Free Republic

When the Vikings sailed west to England more than a millennium ago, they brought their animal companions with them and even cremated their bodies alongside human ones in a blazing pyre before burying them together, a new study finds.These animal and human remains were found in a unique cremation cemetery in central England that has long been assumed to hold the remains of Vikings — in particular, the warriors who sailed west to raid the countryside in the ninth century A.D. However, the new analysis revealed that several of the burial mounds didn’t contain just the remains of humans but...

It's the talk of at least one part of Columbia and it all started Tuesday with a phone call from a concerned neighbor. Heathwood resident Andrew Philson got a call about a snake in his backyard and thought he'd be finding a small garter or black snake, but got the shock of his life when he saw the beast slithering up one of his trees. That snake has slithered his way into the national spotlight. First, WIS, then CNN, Fox, even the Drudge Report. Why? Well, it's a big snake and who knows how long it had been sneaking --...