Free Republic

September 11, 2006 -- IF Sean Hannity has his way, talk-radio titan Bob Grant will return from his WABC "exile" soon. Grant, 76, was abruptly fired 10 years ago - right after Disney bought ABC - for making a wisecrack about the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in a plane crash. Now, WABC is awaiting the closing of a Disney deal to sell ABC's radio division to Citadel Broadcasting - which could open the door for Grant's return.

Evolutionary biology reappears on federal grant list 31 August 2006 Evolutionary biology, mysteriously missing from the list of undergraduate subjects eligible for a US federal grant, has been reinstated after a flurry of protest. David Dunn of the Department of Education says its absence was the result of a misunderstanding. "As soon as the omission came to our attention, we took steps to correct it." However, the incident has left pro-evolution campaigners wondering whether evolutionary biology was deliberately left out by people who find Darwinian evolution at odds with their religious beliefs.

BURLINGTON, Vt. --A former University of Vermont College of Medicine professor was ordered Wednesday to serve a year and a day in federal prison for using false data to obtain federal research grants. Eric Poehlman, 50, who left UVM in 2001 for the University of Montreal and was fired from there amid revelations about his scientific misconduct, will serve the sentence at a federal prison work camp in Maryland. An official with the National Institutes of Health said Poehlman's case marked the first time a researcher would serve time in prison for falsifying data to obtain federal grants. (snap) Poehlman,...

URBANA, Ill. - The University of Illinois plans to use a $251,000 grant presented by the state attorney general's office Thursday to test techniques and technology to control hog farm odors. "Finding solutions to reduce emissions that are both effective and cost-effective and won't reduce the competitiveness of our swine industry in Illinois is obviously of critical importance to swine producers. It's also of importance to people who live near swine facilities," said Michael Ellis, an animal sciences professor at the university, who is leading the research. The grant comes from an antitrust settlement reached in 2000 with several vitamin...

The Knights of Columbus will provide an $8 million grant to The Catholic University of America (CUA) for the renovation of a prominent building on the university’s campus. The announcement was made April 28 by CUA president Father David M. O’Connell C.M., during the annual American Cardinals Dinner in Washington. The donation, which is the largest the Order has ever made to the university, will be used to renovate Keane Hall, a 35,000-square-foot limestone building located on CUA’s central mall. Built in 1958, the modern-classical structure was the university’s original physics research facility. Renovations are expected to last two years....

Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficient (LEP) Pilot Program The following applications have been preliminarily selected to receive a grant for the Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Pilot Program. Revised 4/12/06 Contacts: Carlos Garza(Funding) Discretionary Grants Phone: (512) 463-9269 carlos.garza@tea.state.tx.us Roberto Manzo (Program) Office Education Initiatives Phone: (512) 936-6060 roberto.manzo@tea.state.tx.us Program Description: The purpose of the Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Pilot Program is: To implement multi-age programs serving 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds that assure that English language learning children receive appropriate activities to enter school prepared to succeed. The pilot program must provide many opportunities for the...

HELENA, Mont. - Nearly seven dozen Montana residents convicted of sedition during World War I are finally getting official pardons from the governor, years after their deaths. In a ceremony Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the grandson of German-Russian immigrants, planned to sign posthumous pardons for 78 men and women convicted in 1918 and 1919 for criticizing the U.S. government or its war effort. Relatives of some of those being pardoned were expected to attend. Montana's Sedition Act, passed in 1918 but since repealed, was one of the harshest in the country and a basis for a national sedition law...

This Day In History | Civil War April 16 1863 Passage of Vicksburg Admiral David Dixon Porter leads 12 ships past the heavy barrage of Confederate artillery at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He lost only one ship, and the operation speeded General Ulysses S. Grant's movement against Vicksburg. Grant had been trying to capture Vicksburg for six months. A first attempt failed when General William T. Sherman's troops were unsuccessful in attacking Vicksburg from the north. Grant now planned to move his army down the opposite bank of the river, cross back to Mississippi, and approach the city from the east. The...

Today marks the anniversary of the battle of Shiloh (or as some Southerners refer to it - Pittsburgh Landing) that took place on April 6-7, 1862. The Confederate Army of Mississippi launched a large dawn attack along the Union encampments, catching them off-guards. The Confederates pressed steadily as the Union army conducted a fighting retreat towards the banks of the Tennessee River. Only a determined stand by some hastily put-together Union troops (at the Hornets Nest) allowed Grant to put together a strong defensive line. The death of Confederate General A.S. Johnston threw the Rebel attack into disarray and the...

