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12/6/2006 - HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii (AFPN) -- Retired Chief Master Sgt. Ralph Barnett returned to Hickam for the 65th Anniversary of the attack on Oahu and to show his family where he was on that fateful Sunday morning. At the time of the attack he was a 24 year old assistant armament chief Buck Sgt. with the 23rd Bombardment Squadron stationed on Hickam Field. In the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 1941, 250 aircraft from the 1st Air Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy set out to cripple the American naval and air forces with a surprise...

AN AMISH girl who was expected to die after being badly wounded in last week's horrific schoolhouse shooting in the US has shown signs of making an amazing recovery. Six-year-old Rosanna King was taken off a life-support machine and sent home from hospital to die at home with her family on Wednesday. Doctors had concluded they could do nothing more for the young girl... but she defied all the worst expectations and continued to breathe on her own. She has now been taken back to hospital after showing enough strength to squeeze a family member's hand. Daniel Ash, 57, an...

Ky. Plane Crash Survivor Asks 'Why?' By JEFFREY McMURRAY The Associated Press Wednesday, September 6, 2006; 10:47 PM LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 49 people near the Lexington airport last week told family members from his hospital bed, "Why did God do this to me?" but he hasn't mentioned the crash, a close family friend said Wednesday. James Polehinke, who was the flight's co-pilot, can move only his head, and tears often well up in his eyes, said Antonio Cruz, Polehinke's mother's boyfriend. He said the 44-year-old has been in and out of...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2006 -- At about 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Debra Wagner and her colleagues at the Pentagon got a phone call telling them to turn on the television. There had been a terrible “accident” in New York City. Debra Wagner, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, stands by a display honoring the people who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon. Wagner said she came through the tragic events with a profound belief in the resilience of America and its people. Photo by...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 49 people near Lexington last week told family members from his hospital bed, ''Why did God do this to me?'' but he hasn't mentioned the crash, a close family friend said Wednesday. James Polehinke, who was the flight's co-pilot, can move only his head, and tears often well up in his eyes, said Antonio Cruz, Polehinke's mother's boyfriend. He said the 44-year-old had only gained consciousness on Tuesday. Polehinke hasn't mentioned the crash and doctors have encouraged family members not to ask him about it, Cruz told...

'Survivor' Stirs Up Supremacists Web Posters Embrace Show's Racial Split By James Hibberd CBS's plan to racially segregate the tribes for the 13th season of "Survivor" has white-supremacist Web bulletin boards buzzing, prompting concern from the Southern Poverty Law Center civil rights group. Story continues below... "It has lit up the white-supremacist world," said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Report at the SPLC. "It's been a fairly remarkable reaction. [The format] plays into the hands of many people in this country who have racist feelings." The upcoming season of the 6-year-old CBS reality show has contestants separated by race...

James P. Pinkerton August 31, 2006 If Uncle Sam has been dividing us up by race for decades now, why should we surprised that the reality TV show "Survivor" is doing the same thing? And could there be a double standard - that is, it's good when the government apportions by race, but bad when the private sector does so? Reality TV, like all popular culture, reflects the larger society. So, if we want a color-blind society, the government should stop being so litigiously color-conscious. Once upon a time, the goal was to climb out of the muck of racial...

General Motors Corp. has decided to end its sponsorship of CBS' hit series "Survivor," but the world's largest automaker said Wednesday that the decision had nothing to do with the reality show's controversial decision to divide its contestants in the upcoming season by race and ethnicity. GM spokeswoman Ryndee S. Carney said the company made the decision in the normal course of making its media buys months ago, before the show made its recent announcement. "I think it's just a coincidence. I know it's not cause and effect," Carney said. A group of New York City officials have criticized the...

August 30, 2006 -- Everybody knows that the New York City Council lacks energy, imagination and - for the most part - integrity and intelligence. It's running a serious irony deficit, too. Yesterday, members of the council's Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus (BLAC) met with the press to complain about - of all things - classifying individuals by race and/or ethnic origins.

James Polehinke, 44, of Margate, the copilot and sole survivor of Sunday's Comair Flight 5191 crash in Lexington, Ky., kept to himself, neighbors said. [snip] Ida Askew, 51, was arrested and charged with attempted murder in July 1999 after she shot Polehinke in the stomach with a handgun while the couple was arguing, police records show.

