Free Republic

Social workers have launched an investigation over claims Michael Jackson's youngest son was threatened with a stun-gun by one of his cousins. Officials opened a child protection file on the family after a 300,000-volt weapon was removed from the home where the late singer's three children live with their 80-year-old grandmother. Jackson's eight-year-old son Blanket was allegedly chased by his 13-year-old cousin Jaafar - the son of Michael's brother Jermaine - with the gun before being stopped by security guards.

William Herskovic, who helped fuel the Belgian resistance during World War II after escaping from the Auschwitz concentration camp, has died. He was 91. Herskovic died Friday at his Encino home after a lengthy battle with cancer, said his daughter, Patricia Herskovic. He was the longtime operator of Bel Air Camera in Westwood, which he opened soon after moving to Los Angeles in 1957. Three months after arriving at Auschwitz, Herskovic fled the camp on the first night of Hanukkah in 1942, cutting through a chain-link fence to freedom with two other prisoners using a pair of wire cutters he...