Free Republic

A Fairfield father says that a federally funded health clinic operating within Lawrence High School provided his minor daughter with a baggy of prescription anti-depressants without his knowledge or consent. When the girl’s father, Eric Sack, discovered the baggy of pills over the weekend, his daughter told him that it was provided to her by the Bulldog Health Center, a School Based Health Center (SBHC) at Lawrence High School. Sack saw the the pills as an infringement on his parental rights, but he was also concerned that the school’s clinic sent unlabeled drugs with no child-resistant container into his home,...

Organizers of a New Zealand hunting contest are pawing their way out of controversy after canceling an event that would have seen children 14 and under compete to kill the most feral cats. The North Canterbury Hunting Competition is open to both kids and adults, and aims to manage invasive species and raise money for local causes — specifically, a school and pool in the rural village of Rotherham. Last year, more than 250 children killed 427 animals, mostly possums, hares and rabbits, according to The Guardian. Organizers added a new category this year, announcing in a since-deleted Friday Facebook...

Italian children should be given the surname of both parents, the Constitutional Court said on Wednesday, overturning the tradition by which all newborns are automatically named after their father. The current practice is "discriminatory and harmful to the identity" of the child, the court said in a statement, adding that both parents should be able to choose the surname. Children should be given both parents' surnames in the order they decide, unless they agree their children should take just one of them, the court added in a statement.

How much of what you believe is going on within the world’s current events is actually true? Do you think you would make different decisions if your perception was missing important bits of information that change any given story? This is an important question right now, as much of what people think is happening comes from mainstream media or “fact-checkers,” and much of the time, it’s only a small piece to the story that doesn’t truly inform people. Ongoing Facebook censorship is forcing the hand of independent organizations who have had enough of the platform’s allowance of independent “fact-checkers” to...

It's an obvious rule: Never pick on a president's family. Elizabeth Lauten, the formerly unknown "communications director" for two-term GOP congressman Stephen Fincher resigned after a national-media feeding frenzy over some stupid words about the president's daughters on her personal Facebook page. No one came to her defense for this idiocy, and correctly so. Republican Party spokesman Sean Spicer decried her remarks, and then attacked the media for its hypocrisy, for launching into an obscure Republican staffer's social-media statements, something it has never done for Democrats. Again, he was absolutely correct. Political decorum demands that presidential children should be left...

It's been confirmed: "The two devices found on U.S.-bound cargo planes were viable explosives that could have destroyed the aircraft if detonated." One of the originating sources of yesterday's Islamic attack/massive dry run is Yemen. Obama has sanctioned child soldiers in Yemen, doubled aid to Yemen and released key leaders of AQAP from GITMO, now waging war from Yemen. While Obama spends countless hours forcing the Jews to ethnically cleanse their capital of its Jews and give up the precious land of their tiny state, he is doubling aid to Yemen -- he handles jihadist countries much differently. Al Qaeda...

BAGHDAD – Soldiers from 1st Armored Division worked together with U.S. Sailors, Airmen and civilian employees here to distribute pediatric wheelchairs to nearly 40 disabled Iraqi children on Camp Liberty, June 21.Sergeant 1st Class William Harrington, Company A, Division Special Troops Battalion, 1st Armored Division, poses for a picture with an Iraqi girl on Baghdad’s Camp Liberty, June 21, 2010, after adjusting a pediatric wheelchair to fit the child. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Teri Hansen.The project manager, Brad Blauser, an administrative assistant for Task Force Safe, founded the organization Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids which provided the wheelchairs for the...

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2010 – Defense and USO officials joined military families at the U.S. Navy Memorial here yesterday to celebrate the launch of a new DVD created to help military children cope with a parent’s deployment. Trevor Romain, award-winning author and children's books illustrator, jokes with military children after a USO-sponsored film screening of the DVD "With You All the Way” at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C., March 30, 2010. The DVD was designed for military children dealing with deployment. USO photo by Mike Theiler  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. "With You All the Way” --...

Brig. Gen. Majid M. Abaas hands out school supplies to the children of the Bab Al-Toob neighborhood during a humanitarian aid drop in West Mosul, Aug. 8. Photo by 2nd Lt. Jeff Orban, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. MOSUL — The Mosul Brigade Federal Police (FP) handed out school supplies and children's shoes to the citizens of the Bab Al-Toob neighborhood here, Aug. 8. The humanitarian drop was one part of a larger mission to reach out to the populace of this West Mosul neighborhood. Children and parents alike clamored for the much-needed pencils, notebooks, and other school supplies that will...

CAMP TAJI — A ribbon-cutting ceremony signaled the completion of refurbishments on the Al Gil Al Jadeed Primary School in Mushada, northwest of Baghdad, Dec. 29. Approximately $90,000 in Iraqi Commander’s Emergency Response Program funds were spent to improve the existing structure, repair electrical work and ensure students have a good place to go to school, said 1st Lt. Jesse Ozbat, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. Normally, the school houses approximately 600 students, but there are currently double that amount attending. Students are crammed into classrooms, and overwhelmed teachers do their best to...

A cradle-baby scheme in Tamil Nadu has helped save 461 newborns in an area once notorious for its high incidence of female infanticide. A staggering 436 of these babies who have got a new lease of life thanks to the cradle-baby centre of the government hospital in Dharmapuri district are girls. The centre was set up in April 2003 in a bid to deter unwed mothers and couples who did not want girls from killing their newborns, as was a widespread practice in Dharmapuri and some other southern districts of Tamil Nadu. Cradles are kept at the hospital entrance where...

The California Supreme Court is considering a request by a lesbian woman that could nullify thousands of adoptions by homosexual couples in the state. A pro-family group contends the parental-rights case exposes illegal policies of liberal judges, Gov. Gray Davis and his Department of Social Services. Gov. Gray Davis "Gray Davis made up his own law and pushed through gay adoptions behind the voters' backs," insisted Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families, a nonprofit family issues group. The case centers on "second-parent adoption," in which a birth mother's unmarried partner adopts the mother's child, usually conceived by...