Free Republic

LINCOLN, Neb. – The mother was running out of more than patience when she abandoned her 18-year-old daughter at a hospital over the weekend under Nebraska's safe-haven law. She was also running out of time: She knew that state lawmakers would soon meet in a special session to amend the ill-fated law so that it would apply to newborns only. "Where am I going to get help if they change the law?" said the mother... To the state's surprise and embarrassment, more than half of the 31 children legally abandoned under the safe-haven law since it took effect in mid-July...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A team of psychic detectives is assisting Orlando police in their search for missing three-year-old Florida girl Caylee Marie Anthony, according to local news reports. The group, known as "Body Hunters" and lead by psychic detective Gale St. John, is "blind driving" around Central Florida in search for the toddler who was last seen June 16, Local6.com reported. "We will not even look at street names," psychic detective Gale St. John told the TV station and its Web site on Monday. "We drive and go completely on feeling instinct, chasing down what we call a person signature."...

An 8-year-old boy reportedly stole an idling car Thursday night and crashed into another car on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Pontiac, police said. Pontiac police said due to protocol, they notified Child Protective Service, but it's unlikely they will face any charges.

OCALA, Fla. (AP) - Police say a mother of 4 teenage boys has been charged with neglect after saying she was going "on strike" because she was fed up with them. Ocala police say 43-year-old Melissa Dean told the Department of Children and Families that she went on strike because no one would help her with the boys ages 17, 16, 14 and 13. Police have gone to Dean's home 12 times since September 2007 due to the boys' misbehavior. Dean tells the DCF that she thought there would be peace if she gave up her bedroom to 1 of...

DELTONA, Fla. -- A Volusia County nursing home resident who was found with maggots in one of his eyes, an infected breathing tube, a partially inserted cathater and bed sores has died, according to his family. Anthony Digiannurio, of Deltona, was 82 years old when he was transported in November from the University Center West nursing home to Florida Hospital DeLand, where staff members discovered the ailments. It is not known if the cause of death was related to the aforementioned conditions. According to a DeLand police report released in November, a representative from University Center West said that the...

Angelina Jolie revealed that her blonde-haired blue-eyed natural child Shiloh, 20 months, is the 'outcast' in her ethnically diverse family. The actress - who has adopted three other children from around the world - said in a revealing interview, that her only biological child, fathered by actor Brad Pitt, is the odd one out because of her bright blonde hair.

No charges will be filed against a middle school administrator whose toddler daughter died last month when she was left in the back seat of her mother's SUV during a heat wave, a prosecutor said Tuesday. Leaving the child in the car for the work day was "a substantial lapse of due care" but did not meet the definition of reckless conduct necessary for prosecution, said Clermont County Prosecutor Don White. Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby, 40, is assistant principal at Glen Este Middle School, about 20 miles east of Cincinnati. Authorities said she left her 2-year-old daughter, Cecilia, strapped into a car...

Sgt. Tom Lovejoy, who heads the six-dog K-9 unit, found the 5-year-old Belgian Malinois when he walked out to the vehicle parked at his home, police spokesman Sgt. Rick Griner said.

RENO, Nev. - A couple authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect. The children of Michael and Iana Straw, a boy age 22 months and a girl age 11 months, were severely malnourished and near death last month when doctors saw them after social workers took them to a hospital, authorities said. Both children are doing well and gaining weight in foster care, prosecutor Kelli Ann Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal. Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, pleaded...

In the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, Edith Isabel Rodriguez was seen as a complainer. "Thanks a lot, officers," an emergency room nurse told Los Angeles County police who brought in Rodriguez early May 9 after finding her in front of the Willowbrook hospital yelling for help. "This is her third time here." The 43-year-old mother of three had been released from the emergency room hours earlier, her third visit in three days for abdominal pain. She'd been given prescription medication and a doctor's appointment. Turning to Rodriguez, the nurse said, "You have already been seen, and...

