Free Republic

The recent election of Republican Dean Tran of Fitchburg to the Massachusetts state Senate was an embarrassing rebuke to the state’s top Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Despite their opposition, Tran defeated Democrat Susan Chalifoux Zephir, a Leominster city councilor who had the support of the state’s Democrat Party hierarchy, as well as Charlene DiCalogero of Berlin an unenrolled candidate Claire Freda.

Being a mom or dad is one of life's greatest joys. But early on weekend mornings? We're not always feeling the joy so much. In a series of Vine videos now going viral, one bleary-eyed dad captures the truth of Saturday mornings as a parent. Tony Serafini, a 38-year-old dad from Leominster, Mass., spends Saturday mornings alone with his 4-year-old daughter after his wife and eldest daughter leave for dance class. He started shooting a series of videos showing the little girl rocking out to her favorite music in the background, while dad blearily waits for his caffeine to kick...

Organ transplants are big business and patients are often declared “brain dead” in order to harvest their organs, neonatologist Dr. Paul A. Bryne said during a talk last Sunday at the Knights of Columbus hall. The event was sponsored by the St. John the Baptist Pro-Life League of Saint Benedict Center in Still River. Dr. Byrne, past president of the Catholic Medical Association (USA), has directed the neonatology and pediatrics departments at Charles Mercy Hospital in Oregon, Ohio. He is president of Life Guardian Foundation, a pro-life organization based in Vancouver, Washington. He has appeared on television’s “Good Morning America”...

ON Nov. 1, just two months shy of its 50th birthday, the plastic pink flamingo went extinct. Or more accurately, it stopped reproducing, when its manufacturer, Union Products, shut down the factory in Leominster, Mass. That’s sad news, but hardly surprising. The flamingo’s glory days were behind it. Union Products cited the rising cost of plastic resins and of electricity, along with financing woes. Yet while the bird reigned as an icon in the late 20th century, it was bound to succumb to the very different tastes — or the absence thereof — in the 21st. In 1957, the flamingo...