Yes FReepers and FReeperettes, its time once again for another season of Survivor. This time they are in the Cook Islands, in the middle of the South Pacific. I was going to start off this thread by informing you all about how Mark Burnett’s Production Company has decided to split the tribe along ethnic backgrounds. But that subject has been pretty much beaten to death on at least three different threads. So. . . . I would like to point out that for all their talk about “minorities” not applying to the show as much as “whites” and about...

The 13th season of reality TV show Survivor has already sparked controversy by announcing that contestants will be divided into teams based on their race. The 20 participants will be divided up into four tribes - African-American, Asian-American, hispanic and white. Survivor host Jeff Probst defended the decision on US TV's The Early Show saying, "The idea for this actually came from the criticism that Survivor was not ethnically diverse enough. Because, for whatever reason, we've always had a low number of minority applicants for the show. So we set out and said, 'Let's turn this criticism into creative for...

Some may call it exploiting racial tensions. CBS calls it darn good television. Jeff Probst popped in on The Early Show Wednesday morning, confirming the reports that the 20 castaways for Survivor: Cook Islands will be grouped by race, with competitors divided into four tribes consisting of whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics. Apparently, "separate but equal" holds only the warmest of connotations for Mark Burnett. Like a good host, Probst had nothing but praise for the producers' controversial brainchild, calling the exercise in segregation a valuable social experiment, rather than a stunt to dig up some controversy--and raise ratings. "The...

Confirming weeks of rumors, CBS has revealed the identities of the twenty castaways who will be competing in this fall's Survivor: Cook Islands and announced that the castaways will -- in what the show's producer and host both acknowledge to be a controversial move -- initially be organized into four tribes divided along ethnic lines (African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and White.) "We're going to take some heat for it," Survivor executive producer Mark Burnett acknowledged to People about the segregated tribe decision that will no doubt give the thirteenth edition of the long-running reality series -- which will also include the...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The first "Survivor'' has packed his bags and moved to a federal prison in Oklahoma. Richard Hatch is serving a 51-month sentence for failing to pay taxes on the $1 million he won in the first season of the CBS reality series.

Planned Parenthood Celebration Jolted by Abortion Survivor    TED HARVEY She sings the anthem to applause, then her secret is revealed to stunned silence. Gianna Jessen I want to share with you an awesome experience I had in the Colorado House of Representatives on May 8. It is a humbling experience to look back and realize that God used me to play a role in His divine orchestration. I was leaving the House chambers for the weekend when our Democrat speaker of the House announced that the coming Monday would be the final day of this year's General Assembly. He...

Ronald Michalowicz, a fire inspector for the village of Bedford Park, was given a 27 percent chance to live as he battled a rare form of tongue cancer. The community rallied around him, raising about $25,000 to help. He fought the cancer into remission. But the village where he had worked for 28 years fired him for taking the contributions, in alleged violation of the Illinois Gift Ban Act and village code prohibiting employees from soliciting gifts that could affect their decision-making. On Friday, Michalowicz sued Bedford Park, its mayor and village board in federal court for allegedly violating his...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Richard Hatch, who won $1 million in the debut season of "Survivor," was sentenced Tuesday to 51 months in prison for failing to pay income taxes on his reality TV prize and other earnings. Hatch, 45, was convicted in January. The charges carried a maximum of 13 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres said he issued a harsher than expected sentence because Hatch had committed perjury repeatedly during his trial. "It seems unfortunately very clear to me that Mr. Hatch lied," Torres said. When Hatch was convicted, Torres said he expected to sentence him to...

Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died, a funeral home said Sunday. She was 99. Asplund, who was just 5 years old, lost her father and three brothers -- including a fraternal twin -- when the "practically unsinkable" ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. She died Saturday at her home in Shrewsbury, said Ronald E. Johnson, vice president of the Nordgren Memorial Chapel in Worcester, Mass. Asplund's mother and another brother, Felix, who was 3, also survived the Titanic sinking in the early morning of...

Tuesday, April 25 was a day of remembrance for the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust. Around the world television programs and news outlets broadcast stories of courage and resolution in the face of Nazi terror, preaching tolerance of other cultures lest history be repeated. But for 90,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today, life is still a harsh struggle of living day to day with little to get by on. Gizela Burg is one such survivor. Having lived in four concentration camps over the course of her life under the Nazi regime, she knows what it’s like to...