Top aides to Gov. Janet Napolitano were aware of problems at the Arizona State Veteran Home six weeks before details of patient neglect were made public. Susan Gerard, the director for the Arizona Department of Health Services, said Friday she called the governor’s co-chief of staff Alan Stephens the evening of Feb. 9. Earlier that day, state health workers had completed a routine inspection of the home where they found patients were being ignored and in some cases forced to sit in soiled undergarments for hours. Those discoveries set off a series of e-mails in the following days among three...

The author of The Path to 9/11 is going to be LIVE, in-studio on The John Ziegler Show at 8pm Pacific. You can listen live ONLINE or if you're in Southern CA, tune in to KFI at 640AM. From John Ziegler.Com: If you want to tell ABC to not cave to Clinton's demands in the editing of "The Path to 9/11," call 818-460-7477. If you want to complain about the movies lessons plans being dropped by "Scholastic," go to this link for contact information. http://www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/offices/index.htm

ABC toned down a scene that involved Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, declining to give the order to kill bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified. "That sequence has been the focus of attention," the source said. The network also decided that the credits would say the film is based "in part" on the 9/11 panel report, rather than "based on" the report, as the producers originally intended.

A six-month-old Medford baby was bitten by a rat up to 200 times after it escaped from its cage in the boy's room. Police say the parents, 21-year-old Robert Horsfall and 19-year-old Maegan McCleary, found the rodent near a creek. Police say they took the infant to the emergency room at Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford. Detectives say the parents apparently believed the rat was a domestic breed. They brought it home and kept it in a cage in the room where they slept with the baby. The next morning they found that the rat had escaped and bitten...

Once on fast track to be captain, Kirk Lippold now works at a desk. Last in a two-part series. WASHINGTON -- For 5½ years, the Washington military and political establishment has not known quite what to do with Kirk Lippold. Cmdr. Lippold was the skipper of the USS Cole when al-Qaida terrorists committed a suicide bombing in the Yemen port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. The attack, from a small barge that pulled alongside the Cole, blew a 40-by-40-foot hole in the guided-missile destroyer. Seventeen sailors died and 42 were wounded. After he led an intense three-week effort to...

NORFOLK - Police officers questioning Angela Mingo about the death of her 2-month-old granddaughter seemed incredulous at her indifference. The girl, Syleena, died of meningitis brought on by brain injury. Her mother, Stepfanie Mingo, admitted to police that she kicked the girl, threw her on a concrete floor and punched her repeatedly in the face.

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Tuesday, April 18, 2006 12:09 p.m. EDTGen. Anthony Zinni: USS Cole Blunder Is My Fault Former CENTCOM Commander, Gen. Anthony Zinni - who has called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign because of Rumsfeld's alleged incompetence in running the Iraq war - admitted six years ago that he made the disastrous decision to have the USS Cole use the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling, where the ship was blown up by al-Qaida terrorists. Worse still, at least one report indicates that Gen. Zinni may have played a role in an August 1998 leak that tipped...

George Soros' Open Society Institute is preparing to dole out a goodly sum to ensure that all the positive, fawning coverage Hurricane Katrina's death and destruction has been receiving finally gets balanced out a bit with the hitherto unheard bad news: The Katrina Media Fellowships, sponsored by The Open Society Institute (OSI), will support media makers working in print and radio journalism, photography, and documentary film and video to generate and improve media coverage of critical issues of poverty, racism, and government neglect in the Gulf Region that were laid bare by Hurricane Katrina. This one-time fellowship will be awarded...

Corruption and neglect lead to township riots against ANC By David Blair in Khutsong (Filed: 02/03/2006) Riot police patrol the streets, mobs have burned down the homes of local councillors and government offices lie wrecked and abandoned. The streets of Khutsong township, strewn with broken glass and burnt tyres, bear vivid witness to the revolt against the African National Congress that is sweeping its former strongholds. Riot police were deployed in Knutsong township after a revolt against the African National Congress The movement that liberated South Africa from apartheid could once rely on the automatic support of places like Khutsong....

