Free Republic

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - As Lehigh University students prepared for final exams this week, they found themselves grappling with the news that the sophomore class president had been arrested for allegedly robbing a bank. "I didn't believe it when I first heard it," Kathryn Susman, an 18- year-old freshman engineering student from Hereford, Md., said Monday. The robbery occurred Friday afternoon. Authorities said Greg Hogan, 19, handed a note to a teller at a Wachovia Bank branch, saying he had a gun and wanted money. Hogan, the son of a Baptist minister, was picked up at his fraternity house later that...

Kids say they're stressed out, and parents aren't helping To view the KidsPoll, visit http://www.nahec.org/KidsPoll/ If you remember childhood as a time of careless, carefree fun, a recent study indicates that either the times have changed or memory is selective.Asked about their feelings on stress, 875 U.S. children between the ages of 9 and 13 revealed that being a kid, at times, is stressful. KidsHealth.org, a leading pediatric health and wellness Web site, conducted the KidsPoll and released the findings Oct. 12."We live in a pretty fast-paced, high achievement-oriented culture, so kids and adults are over-scheduled, over-committed and overly booked,...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - If you watch it solely as a cartoon and take nothing in it as even remotely genuine, Fox's "The Princes of Malibu" has some modest -- albeit wholly contrived -- entertainment value. So much for the positives. To say that this purported "reality" series is humiliating to mega-successful music producer David Foster would be the understatement of the young summer. He must be as clueless as his denial-driven, enabling wife Linda Thompson to have allowed cameras and microphones to be scattered around his $40 million, 22-acre Malibu digs so as to capture his ineffectual and...

I was strolling through the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop when the news came over the television that a new pope had been chosen. I felt a chill go through me and followed an urge to leave the store before his name was announced. My reaction surprised me. It had been years since I'd felt bound by what came down from Rome, yet clearly what happened there still mattered to me. Hours later, when I heard the news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been chosen, my heart sank. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was the head of the Congregation...

WASHINGTON - (AP) -- No buttons, signs or unusual dress will distinguish the protesters from the thousands who will line the inaugural parade route next month, but at a set time, they say they will demonstrate against President Bush -- by turning their backs on the chief executive.Coupled with the widely expected pomp and pageantry of a presidential inauguration are demonstrations by protesters angered by Bush's policies, in particular the war in Iraq. Getting ready for Jan. 20, 2005, various groups are using websites, e-mail, fliers and word of mouth to urge thousands of demonstrators to gather in the nation's...

Victoria Gotti's sons Carmine, 18 and John, 17, took a beating last weekend after they allegedly harassed a 15-year-old girl at a Long Island mall.The 17-year-old brother of the aggrieved girl delivered a beat-down to the Gotti boys after they "pinched her butt and made disgusting comments" at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Saturday, says our source.The enraged brother and two of his friends approached the Gottis and their 10-person crew after his sister complained about their boorish behavior."Next thing you know this kid was really beating the c--p out of Carmine," a witness to the melee told PAGE SIX....

Whoa! What's happening? Why are people turning on us? We're the Baby Boomers, you know. The Mighty Boomers. We invented everything from money to music to sex, did we not? Nothing good ever happened until we came along. Now people are turning on us. We Baby Boomers are being made to feel . . . guilty. Ridiculous, isn't it? People have tried to make us feel guilty before. They said we consumed too much. Or we were too shallow. Or we only thought about ourselves. Excuuuuse me. Who should we think about? Somebody else? All that was just jealousy. Even...

Source: AFP From corespondents in London ONLY one in five young Britons would fight unconditionally for their country, while a similar number would refuse to take up arms "under any circumstances", according to a poll published today. The poll results are likely to worry policymakers, as they show a level of scepticism about military action that has not been seen since the 1930s, according to The Times, which published the survey. The newspaper added that the exposure brought by British troop involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq "has decreased support for the call to take up arms". According to The Times,...

SAN FRANCISCO — "Bourne Supremacy" star Matt Damon (search), "Lost in Translation" actress Scarlett Johansson (search) and other celebrity artists are donating their talents -- not just their cash -- to an online effort to unseat President Bush. The Internet political group MoveOn.org on Tuesday premieres 10 new anti-Bush ads created by award-winning directors and starring popular Hollywood actors. An independent group not connected directly to Democratic candidate John Kerry (search), MoveOn has promised an unconventional approach to the election.

