Free Republic

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan was bracing for more snow on Friday after some of the heaviest snowfall on record that has left 57 people dead and paralysed transport. Almost 4 metres (13 ft) of snow has piled up in the worst-hit areas of Niigata near the Japan Sea coast, though the snowiest season of the year is yet to come. Television pictures showed drifts burying the ground floors of houses and almost covering street lamps. A 93-year-old woman and her daughter were crushed to death in Ishikawa Prefecture, 300 km (186 miles) northwest of Tokyo, on Thursday when their house...

Drugs stockpiled as bird flu kills two By Celia Hall and Amberin Zaman (Filed: 06/01/2006) Four million doses of anti-flu treatment have been stockpiled, the Government said yesterday as Turkey confirmed two deaths from bird flu.A health department official said Britain's reserve was growing by 800,000 doses a month and the 14.6 million target was likely to be reached in late summer at a cost of £200 million. The Turkish deaths were believed to be from the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu that has killed more than 70 people in east Asia. Officials said tests on a teenage brother...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2005 – A Marine assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed by an improvised explosive device Dec. 14 while conducting combat operations near Ramadi, Iraq, military officials reported. The Marine's name is being withheld pending notification of family. In other news, Iraqi army and Task Force Baghdad soldiers conducted operations Dec. 14 in western Baghdad geared toward creating a secure environment for free elections in the area. Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, questioned a driver who was behaving suspiciously near a traffic...

ST. PARIS, Ohio -- Steven Zorn had put the pen gun to his head and clicked before, thinking it was jammed and would not work. But on the third try, the tiny, silver pistol went off as the 22-year-old budding rap singer was drinking to celebrate an impending record deal. He died later at the hospital. The shooting Nov. 18 at Zorn's home in this rural village of 2,000, about 50 miles northeast of Dayton. Family, friends and law enforcement officials believe it was accidental. Family and friends said Zorn drove himself to succeed in the music world. He loved...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2005 – A Task Force Baghdad soldier was killed Dec. 4 when his patrol struck an improvised explosive device in eastern Baghdad, officials reported today. The soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. In other news, five suspected terrorists were detained Dec. 4 after Iraqi police and U.S. troops found an IED near Bayji and a cache of IEDs near Kirkuk, officials said. A joint patrol of Iraqi police and soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team discovered the IED cache waiting to be emplaced near Kirkuk. The roadside bombs...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2005 – A U.S. Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed in a suicide car-bomb attack near Karmah, Iraq, Nov. 15. No further details were available. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. In other news from Iraq, Iraqi and U.S. soldiers found and disposed of four weapons caches and an improvised explosive device Nov. 14 in north-central Iraq with the help of several local citizens. In the largest discovery of the day, soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 5th...

It’s about time. National Democrat Party Chairman Howard Dean gagged himself on Sunday morning just minutes before Meet the Press went telecast. That’s a plus for Dean. There may be some brain cells actually lit up in his head. Perhaps as time passes, more will start perking toward the reasonable end of the cerebellum. At least we were spared a Dean hate speech rev up this Sunday when he ducked out of a head-to-head with National Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehleman. (snip) Truthfully, we all have come to realize that the Dem Party is a killing party. It kills the...

Two other administrators also shotJACKSBORO, Tenn. — A student shot and killed an assistant principal and seriously wounded two other administrators at a high school today, officials said. The student was arrested. Parents rushed to 1,400-student Campbell County High School to take their children home after the shooting about 30 miles northwest of Knoxville. Assistant Principal Ken Bruce was killed, and Assistant Principal Jim Pearce and Principal Gary Seale were wounded — Seale while trying to take the student into custory, according to state Education Department spokeswoman Rachel Woods. The school was locked down after the shooting, and students were...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2005 – Two 1st Corps Support Command soldiers were killed and another was injured today when their vehicle rolled over while conducting a combat logistics patrol near Balad, Iraq, military officials reported. Officials also announced that two soldiers assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) died of wounds suffered Oct. 10 when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in Ramadi, Iraq. Several Army units are serving with the 2nd MEF in Iraq. The soldiers' names of the soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. In other...

