Mr. Hawkins allowed me to have the final word because he lacked a convincing rejoinder. Now, we see Mr. Hawkins wants to carry on the debate but this time...

Police search for DNA clues in hunt for bodysnatchersBy Nick Britten(Filed: 13/10/2004)The people who took the body of an 82-year-old woman from her grave in what is believed to have been an animal rights protest left behind plenty of evidence, detectives say. Fingertip searches of the area around Gladys Hammond's grave have increased hopes that those responsible can be caught by DNA evidence.Police said that the bodysnatchers must have spent at least four hours digging up the grave in the grounds of St Peter's church, Yoxall, Staffs, before stealing her body."It's extremely hard, physical work, so there are things...

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz announced today (Sunday) that UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) ambulances were used to steal and transport body parts of Israeli soldiers killed in last Wednesday’s bomb attack on the Philadelphi route in southern Gaza. The senior minister called upon UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan to address the disturbing phenomenon. At today’s cabinet meeting, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that the UN ambulance, which had also been used to transport terrorists, had been captured by security forces near the Philadelphi area. He said that only after intense diplomatic pressure did UNRWA announce that...

Accused leader of sex ring charged with 9 felonies; bond set at $2 million Thursday, January 16, 2003 BY BEN SCHMITT and SUZETTE HACKNEY FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS A 32-year-old Chicago man was charged Thursday with nine felonies, including transporting a female for prostitution, in connection with an alleged multistate sex ring that police officers broke up in Detroit this week. Henry Davis was arraigned Thursday in Detroit's 36th District Court on four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, pandering, accepting earnings from prostitution and two charges of transporting a female for prostitution. Magistrate Thomas Shannon of 36th District...