SYCUAN INDIAN RESERVATION – Sheriff's detectives are investigating after a child died yesterday, apparently while waiting in a car with his father outside Sycuan Casino while the mother was inside. The cause of death was unknown. The county Medical Examiner's Office identified the boy as Thomas Baca, 6 months old , of Spring Valley. His father was identified as Richard Baca. It wasn't clear last night whether the case involved a homicide or an accidental death, said sheriff's Lt. Dennis Brugos of the homicide unit. Brugos said he didn't know when the family arrived at the casino on Sycuan Road...

HAVANA — American activists camping out at a Cuban military checkpoint outside the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay started their first day of a water-only fast Monday to protest the treatment of suspected terrorists detained at the base. Members of the largely Christian group Witness Against Torture are demanding access to the prisoner camp to meet with inmates. The activists arrived late Sunday at the checkpoint, which is about five miles from the U.S. base, after a five-day march from the eastern Cuban city of Santiago. "We can see the windmills of the U.S. base, we can see some...

Police: Woman Left Infant Alone For Three Weeks Baby Is In Fair Condition UPDATED: 4:26 pm EDT October 22, 2005 COVINGTON, Ohio -- Authorities said that a mother left her 7-month-old baby alone in her apartment for three weeks while she stayed with a friend. Ashley Traylor, 20, was arrested Friday in Covington, about 30 miles north of Dayton. Her child is being treated for severe malnourishment and is in fair condition. Traylor is being charged with criminal abuse, NBC4 reported. Police said that the baby was nearly lifeless when he was found. They say he hadn't eaten or had...

Police in Tavares, Fla., arrested a 22-year-old woman Monday after two naked boys were found playing near a road, according to a police news release. Officers responded to a call of unattended young children Monday and spotted the boys dirty and naked near 1125 Duncan Drive in Tavares. Detectives said Rachel Lemley came outside after the kids were discovered and said the children must have left the house on their own while she was asleep. She said the doors to her mobile home were locked. When officers went into Lemley's mobile home, they found dirty diapers, dishes and garbage on...

TAMPA - A young Marine who died while being treated at Tampa's James A. Haley VA Medical Center did not receive adequate care from staff who failed to recognize the severity of his condition, the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department concluded in a report released Thursday. An investigation by VA's inspector general acknowledged that Lance Cpl. Jonathan Gadsden arrived at Haley ``highly compromised'' by blast injuries suffered in Iraq. (snip) Before Gadsden's admission at Haley in late September, ``there had been insufficient staff training to deal with the multifaceted issues'' exclusive to patients wounded by roadside bombs and other crude weapons,...

WAUSAU, WI (AP) - Two people found with 160 neglected dogs, cats and other animals in their Marathon County home were sentenced to three years probation during which they will not be allowed to own or come in contact with animals. Mary E. Morse, 42, and Clark W. Petitt, 58, were sentenced Thursday after authorities found rabbits, dogs, cats and goats living in unsanitary conditions in their Hamburg home in December. Several of the animals had to be euthanized and at least four puppies were found in a kennel with feces halfway up their legs. Many were not given enough...

Scientology, The Clearwater Bar Association, and Judge Greer Judge George W. Greer presides over Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit Court. He is known internationally for the Terri Schindler Schiavo guardianship case. Pat Anderson, former attorney for the Schindlers, characterized Judge Greer's unprecedented rulings as "The Rule of Terri's Case." The Clearwater Bar Association is delighted with Judge Greer's performance in this particular case. They presented the John U. Bird award to the Pinellas-Pasco Circuit judge on May 15, 2004. This prestigious award, which is the Clearwater bar's highest honor for a judge, was granted to Judge Greer for the way he...

Introduction During the last week, the weather in Venezuela has been extremely atypical with rainfall establishing records and flash floods killing over one hundred people while thousands have lost their homes. This is obviously an abnormal natural phenomenon and nobody can be blamed for it. However, the case of Vargas state, a densely populated and small state north of Caracas, is very particular, because that state was the victim of an even larger tragedy in December 99, when tens of thousands were killed due to generalized mudslides. That tragedy was like nothing Venezuela had ever seen in its history, coinciding...

