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NEW YORK - As the city agency overseeing the removal of the World Trade Center rubble was wrapping up its work in 2002, several officials handling the painstaking recovery of human remains warned that things were moving too fast. They believed that more pieces of the 2,749 dead could be found, and that the city shouldn't be rushing such an important task. But they were overruled, two of those officials told The Associated Press this week. Over the past few days, dozens of bones have been discovered in underground passages at ground zero, more than five years after the tragedy....

• Q2 jumps by 67 percent year over year • Buyers done in by ‘creative mortgages’ according to figures released Monday by Foreclosures.com, a Central Valley-based real estate investment advisory firm and publisher of foreclosure property information. "Year over year at the end of the second quarter of 2006, foreclosure activity in California has increased more than 67 percent," says Alexis McGee, president of Fair Oaks-based ForeclosureS.com. The once hot housing markets in Las Vegas and Phoenix are cooling off rapidly and defaults there are on the rise as well, she says. "Both Las Vegas and Phoenix were impacted by...

Serious movement in D.C. – and if I hadn't been there, I would not have believed it. For several months Joan Wire and her daughter have been trying to secure an appointment with a highly effective government official we'll simply call Mr. Washington. Joan Wire is the stalwart wife of Mike Wire. Mike is the storied "man on the bridge," the single most critical eyewitness in the saga of TWA Flight 800, the 747 that was inexplicably blown out of the sky on the night of July 17, 1996. The CIA built its notorious zoom-climb animation around Mike's position on...

Charlie Crist Let My Daughter Die by Robert Schindler, Sr. Posted Jul 31, 2006 As most Americans know, on March 31, 2005, my daughter, Terri Schindler Schiavo died of starvation and thirst after having her feeding tube removed by court order. The sad chain of events that concluded with Terri’s death ignited a media firestorm nationally and internationally. What few saw or heard was the callous inaction of aspiring governor Charlie Crist. Florida Atty. Gen. Charlie Crist let my daughter die. He had it within his authority to save her life, but he turned a blind eye to her suffering....

Justice Department gets Quran shooting info By Karina Gonzalez Staff Writer FBI Agent Tim Burke told area Muslims on Friday that his office has turned over information in the case involving the shooting of the Quran to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Hamilton County district attorney’s office. "Right now we are going to let the Justice Department decide if this case will be tried," Mr. Burke, FBI supervisor for the Chattanooga area, said while speaking to members of the Annour Islamic community. The FBI began a preliminary investigation last week after the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national...

Man charged with threatening Bill Clinton Thu Jul 20, 12:07 AM ET A man was accused Wednesday in an indictment of making threats against former President Clinton. James L. Williford, 57, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for allegedly making threatening remarks about Clinton at a chiropractic clinic in Edmond on July 12. Three employees at the Edwards Chiropractic Clinic told investigators they heard Williford threaten to "bust a cap," or shoot, Clinton, according to an affidavit. During an interview with Secret Service agents, Williford denied threatening Clinton but said he believed Clinton was "a...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A man was accused Wednesday in an indictment of making threats against former President Clinton.James L. Williford, 57, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for allegedly making threatening remarks about Clinton at a chiropractic clinic in Edmond on July 12. Three employees at the Edwards Chiropractic Clinic told investigators they heard Williford threaten to "bust a cap," or shoot, Clinton, according to an affidavit.During an interview with Secret Service agents, Williford denied threatening Clinton but said he believed Clinton was "a communist mole for the Red Chinese," the affidavit said. Williford, of...

Last time, I introduced you to Will Hooper, a 26-year-old graduate of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, who has been suffering from an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder since age 10. In October 2003, when Will was 24, he and his father, James, heard of an experimental new surgery called deep-brain stimulation. One of its pioneers is Douglas Anderson, a doctor at Loyola University Health Systems in suburban Maywood, a drive north from Tinley Park. In the procedure, Dr. Anderson drills two tiny holes in the forehead, plants two electrodes in the frontal region of the brain, and then...

A Southern guy must be in tremendous pain if he is willing to fly to Chicago so that a neurosurgeon from Loyola University Health Systems can bury two batteries in his chest, drill two holes into his skull and plant two wires in his brain. Will Hooper did just so a little more than two years ago, when he was a 24-year-old computer technology student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He had been suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder since age 10. Will is one of about 50 people worldwide who have undergone this experimental surgery. His doctor at Loyola,...

A woman in Shelton, Wash., who was reported missing by her husband, was found dead under piles of clutter in their home, where she suffocated to death, according to police. Shelton Police Chief Terry Davenport said the home was so cluttered that police officers' heads touched the ceiling as they climbed over the clutter. Authorities found the body of 62-year-old Marie Rose buried under clothes after 10 hours of searching. She reportedly suffered from a condition known as hoarding. Rose's husband believes she fell while looking for the phone in the house this week and suffocated. There were so many...

Check this out. This poor Federal employee has got to be the worst case of OCD I've ever seen. Makes you wonder about USPS efficiency.