When it comes to relationships the adage "cheaters never prosper" seems to say it all, but as many women know, men are often interested in more than prosperity. How do things get to the point where he might cheat on you? After all, you're an attractive, funny, sexy and smart woman. You should be enough for him, right? In an ideal world, yes — but when was the last time your world was ideal? Not recently, if you can relate in the least bit to the sting of infidelity. There are numerous reasons why men may endanger a relationship by...

Kerry's Celebrity Fund-Raiser Is a Huge Bash European Pressphoto AgencyJohn Kerry played the guitar with John Fogerty at the conclusion of a concert and fundraiser held at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday. By JODI WILGORENPublished: July 9, 2004 star-studded salute to Senators John Kerry and John Edwards Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall slid into an unsparing skewering of the Bush administration, with actors and comedians denouncing the president as a liar, making off-color jokes about his name, and accusing him of risking soldiers' lives for political gain.The racy Hollywood humor and harsh attacks were a sharp shift...

<p>Federal authorities in New Jersey and three other states charged members of an animal rights organization yesterday with domestic terrorism after a probe into what they said has been a surge in crimes by militant activists fighting to stop product testing on animals.</p>

COMMENTARY Teen party video raises moral, ethical questions By Mary McCarty Dayton Daily News "Did she do the right thing?" After all the buzz surrounding the infamous Bellbrook videotape — which recorded underage drinking and drug use during a five-day series of parties in November — it boils down to this one question. Nearly everybody agrees that drinking and drug use are a problem at Bellbrook High School, as they are at nearly every American high school. Nearly everybody agrees that it's not a new problem. What's different about this case, what has made it the talk of the town...

Public health officials struggled to keep about 1,500 teenagers in quarantine yesterday, a task that proved insurmountable when some left their confinement to have fun. On the first day of quarantine for students of Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy, just north of Toronto, one was already out shopping, while another invited friends to a concert where he was going to be playing last night. Murray McQuigge, a spokesman for York Region's public health department, knows all too well that grounding an entire school without any supervision is far from easy. "I'm sure that after this the parents of those kids...

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (AP) _ Police are blaming a road rage crash on that left a passenger dead and three children without a father on "two stubborn people" who wouldn't back down. Now both drivers face possible criminal charges. Mark Raymond Bair, 29, of Brooklyn Park, was released from jail Tuesday pending a formal complaint. The other driver, Beth Ann Rademacher, 24, of Champlin, was being treated at North Memorial Medical Center for her injuries. Precisely what sparked the deadly confrontation on Sunday afternoon is still a matter of investigation, but Bair told police that Rademacher had cut him off,...

From NBC Saturday Night Live : MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY/DIXIE CHICKS11:30pm 2003-04-19Matthew McConaughey hosts Saturday Night Livewith musical guests Dixie Chicks. TV-14    From The Washington Times: The Dixie Chicks, recently boycotted by country music fans after lead singer Natalie Maines said she was "ashamed" of President Bush, will be featured on ABC's "Primetime" on Thursday to tell their side of the story. 

Letter from radio station website in Lubbock, TX home of the Dixie Chick that spewed forth about our president: Name: LT Layne McDowell Date: 03/15/03 Time: 01:54:49 PM Comment: An open letter to the Dixie Chicks Earlier this week, while performing in London, you stated that you were ashamed that our President is from your home state. I wonder if you realized how many Americans would be listening. This American was listening. This Texan is ashamed that you come from my state. I serve my country as an officer in the United States Navy. Specifically, I fly F-14 Tomcats off...

<p>PENSACOLA, Florida (CNN) -- A judge Thursday threw out the convictions of two teenage boys found guilty of beating their father to death with a baseball bat.</p> <p>The ruling by Circuit Judge Frank Bell was just the latest twist in a case that has already tested legal precedent.</p>

The D.C. Chapter of Free Republic invites all FReepers and lurkers in good standing to join us tomorrow as we peacefully counter-protest anti-capitalist demonstrators in Washington, D.C.We will gather at the corner of 15th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. That is about one block from the site of their noon rally at the Washington Monument. After 1 p.m. we will fan out along their parade route.Our demonstration is in favor of capitalism, private property rights and the United States of America. We will not be demonstrating in favor of the World Bank and IMF.As...