The parents of a 13-year-old foster child who made her bring food to a dead man who lay rotting in their Clark home pleaded guilty Tuesday to elderly neglect and child cruelty. Kenneth Keaveney and his wife, Donna, pleaded guilty in state Superior Court, admitting that Donna's father was left to rot upstairs for weeks before being found on the floor of a room littered with flies, maggots and dog feces. Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said the plea ends any doubts as to what happened to Nicola Lombardi, whose decomposed corpse was discovered nearly mummified in the August...

Britain's cruellest parents Jailed ... mum Sarah Whittaker       By ALASTAIR TAYLOR  A CRUEL couple who lived it up while their children were slowly starving to death in “Third World” squalor were jailed for seven years yesterday.David Askew and Sarah Whittaker kept their own bedroom and lounge clean and had a big surround-sound TV connected to cable, two DVD players, a stereo and a PlayStation.But while they enjoyed their gadgets, ate well and sank wine and beer, their five skeletal children lay neglected and malnourished in bedrooms smeared with human and dog dirt.When they were finally found, one...

KENT -- When police discovered two young children dead of starvation in an East Hill apartment, they found the floor of the master bedroom where the mother was sleeping littered with empty beer cans, laundry and garbage. After she awoke, Marie Genevieve Robinson said nothing. When she rose from her bed, she staggered to a closet and pulled a can of beer from an 18-pack and police placed her under arrest, Kent detectives wrote in their report. The 36-year-old mother appeared somewhat bewildered Tuesday morning in her initial court appearance as District Judge Robert E. McBeth reviewed the police report...

Ibadan - Allegedly abandoned by their American mother as she took up military contract work in Iraq, seven American children left behind for months in Africa begged for change for food and shuttled from a stranger's care to a state-run orphanage, recalled Nigerians who crossed their paths. Ranging in age from seven to 16, the Texas children arrived late last month at their last stop in Africa, the government orphanage in this Nigerian market city of millions bustling with traders and crippled and leprous beggars. By then, a step away from rescue, the American children were skinny, mosquito-bitten and suffering...

When a Judge Speaks for You When she was a child, she was taught that if she did not brush her teeth, they would rot out. Now her teeth are rotting out, but no one speaks for her. When she was a child, her parents took her to the doctor when she had an infection. Now, recurring infections and bedsores ravage her body, but no one speaks for her. When she became disabled, her husband became her guardian and obtained more than $1.5 million from a malpractice case for her rehabilitation and health care. But her funds have been used...

EMBARGO: NOT FOR RELEASE UNTIL 6:00 PM (EST) MARCH 21, 2004 LACK OF PARENTAL SUPPORT DURING CHILDHOOD IS ASSOCIATED WITH INCREASED ADULT DEPRESSION AND CHRONIC HEALTH PROBLEMS, STUDY FINDS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON — People with abundant parental support during childhood are likely to have relatively good health throughout adulthood, whereas people with inadequate parental support while growing up are likely to have poorer health as adults, suggests a new study involving a nationally representative sample of nearly 3,000 adults. The findings are reported on in the March issue of Psychology and Aging, a journal published by the American Psychological Association...

Juvenile judge may face neglect charges DA will decide after probe is over By STEVE VISSER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution A Fulton County Juvenile Court judge could face child neglect charges in the very courthouse she works in for leaving her 4-year-old daughter home alone at night. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he is awaiting the outcome of a police investigation before deciding whether to take action against Hickson. Chief Juvenile Court Judge Nina Hickson has admitted to leaving her daughter at night to run an errand -- which resulted in the girl being found wandering coatless and shoeless...

WASHINGTON - Legislation to reduce the risk of wildfires -- proposed more than a year ago after earlier Western blazes -- has been stalled in Congress for months because lawmakers have been unable to agree on the details. Now, the devastating fires raging through Southern California might free that logjam. ``It's time for this body and this Congress to act,'' Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is pushing compromise legislation, told her fellow senators Monday night. Widespread support There is wide agreement that millions of acres of forests need to be thinned to keep them from exploding into deadly wildfires. The...

It's been almost two years since my mother woke up one autumn morning in the apartment we shared and said she didn't have the strength to move. It was a couple of months before her 96th birthday and her dementia and frailty had been getting worse. I took her to a downtown hospital and, after a night on a stretcher in the emergency room, she was transferred to a room on the geriatric floor. I knew, of course, that she might never come home again. But I also knew that she would choose not to go gently into the night,...