WASHINGTON, March 29, 2006 – The teenage co-founder of an "America Supports You" organization in Massachusetts that distributes prepaid phone cards to deployed troops has earned a $5,000 grant and is competing for another. Robbie Bergquist, 13, who started "Cell Phones for Soldiers" two years ago with his sister Brittany, is among nine "BRICK Award" winners competing for a second $5,000 grant from "Do Something," a national organization that encourages young people to become involved in community service. America Supports You is a Defense Department program that spotlights efforts by the Americans to support men and women in uniform. According...

A University of Pittsburgh reproductive biologist relied on the now-discredited stem-cell findings of a disgraced Korean scientist to win a $16.1 million federal grant last fall, according to federal documents and letters obtained by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Pitt's Gerald Schatten will use the money for an ambitious stem-cell research program that will occupy four of seven floors of Magee-Womens Research Institute's building, now under construction in Oakland, the documents show. The five-year grant, awarded to Schatten in September by the National Institutes of Health, is based in part on cloning experiments deliberately falsified by Hwang Woo-Suk, the documents show.

As the morning sun burned through the fog along the New Market Road about eight miles southeast of Richmond on the autumn morning of September 29, 1864, it revealed a scene of carnage and human wreckage. Dead infantrymen in coats that were a familiar shade of Union blue covered the slopes before New Market Heights. But most of the faces of the dead and maimed were black. Events leading to the Battle of New Market Heights began during the blistering summer of 1864, when overall Federal commander Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant directed the Army of the Potomac, commanded by...

GROTON, Conn. (NNS) -- The Naval Historical Center’s (NHC) search for Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones' ship Bonhomme Richard received further support in early February, when it was recommended for funding through the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration's competitive grant process. The NHC and Ocean Technology Foundation (OTF) plan to launch a search for Bonhomme Richard off the coast of England in July. "You cannot find an underwater archaeological site more important to the U.S. Navy than that of John Paul Jones' Bonhomme Richard," said Dr. Robert Neyland, head of the NHC's...

The mechanisms driving the process of evolution have always been subject to rigorous scientific debate. Growing in intensity and scope, this debate currently spans a broad range of disciplines including archaeology, biochemistry, computer modeling, genetics & development and philosophy. A recent $2.8 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the Cambridge Templeton Consortium [link] is providing the resources for further investigation into this complex and fascinating area. The funds will support 18 new grant awards to scientists, social scientists and philosophers examining how complexity has emerged in biological systems. Attracting 150 applications, the grant process has generated much interest...

December 22, 2005, 8:57 a.m. Can You Hear the Bells? Christmas 1864. In the winter of 1864, an unexpected sense of optimism and good cheer settled on the northern states. The Civil War continued, but the news from the fronts was promising, and hope flourished that with spring the end would come and peace would return. New Yorkers in particular were in a festive frame of mind, of a like unseen since the before the war began. People skated in Central Park, and rode sleighs through the snowy fields. They stopped at shops for warm cider, confections, nuts and dried...

Ronald Reagan has an airport, an aircraft carrier and buildings around the nation named for him, but his admirers aren't through. As the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Reagan Revolution approaches, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., is proposing legislation to put the late president on the $50 bill. "Not all of America uses Ronald Reagan airport, but all of America uses our currency," Kline said. "We have used currency to commemorate great leaders in our past. It seemed to me this was a good way to do it." But Rep. Jim Oberstar, D.-Minn., calls Kline's proposal "a fatuous idea."...

I was born to be a soldier. Not that I was particularly brave or even destined for a distinguished military career, but I think there is something inherent in most Southern boys that predisposes them to the profession of arms. I simply got a bigger dose of it than most.

In the worst case of scientific fakery to come to light in two decades, a top obesity researcher who long worked at the University of Vermont admitted yesterday that he fabricated data in 17 applications for federal grants to make his work seem more promising, helping him win nearly $3 million in government funding. Eric T. Poehlman, a leading specialist on metabolic changes during aging, acknowledged that he altered and made up research results from 1992 to 2002, including findings published in medical journals that overstated the effect of menopause on women's health. Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR TODAY marks the fifth anniversary of the peak of the great millennial stock market. What were you doing when the lights began to dim? Were you a bull or a bear? Rich or otherwise? What about today? Are you inoculated against the new alleged sure things? Or perhaps you believe in the permanent hegemony of the dollar in the world's currency markets? In the inevitability of rising house prices? Or of falling interest rates? Answer true or false: the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is clairvoyant. From the March 2000 top to the October 2002 trough, the...

"Every one had his opinion about the manner in which the war had been conducted: who among the generals had failed, how and why. Correspondents of the press were ever on hand to hear every word dropped, and were not always disposed to report correctly what did not confirm their preconceived notions, either about the conduct of the war or the individuals concerned in it." US Grant Memoirs, pg 95.