SAN DIEGO – A man who was shot by a Border Patrol agent in Otay Mesa early Sunday as he grappled for the officer's gun has died at a hospital, authorities said. The shooting in the 2300 block of Roll Drive happened about 2:15 a.m., as the officer tried to get a motorist out of an SUV, San Diego police homicide Lt. Kevin Rooney said. The officer had spotted the Chevy Suburban driving in the area of Roll and Siempre Viva Road and became suspicious because of reports that a Suburban had been seen in the area picking up suspected...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An Israeli aircraft fired missiles Sunday at a car driving along a coastal road in Gaza City, killing a top Islamic Jihad militant and wounding at least two other people, militants and Palestinian health officials said. The attack hit a Mercedes carrying Mohammed Khalil, Islamic Jihad's top militant leader in southern Gaza, said a group spokesman known as Abu Abdullah. Health officials said one militant was killed and two other people were wounded in the attack. Palestinian Interior Ministry officials said two were killed and four were wounded. Atef Qatrous, 22, said he was leaving...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2005 – An Afghan interpreter was killed and two U.S. servicemembers were wounded Sept. 15 when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, military officials announced today. Both servicemembers were taken to Kandahar Airfield and were reported to be in stable condition. The unit was conducting combat patrols in the area to disrupt the enemy operations aimed at affecting the upcoming elections, officials said. "We send our deepest condolences out to the family and friends or our fallen Afghan friend," said Army Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, Combined Joint Task Force 76 spokesman. "He died...

HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Police in Hattiesburg, Miss., said a man fatally shot his sister in the head over a bag of ice.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2005 – Two 1st Corps Support Command soldiers were killed when their vehicle rolled over during a combat logistics patrol near Tal Afar, Iraq, about 11 p.m. Aug. 21, military officials reported. The names of the soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. In other developments, Iraqi police officers on patrol discovered 32 mortar rounds and 20 rockets in two separate incidents in Baghdad Aug. 21, according to a Multinational Force report. The officers noticed a fresh mound of dirt between two houses in the Zohour district. Upon further investigation, they found 32 mortar...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A blast Friday near a mosque west of Baghdad killed four people, including three children, and wounded at least 19 other people, police and hospital officials said. Iraqis blamed U.S. forces, but an American spokesman disputed the Iraqi claim. The blast occurred on the outskirts of the town of Nasaf, near Ramadi, an insurgent center 70 miles west of Baghdad, according to police Lt. Mohammed al-Obeidi and Dr. Mohammed al-Ani of Ramadi General Hospital. A hospital official, Ali Taleb, said a U.S. armored vehicle fired near the Ibn al-Jawzi mosque, about 15 miles east of Ramadi, after...

American air strike kills 40 Sunni rebels in Iraqi border stronghold By Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad (Filed: 13/06/2005) American forces launched a rare series of air strikes against rebel Iraqi positions close to Syria during a bloody weekend in which more than 80 people were killed. Marine aircraft fired seven missiles as units on the ground fought insurgents controlling a road leading to the frontier city of Qaim. A military spokesman said 40 insurgents had been killed but reported no American casualties. "The deaths of another 25 people were reported elsewhere in the country over the weekend," he said. British...

“Outting” PETA: Liberal Compassion is just another word for Hypocrisy By N. Beaujon May 15, 2005 Recently New Max.com came out with an article on People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) headlined: PETA's Dirty Secret…PETA Kills Animals. By the Thousands. My first reaction was that the headline was the story. We all know that PETA is a bunch of histrionic hypocrites whose love for animals is exceeded only by their hatred of human beings but then I delved further. If PETA is actually euthanizing animals by the thousands then what is it really spending its cash on, and...

LANCASTER, Pa. - Tristan Egolf, a political activist and author whose first novel at age 27 won him comparisons to William Faulkner and John Steinbeck, has died. He was 33. Egolf died May 7 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Lancaster apartment, said G. Gary Kirchner, Lancaster County coroner. Egolf had shown signs of depression over the past 18 months, said Michael Hoober, a family therapist in Lancaster and friend of Egolf. "He pushed the envelope wherever he went," Hoober said. "His creativity was always right in front of him, but somewhere in there it started to fall apart."...

Citing "community feedback," the advertising company responsible for a Los Angeles area billboard that places L.A. in Mexico has announced it will revise the ad by Friday. As WorldNetDaily reported, a billboard ad for KRCA, channel 62, a Spanish-language news station, has the "CA" abbreviation after "Los Angeles" crossed out and the word "Mexico" added in its place in bold red letters. In the center of the billboard, placed within the L.A. skyline, is an image of the Angel of Independence, a well-known monument in Mexico City, further suggesting the merging of Los Angeles and Mexico. It also says, "Tu...

Arms cache blast under warlord's home kills 28 By Tom Coghlan in Kabul (Filed: 03/05/2005) An illegal arms dump exploded yesterday beneath the home of an Afghan warlord, killing at least 28 people. Officials said the explosion devastated a village in Baghlan province, 75 miles north of Kabul. The cause of the blast was unclear. The warlord, named as Jalal Bashgah, was not at his home at the time of the explosion, though eight members of his family were killed or injured. The blast injured more than 70 people and the number of dead was expected to rise. The Interior...