Sept. 9— Who really failed Joseph Daniel Scruggs? Daniel was only 12 years old when he hanged himself in the closet of his bedroom on Jan. 2, 2002. By all accounts, he was troubled. Weighing only 63 pounds, he was bullied mercilessly at school. His small size, tendency to dress in shabby clothes, poor hygiene and strong body odor made him easy prey for ridicule by his classmates at Washington Middle School in Meriden, Conn. The bullying was so severe that Daniel feared going to school and was absent 44 days in the months before his death. And when he...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) - A second-floor deck collapsed at a house where Marshall University students were celebrating the end of the school year Friday night, injuring more than a dozen people, authorities said. As many as 15 people were standing on the 10-by-15-foot deck that fell at 10:15 p.m., said Amanda Baisden, who lived at the home. "I was in the parking lot talking to a friend and I heard a big crack. I looked up and saw my best friend's arm flailing, and everything fell," Baisden said. Thirteen people were taken to two area hospitals, nursing supervisors said. None...

Foster Mother Arrested For Using Duct Tape On Kids Three Children Have Been Placed With Other Families POSTED: 11:58 a.m. EDT April 17, 2003 UPDATED: 2:04 p.m. EDT April 17, 2003 LEVITTOWN, Pa. -- A Levittown, Pa., woman, honored last year for her work as a foster mother by a local organization, is now under arrest for allegedly wrapping up her foster children with duct tape. Middletown Township police said Colleen Broe, 34, was charged Wednesday with felony counts of endangering the welfare of children and false imprisonment for restraining the children by using duct tape. Her husband, Neil Broe,...

Mike Farris Addresses Social Workers at National Conference On April 1, 2003, Home School Legal Defense Association Co-founder and Chairman Michael Farris addressed a national gathering of social workers in St. Louis, Missouri. Gateways to Prevention, the 14th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, hosted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration of Children and Families, was designed for "child protection workers and administrators, social workers … and others committed to ensuring the protection of children" according to the conference website. Farris was invited by Bush administration officials to discuss Home School Legal Defense Association's...

Nurse recalls trauma of working with accused terrorist Battle Battle all smiles 9/11, nurse says Linda Jackson was as surprised as anyone three weeks ago, when authorities arrested three Portlanders and charged them with conspiring to aid al-Qaida in their fight against the United States. But when she heard the names of the suspects, she had one of those "aha" moments. Jeffrey Leon Battle. Hadn't she called it? Hadn't she said to her fellow employees on Sept. 11 last year, "He has something to do with this"? Hadn't she, in fact, quit her job as Jeffrey Battle's supervisor after the...

NEW YORK (AP) _ A Manhattan man convicted of starving his 4-year-old daughter to death was given the maximum prison sentence _ even as he continued to insist, ``I'm not a monster.'' Leroy Dickerson, 42, was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Nadine Lockwood, who was just 15 pounds, about the weight of a 6-month-old child, when she was found dead under a heap of filthy clothes on Aug. 31, 1996. A judge on Thursday ordered Dickerson to serve 25 years to life in prison. Dickerson had claimed at trial that he was an absentee father unaware that...

<p>Byrd, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and, at 84, the longest-serving Democrat in the chamber, questioned whether lawmakers have "completely taken leave of our senses" by moving too fast.</p> <p>"If ever there was a need for the Senate to throw a bucket of cold water on an overheated legislative process that is spinning out of control, it is now," Byrd said from the Senate floor Tuesday.</p>

PRINCE WILLIAM Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert did the right thing, of course, when he filed charges against the father who on a hot day accidentally left his daughter to die in the family van.To bring you up to date, Kevin Kelly of Manassas was put in charge of 12 of his 13 kids early last month while his wife and eldest child were on a trip to Ireland.After returning from errands one day, everyone piled out of the van and moved on to new things--everyone except 21-month-old Frances, who was left strapped in her safety seat in the closed...