Free Republic

A lesbian couple in California who say their 11-year-old son Tommy who wants to be a girl named Tammy are giving their child hormone blockers that delay the onset of puberty -- so that he can have more time that he can have more time to decide if he wants to change his gender. The couple’s supporters say the Hormone Blocking Therapy has only minor side effects and is appropriate for a child who is unsure of his gender. "This is definitely a changing landscape for transgender youth," said Joel Baum, director of education and training for Gender Spectrum, a...

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A New Jersey man has filed a federal lawsuit in New York over the Port Authority's toll increase. Yoel Weisshaus of New Milford claims the increase is an abuse of power and discriminates against him because he is poor. Cash tolls on the George Washington Bridge, Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, Goethals Bridge, Bayonne Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing went up from $8 to $12 on Sunday. Weisshaus claims the tolls are targeted to restrict minimum-wage earners and will be used to complete the World Trade Center project instead of improving bridges and tunnels. The Record newspaper reports the unemployed Bergen Community...

<p>HARTFORD (AP) - Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. announced on Thursday that it is trimming its worldwide workforce of 18,000 by about 540 jobs to remain competitive in the helicopter design, manufacturing and service industry.</p> <p>Paul Jackson, the company's director of communications, called the move to cut about 3 percent of the workforce "a difficult decision." The company is not disclosing a breakdown of where the job cuts will be.</p>

Middlebury, Conn. (WTNH) - The FAA will provide $5 million in federal grant funding to residents affected by noise levels. Congressman Chris Murphy spearheaded the project to get Middlebury residents who were affected by noise levels at the Waterbury-Oxford Airport. Murphy claims that esidents of the Triangle Hills area of Middlebury have been adversely impacted by the growth in air traffic in and out of the airport. The grant will fund the land acquisition of approximately 15 homes, including relocation of approximately 38 residents adversely impacted by noise. "Although I would have preferred this funding had been released far sooner,...

An elementary school in Colorado has come under criticism after they lowered the American flag and elevated a Saudi Arabian flag. The principal at Bauder Elementary School in Fort Collins said they did not mean to disrespect the American flag, according to a report in the Greeley Gazzette.

MILWAUKEE - Protesters crowded the street outside Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood as Governor Walker visited the school Friday to read to children. The protests came just hours after someone vandalized the school ahead of the Governor's visit. "Some of these folks super glued our front doors at the prep school," said Br. Bob Smith, OFM, the president of Messmer Catholic Schools, about the school on the corner of North Fratney and East Burleigh Streets. He told Newsradio 620 WTMJ that a woman was walking in front of the school Thursday, asking people to protest. According to Br....

A New Jersey first grade teacher who wrote that she was a "warden for future criminals" on Facebook says she was speaking "out of frustration to their behavior." Jennifer O'Brien defended herself Wednesday at an administration hearing that will determine whether the tenured Paterson teacher should lose her job. O'Brien told an administrative law judge she wrote the post in exasperation because six or seven unruly first-graders kept disrupting her lessons. She said one boy had recently hit her. The teacher posted her remark to 333 friends on March 28. However, it was forwarded and led critics to call her...

he Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest credit ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, according to two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews. The investigation began before Standard & Poor’s cut the United States’ AAA credit rating this month, but it is likely to add fuel to the political firestorm that has surrounded that action. Lawmakers and some administration officials have since questioned the agency’s secretive process, its credibility and the competence of its analysts, claiming to have found...

A 61-year-old man who claims he was fired from his Jones Beach lifeguard job of 40 years because he refused to wear a Speedo for the yearly swim test is suing the state for age discrimination. Roy Lester believes neither he nor any other man his age has any business wearing the skimpy swimsuit. “I wore a Speedo when I was in my 20s,” Lester, who was 58 when he says he was forced out of his lifeguard post in 2007, told the Daily News. “But come on. There should be a law prohibiting anyone over the age of 50...