Like people all over the country, Gary Patronek, a veterinarian who teaches at Tufts University, heard the bizarre story of Ruth Knueven and her 488 cats -- 222 of them dead, and most of the others so wild and sick that they had to be euthanized. Knueven, 82, charged with five misdemeanors, including animal cruelty, became a public curiosity last week after Fairfax County officials hauled the cats and carcasses out of her home in Mount Vernon and her daughter's townhouse in Burke. Both residences, filthy and damaged, were declared unfit for habitation until repairs are made. In the Mount...

CHICAGO — Joe Neglia was a retired government intelligence worker with Parkinson's disease (search) when he suddenly developed what he calls a gambling habit from hell. After losing thousands of dollars playing slot machines near his California home several times a day for nearly two years, Neglia stumbled across an Internet report linking a popular Parkinson's drug he used with compulsive gambling. "I thought, 'Oh my God, this must be it,"' he said. Three days after stopping the drug, Mirapex (search), "all desire to gamble just went away completely. I felt like I had my brain back." A Mayo Clinic...

WASHINGTON - About 300 cats, nearly a third of them dead, were removed from an elderly woman’s Virginia home after neighbors complained of a stench coming from the house, police said on Tuesday. The house, less than a mile from late President George Washington’s historic Mount Vernon estate, looked neat from the outside with manicured lawns and bright flowers, but inside it was overflowing with wild cats, feces and urine. “Cats were coming out of the cabinets and drawers and were inside the walls. There were hundreds of them,” Fairfax County Police officer Richard Henry told Reuters. He said animal...

French scientists finds surprise solution to OCD Paul Michaud, Contributor, Paris Two French scientists say they have come up, quite accidentally, with a solution to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that involves implanting electrodes destined originally to control Parkinson's disease. OCD, according to the U.S.-based Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Foundation, affects one adult in 50, with "twice that many experiencing it at some point in their lives." The disorder manifests itself in a number of ways, with sufferers becoming so excessive in their behavior that they are known to spend hours washing their hands, or doing such things -- "which make no sense...

Previous FR Natalee Holloway Threads...Natalee Holloway - Case Discussion Extended Thread 3Posted on 06/23/2005 12:44:51 PM CDT by brigettehttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1429067/postsNatalee Holloway - Extended Thread 2Posted on 06/20/2005 12:14:36 AM CDT by brigettehttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1426433/postsNatalee Holloway - Extended Thread 1Posted on 06/16/2005 11:43:44 AM CDT by brigettehttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1424188/postsAnother Twist in Holloway DisappearancePosted on 06/14/2005 11:24:41 AM CDT by PBRSTREETGANGhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1422593/postsAla. Teen's Mom: Men 'Know What Happened' (Natalee Holloway)Posted on 06/13/2005 4:01:55 AM CDT by bd476http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1421756/posts Natalee's body found... (false report)Posted on 06/11/2005 1:05:50 PM CDT by kcvl http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1420967/postsHolloway Not Only American Missing In ArubaPosted on 06/08/2005 1:25:36 AM CDT by MassRepublicanFlyersFanhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1418606/postsNatalee Holloway (Aruba) 5 Men Now...

Spiritual OCD There was an interesting series on Focus on the Family this week dealing with addictions and obsessive compulsive disorders. Today, the guest, Dr. Archibald something-or-other, was talking about how OCD can manifest itself in an unrelenting quest for new spiritual highs. OCD, he said, differs from addictions in that the former are rooted in some sort of insecurity or fear, whereas the latter are often rooted in biology and/or sinful desires. He spoke about how he has known some people who feel that if they do not have an ecstatic religious experience each week, they feel as though...

TEHRAN (AFP) - An Iranian woman is attempting to set a legal precedent by divorcing her husband because he has not showered for more than a year, a press report said. The 36-year-old woman, only identified as Mina, reportedly told a Tehran court her husband Reza smells so bad that even his children will not go near him. "Everybody is making fun of us. We cannot go to any parties. I feel so ashamed," the woman told the divorce court, according to the governmental Iran (news - web sites) newspaper. Iranian women wishing to divorce can only demand one if...

Sobbing 31-stone (434 lb) Chris Leppard was dragged off to a mental hospital against his will by meddling social workers and police. Chris, 23, has been forcibly detained for a month because he cannot stop eating. The authorities used powers normally used to detain mentally ill people who might harm themselves or others. They locked him up despite the fact neither he nor his family wanted him to go. Last night Chris’s furious mother Anne said he has no mental problems and was winning his fight against the rare illness that compels him to eat. Chris’s case was condemned by...

A leading expert on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder who advised actor Leonardo DiCaprio on portraying Howard Hughes in "The Aviator" says the actor himself developed a serious case of the condition. "There were moments when I was very concerned for Leo," UCLA psychiatry professor Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz told Scotland on Sunday. Schwartz, who was called in to by director Martin Scorsese to help replicate the characteristics of OCD from which Hughes suffered, says DiCaprio's brain started to malfunction, as he reawakened his own OCD he suffered as a child. "He let his own mild OCD get worse to play the part, Schwartz...