Free Republic

Couple wants to put incident behind themThe couple slammed by a Yankees announcer for not giving a foul ball to a crying child next to them are seeking an apology from the announcer. A picture snapped by Sean Leonard's brother paints a different picture of the foul ball incident at Wednesday night's Rangers game. "If this picture was the only picture that was shown online and on the Internet, people would say, 'Oh, he's got a ball,'" Leonard said. Instead, a viral video from YES Network spread across social media sites, talk radio and news stations drew all of the...

A four-year-old boy from southern Jizan area shot his father with a pistol after he would not let him buy a Sony Playstation.

Colorado-based Durango High School has now agreed to include the "revealing" photo of a high school senior in the yearbook after initially refusing to do so. The school officials had earlier refused to publish the controversial photo of Sydney Spies, calling it inappropriate. The officials told Spies that she had violated the school’s dress code by wearing a short yellow skirt and a black shawl as the top.

Fallout from the controversy surrounding Gov. Scott Walker's bid to strip collective bargaining rights from most public employees, as well as his proposed budget cuts, is sizzling around Madison's World's Largest Brat Fest.Brat-lover Carrie Dainty, a longtime patron of the annual Memorial Day weekend charity fundraiser, isn't relishing the thought of munching the brats donated by Johnsonville Sausage, whose executives, family members and employees have donated $44,250 to Walker since 2005.

Police say no charges will be filed against a 68-year-old woman who shot a 12-year-old boy after he and a 13-year-old friend broke the windows of her South Shore neighborhood home, then shouted obscenities and threw bricks at her. The boys, however, have been charged as juveniles with aggravated assault of a person over the age of 60 and have been released to their parents, police said. Police said the woman, who lives alone, acted in self-defense -- a belief shared by neighbors who said the woman known as "Miss Margaret" had been harassed by the boys before and had...

A 15-year-old boy told Buffalo Grove police that his parents had taken away his video game system and asked whether they were within their rights. They were, police told him. The teen called 911 about 12:50 p.m. Sunday but then hung up, said Cmdr. Steve Husak. Officers went to the house, and after hearing the story, told the youth that his parents have the authority to take away his Xbox as punishment.

A Gwinnett County man is in custody Wednesday accused of slapping a stranger’s crying toddler in a Stone Mountain Wal-Mart. Witnesses say that Roger Stephens, 61, warned the mother of the child that he would “shut up the crying child if she couldn’t,” WSB-TV is reporting. Stephens is accused of slapping the 2-year-old multiple times in the face and then walking away. A bystander held Stephens until store security came to assist, according to the story.

Surveillance footage from a Gilbert school bus shows the driver and a 15-year-old student physically confronting one another on February 15th.

CINCINNATI, Aug. 24 A 10-year-old boy who said he hated snakes killed a 10-foot python at petting zoo by stomping on the reptile's head. Scott Braunstein, a reptile handler who brought the snake to the St. Bernadette Festival in Amelia, Ohio, last weekend, said he was shocked by the boy's violence, The Cincinnati Enquirer said Thursday. The snake, named Popcorn, was a non-poisonous albino Burmese python. Braunstein, who operates House of Reptiles in Dry Ridge, Ky., said the boy approached him and told him that he hated snakes. The child then raised his leg and stomped down on the snake's...

JUNE 28--We hate to call ex-con Paris Hilton a liar, but when she told Larry King last night that she had never taken drugs, it seems that the heiress somehow forgot about the marijuana, hashish, mushrooms, and Quaaludes. Hilton's, um, familiarity with illegal substances was memorialized on home videos she shot over the past several years in various cities. As we've previously reported, her videos are available on a web site that charges about $20 for a one-month subscription. In the seven clips you'll find below, Hilton does (and talks) drugs with sister Nicky, former boyfriend Jason Shaw, assorted swells,...

BOSTON -- A Lawrence substitute teacher was suspended Wednesday after grabbing a first-grader by his shirt and pulling him down a hallway on Tuesday, police said. Douglas Tracia, 48, was charged with assault and battery because there were scratches and lacerations on the boy's neck, police said. The incident was captured by a surveillance camera at the South Lawrence East School on Osgood Street.

Coping with a child's tantrum on a plane By BETH J. HARPAZ, AP Travel Editor 4:55 PM ET NEW YORK - How do you avoid becoming the family that got kicked off an airplane after their crying 3-year-old refused to take her seat? Experts say rewarding kids for cooperation, distracting them with simple games and telling them in advance what's going to happen can help. But at the end of the day, you may just have to take control, restrain the child, and comply with the rules. The family, Julie and Gerry Kulesza and their daughter Elly, was headed home...

A SCHOOLGIRL was quizzed by Secret Service agents after posting anti-George W. Bush comments on a popular Internet chat room, a US newspaper has reported. Julia Wilson, described as a freckle-nosed 14-year-old who wears braces and has a love heart on her school backpack, was yanked out of a biology class at her school in Sacramento, California to answer agents' questions. The Sacramento Bee newspaper reported that she posted a cartoon photo collage of a knife stabbing President George W. Bush's hand beneath the words "Kill Bush" on MySpace, which is hugely popular amongst teens. It was one of several...

For Cindy Nooney's 3-year-old twin boys, playing with the Thomas the Train set at their local bookstore in Southern California is a major thrill. Jack and Sam push Thomas, Arthur and friends down the track, they run around the table, jump up and down — and, of course, they squeeeaal. Nooney expects as much in the children's section of the store. But on a recent afternoon, she was surprised by an employee who confronted her, calling her darling Jack a tyrant. "He was a little loud but this is a children's section," says Nooney. "They run a noisy, cavernous bookstore...

Charlotte Church: B16 is a "Nazi" Ah, to be young, talented, and stupid. From EntertainmentWise.com: Charlotte Church has whipped up a storm of controversy by appearing as a drug-taking nun and calling the Pope a “Nazi” in her new TV show. The singer performed a range of outrageous stunts for a pilot of her new Channel 4 talk show, such as smashing open a statue of the Virgin Mary to reveal a can of cider and eating a communion wafer emblazoned with a ecstasy smiley face and pretending to hallucinate. ... As well as branding the Pope a “Nazi” –...

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2006 – Mark S. Wrighton was just entering his teen years when the Navy moved his family from Patuxent, Md., to Argentia, Newfoundland. Naval "military brat" Mark S. Wrighton took what he learned from his youth and succeeded in the academic world. The former chemistry professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is currently the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. Photo by Joe Angeles/WUSTL  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. At the time his father was a flight engineer on an extension of the Distant Early Warning Line. The early 1960s Cuban missile crisis was...

Did anyone just see the report on FOXNews about the out of control 5-year-old who was handcuffed at school? While showing a tape of the child climbing on top of furniture, tearing papers off the bulletin board, hitting, kicking, and possibly even trying to bite an assistant principal, Judge Andrew Nepaitano and 'child psychologist' Dr, Jeffrey Gardere, dicsuss the racism of the police and the psychological harm done to the child.

He also is a great basketball player who is wasting his talent and giving the NBA another black eye because he has mush for brains. And that is troubling enough to make him a nationwide lightning rod for discussion. In his latest and most bizarre flap yet, The Artiste Formerly Known as Artest has been sidetracked by his ambitions as a rap impressario.

MADISON, Wis. — Audrey Seiler (search), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (search) student who faked her abduction, was sentenced Thursday to three years probation after she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts. Seiler read a statement during the hearing in which she attributed the ordeal to a severe state of depression that caused her to act irrationally.