An entrepreneurial Queens man makes his living off New York City streets, but in a manner far different from that which city residents have witnessed before. Raffi Stepanian, 43, earns his cash scouring the sidewalks in Midtown’s Diamond District for hidden treasure – chips of rubies, diamonds, platinum and gold that somehow fell off their owners’ jewelry and became lodged in the cracks between cement slabs or hopelessly stuck in a piece of gum some passerby flippantly spit out onto the street, according to a report. In less than a week, Stepanian told The New York Post he amassed enough...

Milford, Conn (WTNH) - Local auto shops are swamped with dozens of cars in need of repairs, all due to bad gasoline. One dealership alone has serviced fifteen cars with fuel injection problems. Other service centers in Connecticut have been responding to similar complaints. Cars are stalling, sputtering, and just not running efficiently. Delilah Rios from West Haven noticed the problem with her Scion on Thursday. "They have to change the fuel injectors, they have to change the spark plugs, they have to clean out all the tubes, the gas," Rios said. The dealership concluded that the gasoline was the...

I sent my taxes off via USPS in the first week in April......here we are going into the 2nd week in June and nothing. I can't recall it ever taking this long.

HOUSTON -- A West Point cadet from Houston has filed a lawsuit against Patti LaBelle, her bodyguards and Bush Intercontinental Airport, claiming that he was viciously beaten by the singer’s bodyguards for standing too close to her luggage. In the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, Richard King claims he was seriously injured at the hands of LaBelle’s bodyguards after returning to Houston for spring break on March 11, 2011.

After 10 years of bloody battle in Afghanistan, After 10 years of bloody battle in Afghanistan, the United States is trolling for Taliban officials to talk peace with before the July drawdown of American troops. Washington's special envoy, Marc Grossman, has a one-point agenda: to reconcile Afghanistan's warring factions, say Western diplomats in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But as Washington seeks negotiating partners, it has little knowledge of who among the Taliban has the clout to make talks worthwhile. Grossman, therefore, is trying for access to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader, according to Imtiaz Gul, head of the Center...

MYFOXNY.COM - It's like a flash mob gone bad. Security footage from a Manhattan Dunkin' Donuts shows a group of youths climbing on counters, throwing chairs and throwing tables in a violent attack on workers. It happened at the Dunkin' Donuts on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. A $2,000 hot chocolate machine was reportedly destroyed in the attack. Similar attacks have targeted other stores in the neighborhood in the previous weeks. The video shows one of the teens throwing a chair and then running up to grab a donut. A few of the attackers also grabbed drinks out of a...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Two years into a fight to stay in the U.S., Mexican college student Mariano Cardoso learned of a victory last week — not from immigration authorities, but from a U.S. senator who had taken up his cause. On a call to his cell phone, Sen. Richard Blumenthal delivered the news: Homeland Security officials had suspended Cardoso's deportation, allowing him to graduate next month and work in the United States. "He told me we had a lot to celebrate, but I told him I had to go to class," Cardoso said. "I didn't know what he was...

A New Jersey mother is suing an anti-abortion organization that used her 6-year-old daughter's image on a massive billboard in New York City that some people denounced as racist and offensive. Tricia Fraser filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Texas-based Life Always over the billboard that went up briefly in Manhattan earlier this year. After it was first reported by NBC New York, it came down. Life Always did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The billboard pictured Fraser's daughter, who is black, along with the words, "The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb." The...

(CNSNews.com) – The White House announced Monday that this year’s Easter Egg Roll will be “more environmentally friendly,” with eggs made of wood certified by an environmental activist organization and packaging that will “minimize waste and environmental impact.” The press release issued by the White House states that the eggs will be produced in the United States from hardwood “certified” by the Forest Stewardship Council, a non-profit organization with a presence in 50 countries and a mission “to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests.” The “greener” packaging for the eggs – available in purple, pink, green and yellow...

It's a dream for hundreds of Connecticut high school students, but it's out of reach because they are illegal. Proponents say there's no cost to the state, and kids should not pay for mistakes made by their parents. Opponents say it's full of potential problems. Lorella Praeli of New Milford is so smart she's been going to Quinnipiac University on grants and scholarships. She now wants to further her education at a state school, but has found a road block because she's illegal. Her mother brought her here for medical treatment years ago, and stayed when the tourist visa expired....