Free Republic

Prince and Charlomane Leonard sat together in a Houston courtroom on Wednesday, anxiously waiting for a judge to decide their family's fate. With hands clasped tightly, the couple occasionally whispered to each other, biding the time before their turn to approach the bench. Unknown to them, in the lobby on the other side of the court's double doors, their six children also were sitting, waiting and hoping that their family would all be together again. It had been more than a month since Child Protective Services caseworkers found the family living in an eastside storage shed and removed the children...

What had been a dream ending to a perfect regular season for the high school basketball team in the small southwest Michigan community of Fennville turned swiftly and tragically into something worse than a nightmare. You can awaken from a nightmare, shake away the demons and drift back into reality. There is no shaking away the horrific reality at the Fennville High School gymnasium Thursday night when Wes Leonard, the school’s star in basketball and football, collapsed on the court moments after making a game-winning basket. Leonard was pronounced dead at Holland Hospital about two hours later. He was 16....

Frustrated Job Seekers Deciding To Call It Quits By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, AP Business Writer February 6, 2010 Many jobless people have reached a conclusion that captures the depth of the unemployment crisis: Looking for a job is a waste of time. The economy is growing. Yet it's creating few jobs. That's why in the past eight months, 1.8 million people without jobs left the labor market. Many had grown so frustrated by their failure to find a job that they threw up their hands and quit looking for one. And it's why Barbara Bishop sat down at her kitchen table...

Nike: Tiger Woods Affairs Are A 'Minor Blip' Tiger Woods's multiple infidelities have been dismissed as a "minor blip" by the chairman of Nike, the golfer's biggest commercial sponsor. By Tom Leonard in New York 14 Dec 2009 The chairman of Nike has dismissed Tiger Woods affairs as a 'minor blip' Phil Knight, the co-founder of the sports footwear and clothing giant, said the scandal surrounding Woods's private life was "part of the game" in endorsement deals. But he acknowledged that his company's checks on the sports star's suitability had failed to uncover evidence of serial philandering. Mr Knight, whose...

TORRINGTON, Conn. Police are investigating a bizarre discovery involving severed goat heads, put on display at the end of a driveway. Last week, police found two severed goat heads, a coconut and a pentagram drawn in chalk in a driveway of a home, police Lt. Francis Balzano said. "We're not saying this is illegal," Balzano said. "We would just like to know what it means." Police do not know if the incident was some kind of ritual, practical joke or a crime. Balzano said police find such combinations a couple times a year, usually in wooded areas. "This is an...

"As I have said time and time again, a negotiated settlement is the best solution." -- Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations The American ambassador to that non-august body calls the Iran problem one of the great dangers facing the West, and indeed the world. China and Russia have both said they will veto any attempt to create sanctions in the Security Council -- which may be taken to signify that to them Iranian terrorists with their own stock of nukes are less a threat to world peace than was South African apartheid. Events are shaping the situation...

Leonard Nimoy sings "Bilbo Baggins"

October 20, 2004 Mr. Leonard Downie, Jr., Executive Editor Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman The Washington Post “The story is a legend now, but it really did happen.” So begins page one of The News About The News: American Journalism in Peril, the book co-authored (with Post colleague Robert Kaiser, 2002) by Leonard Downie, Jr., an omnibus review of the condition of American news media. The legend referred to is Watergate. Mr. Downie reminisces about the unfolding of the Watergate saga—he had a ringside seat as the direct supervisor of Woodward and Bernstein at the time--and the Post’s role in driving...

Friday, January 10, 2003 -- On the program following Seven Days, Bill Moyers' NOW, Grover G. Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, was described in the intro as having "plotted" the new Bush economic strategy, which the program previous to Seven Days, Washington Week in Review, portrayed as shocking. (And, of course, impossible, risky, not based in reality, etc.) Three programs in a row, supported by your tax dollars, telling you that unless you vote for higher taxes on yourself, and more spending by government, everything will collapse. Three programs which are produced and manned by people who haven't the...

State Officials Order Expensive New Vehicles Officials Order $47,000 SUV, $41,000 Cadillac POSTED: 4:22 p.m. PST December 12, 2002 UPDATED: 6:03 p.m. PST December 12, 2002 SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- With the state in the middle of a budget crisis of historic proportions, lawmakers are cutting costs, affecting thousands of jobs, salaries and programs. But KCRA 3 has learned that two newly-elected officials are ordering costly cars at taxpayers' expense. Facing thousands of layoffs and a severe budget crisis, state employees are starting to catch wind that two top government officials hope to land in the driver's seat of luxury vehicles...