Free Republic

U.S. F-22 stealth fighter jets arrived in South Korea on Sunday for exercises as part of an effort to demonstrate advanced military capabilities, seeking to deter provocations from North Korea, according to reports. The move come after North Korea warned South Korea earlier in the weekend that the Korean peninsula had entered a “state of war,” according to an Associated Press report. Pyongyang threatened to shut down a border factory that is a symbol of North and South Korean cooperation, according to the report. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the arrival of the stealth jets came after previous...

State Rep. Joe Mitchell, D-Mobile, had an outlandish exchange via email with a Jefferson County man who asked him and other lawmakers not to pass any laws that would restrict gun ownership. Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to state legislators at 10:54 p.m. on Jan. 27, warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law. Mitchell responded from his public, ALHouse.gov email account at 11:59 p.m., telling Maxwell: "Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed,...

CBS-11 has learned two state troopers involved in a controversial roadside cavity search of two North Texas women have been indicted on criminal charges by a Dallas County Grand Jury. CBS-11 has learned that one of the troopers, Kelley Helleson, who left the courthouse after testifying Friday, is charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression. She was seen on dashcam video searching the body cavities — front and back — of the two women along an exit ramp of the Bush Turnpike in Irving last summer. The Texas Department of Public Safety fired Helleson....

Mayor Michael Bloomberg may be one of the world’s biggest proponents of government action to promote public health, but Hizzoner has his limits. In his weekly radio appearance on John Gambling’s radio show, the mayor was asked whether he would consider ordering mandatory gym memberships and he admitted that’s taking things too far. “Well, you have to be practical about what legally you can do and what people will do,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “The nice thing about the soda thing is it’s really just a suggestion.

US astronomers looking for life in the solar system believe that Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, which has an ocean, is much more promising than desert-covered Mars, which is currently the focus of the US government's attention. "Europa is the most likely place in our solar system beyond Earth to possess .... life," said Robert Pappalardo, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "And it is the place we should be exploring now that we have a concept mission we think is the right one to get there for an affordable cost," he...

A group of male German soldiers are experiencing an extremely bizarre health ailment – growing unexpected new body parts. The highly ranked military guards battalion, known for performing drill demonstrations at major events, are growing breasts on just one side of their bodies, Medical Daily reported. The soldiers – part of the Wachbataillon unit – are suffering from a condition called one-sided gynecomastia, and it’s a result of how the soldiers are performing their drills. Seventy-four percent of the soldiers have been diagnosed with gynecomastia, after complaining of growths on the left side of their bodies.

President Barack Obama says gun-control advocates have to do a little more listening than they do sometimes in the debate over firearms in America. In an interview with The New Republic, Obama says he has "a profound respect" for the tradition of hunting that dates back for generations. "And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake. Part of being able to move this forward is understanding the reality of guns in urban areas are very different from the realities of guns in rural areas," he says. .... "Yes," the president says, "in fact, up...

Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell defended current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's handling of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, saying it could've happened under anyone's watch. "I think she's had a distinguished record," Powell said in an interview on NBC's "Meet The Press" broadcast Sunday. "And I don't think that this one incident--which is one of these things that those of us in government have been through many, many times where suddenly an action happens late at night ... I don't think it's a blot on her record." "You're surprised," Powell said of the...

In January, Senator Feinstein will introduce a bill to stop the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devises. Following is a summary of the 2013 legislation: Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of: -120 specifically-named firearms -Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic -Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Verizon has filed a patent for targeting ads that collect information from infrared cameras and microphones that can detect the amount of people and types of conversations happening in customers’ living rooms. The set-top box technology is not the first of its kind – Comcast patented similar monitoring technology in 2008 that recommended content to users based on people it recognized in the room. Google TV also proposed a patent that would use video and audio recorders to figure out exactly how many people in a room were watching its broadcast. Verizon filed for the application...

Alvin and Pat Tjosaas, a retired couple in Woodland Hills, Calif., had the bad luck of having their home mistaken for a neighboring foreclosed home and being cleared by contractors hired by Wells Fargo -- not once but twice.

ASHINGTON — Authorities are investigating whether Mitt Romney’s private email account was hacked. On Tuesday, the website Gawker reported that an anonymous hacker had signed into Romney’s personal Hotmail account. Gawker reported that the hacker guessed the answer to a security question about Romney’s favorite pet in order to gain access to the account and change the password. The anonymous hacker told the website that Romney’s account on DropBox, a file sharing service, also was compromised.

Economic and political elites meeting this week at the Swiss resort of Davos will be asked to urgently find ways to reform a capitalist system that has been described as "outdated and crumbling." "We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations," said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum. "Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole. "We are...

Eurozone governments are bracing for new debt-crisis turbulence after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s told them it would downgrade two of the eurozone’s six triple A nations. One official told the Financial Times that France and Austria are set to be downgraded but this has yet to be confirmed by either the agencies or the governments. The official said the ratings agency planned to lower the two nation’s ratings to AA+, leaving Germany as the only large triple-A country underwriting the triple A-rated eurozone rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.

An off-duty state trooper who was hunting in southeast Massachusetts shot and wounded a 66-year-old woman who was out walking her two dogs when he mistook her pets for a deer. The woman was shot in the torso while walking on a wooded path in Norton about 5 p.m. Saturday. Police said the trooper called 911 after realizing he had mistaken the tails of the two retrievers for a deer's tail.

The White House on Monday defended Vice President Joe Biden for saying that the Taliban isn't an enemy of the United States despite the years spent fighting the militant Islamic group that gave a home to Al Qaeda and its leader Usama bin Laden while he plotted the Sept. 11 terror attacks. "It's only regrettable when taken out of context," White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the vice president's remarks in an interview published Monday. "It is a simple fact that we went into Afghanistan because of the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. We are...

A U.S. soldier held by the Taliban since 2009 has been recaptured after he went on the run for three days. Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's daring escape failed when a manhunt was launched in Pakistan to find him, Taliban commanders said. He is now facing his third Christmas in captivity.

EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK — Water management contractors working in the Florida Everglades have captured and killed a giant Burmese python that had just consumed an adult deer. Scott Hardin, exotic species coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, says workers found the nearly 16-foot-long snake on Thursday.

The head of the IMF has warned that its $384bn (£248bn) war chest designed as an emergency bail-out fund is inadequate to deliver the scale of the support required by troubled states. In a document distributed to the IMF steering committee at the weekend, Ms Lagarde said: "The fund's credibility, and hence effectiveness, rests on its perceived capacity to cope with worst-casescenarios. Our lending capacity of almost $400bn looks comfortable today, but pales in comparison with the potential financing needs of vulnerable countries and crisis bystanders."

ST. PETERSBURG — Raven Smith doesn't usually take a gun to Applebee's. But something made him reconsider Sunday night as he held his .380 caliber weapon in his hand, about to leave it behind as he stepped out of his car to have dinner with his girlfriend, Ashley Tanner. In a split second, he found himself firing the weapon at a masked stranger who rushed up behind Tanner with what looked like a gun. "Get down, get down!" Smith yelled to Tanner. She ducked and he fired four shots at the stranger from less than 6 feet away, over the...