Free Republic

Long before the murder, the girls and a role in “The Godfather,” Gianni Russo was a 13-year-old with a bum arm. Freshly sprung from Bellevue’s polio ward, he ditched his neglectful parents to sleep on flour sacks in the back of a Little Italy bakery and sell pens in front of the Waldorf-Astoria. It was 1956 and one of his regular customers was mob boss Frank Costello. The don would throw Russo a fiver and rub the boy’s withered shoulder for luck. After a few months of that, Russo objected to being touched. Costello respected the kid’s gumption — and...

Elderly foreign tourists are tapping Mexican pet shops for a drug used by veterinarians to put cats and dogs to sleep that has become the sedative of choice for euthanasia campaigners. Tourists from as far as Australia have travelled to Mexico to buy liquid pentobarbital, which causes a painless death in humans in less than an hour, right-to-die advocates say. Clutching photos of the bottled drug to overcome a lack of Spanish, they have maps sketched by euthanasia activists to locate back-street pet shops and veterinary supply stores near the US border. There they can buy a bottle for $35...