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An alligator was found swimming in a Central Florida YMCA on Friday morning. The gator, which was about 4 feet long, was discovered by a swimmer in the pool, which is located on the campus of Brevard Community College on Clearlake Road in Cocoa. It is not known how the alligator got into the facility. A YMCA worker joked that the alligator was targeting her because she was wearing an Auburn Tigers sweatshirt. The Florida Gators play Auburn on Saturday. Officials who removed the alligator said it will be released into the wild.

I'm eavesdropping on a locker room conversation, one guy showing another his girlfriend's picture on a cell phone, a younger man talking about how he struggles to find reliable help for his restaurant, another talking about his nephew playing in a big all-star game in Las Vegas, three others piping about woman trouble, an older man cautioning against contradicting an officer of the law. And I'm lost. Everybody in the locker room in this YMCA is speaking English, and, at times, I feel as if I can't understand them. "I'm telling ya, bruh, both y'all's messed up." "Turn up the...

Health advocates wrote to the governor, lobbied legislators and worked closely with the New Jersey League of Municipalities. And their efforts have paid off. Earlier this summer, a 7 percent state tax on gym memberships and health clubs was repealed by the state Legislature -- giving a sigh of relief to health clubs around the state. Rick Gorab, president and CEO of the Metropolitan YMCAs of the Oranges -- which has branches in Livingston, Maplewood, East Orange and Sussex County -- said 44 YMCAs banded together statewide to repeal the tax, which was passed last October. "We are a charitably-based...

Manchester, NH (LifeNews.com) -- A YMCA official who took students at a public middle school to an abortion center has been forced to resign by the community agency. The students were part of an at-risk program YMCA coordinates with the Manchester school district and they were taken to Planned Parenthood without their parents knowing. Harold Jordan, the YMCA's president, told the Associated Press that employee Joyce Palmer, the group's community outreach director, has admitted she was wrong to take the students to an abortion business. Palmer "takes full responsibility for the decision and realizes it was inappropriate to include Planned...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - The city school board ordered an investigation into an after-school program run by the YMCA in which some middle school students were taken to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic. New Hampshire Right to Life, an abortion opponent, is now asking for equal time with the seventh and eighth grade students, as well. The visit was part of the YMCA's STAY program, for students considered at risk of dropping out of school, abusing drugs or getting into trouble with the law. The trip, a week ago, was part of a tour of several social service agencies in the...

Manchester, NH (LifeNews.com) -- Parents in New Hampshire are outraged after learning that the YMCA, in partnership with a local school district, took a group of junior high school students to a Planned Parenthood abortion business. The Manchester school district has come under fire for the trip and promises students will never go there again.The Manchester school district has partnered with the YMCA to put together a program for at-risk students who are in danger of dropping out of school. YMCA took the students to various places around town to show them summer programs and places to get involved in...

(IsraelNN.com) Muslim fundamentalists, aligned with Al Qaeda, bombed a Christian bookstore and two Internet cafes in Gaza on Saturday following previous attacks on churches as part of its religious crusade to replace the secular Fatah faction. The "Sword of Islam" terrorist group took responsibility for the bombings of Internet cafes and music stores, which they consider an offense to the Muslim religion because they represent Western society. The same group has issued warnings to Gaza women not to hang out in Internet cafes. The Swords of Islam has bombed more than a dozen Internet cafes in several weeks and destroyed...

Prior to attack, Christian groups warned to vacate Hamas-controlled West Bank town; identities of attackers known to local government, but no repercussions likely Palestinian gunmen Saturday attacked and set fire to the Young Men's Christian Association headquarters in Qalqiliya, a large West Bank city controlled by Hamas. Local government sources identified the attackers as members of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups, saying the identities of the gunmen are "well known" to Qalqiliya's security forces, which are controlled by the Hamas government. Saturday's arson follows a series of warnings by the Muslim leadership of Qalqilya accusing the city's YMCA...

Do you know what the C in YMCA stands for? You may know it stands for “Christian,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. The YMCA has come far from its founders’ intent when it was organized in 1844—so far that many people have forgotten its roots as a Christian organization established to disciple young men. Today, as John Alexander of the Danville, Illinois, YMCA says, “Unfortunately, people look at us and just see a swim and gym.”

Do you know what the C in YMCA stands for? You may know it stands for “Christian,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. The YMCA has come far from its founders’ intent when it was organized in 1844 — so far that many people have forgotten its roots as a Christian organization established to disciple young men. Today, as John Alexander of the Danville, Illinois, YMCA says, “Unfortunately, people look at us and just see a swim and gym.” Sadly, over the years the YMCA has redefined its original mission right out of existence. At first, the YMCA’s...

'High-roller' gets prison for Y theft Susan Miller's charges from embezzling $20,000 from the YMCA is prefaced by a 17-year criminal history that brought her more than $300,000 in financial gain. By Juliette Rule rep9@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - Because she didn't learn her lesson the first time, the woman convicted of stealing money from the Cheyenne Family YMCA to support her high-roller gambler status will spend six to nine years in prison. Susan J. Miller, 42, heard those words from Laramie County District Judge Nicholas Kalokathis at her Tuesday morning sentencing hearing. In a fairly complicated...

No wait, not six. To hell with that. Make it 10. Ten bucks a gallon, no matter what the going rate for a barrel of light sweet crude. That would so completely, violently, brilliantly do it. Revolutionize the country. Firebomb our pungent stasis. Change everything. Don't you agree? Here's what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab drivers (at least initially) and metro transit systems and low-income folks, those who have to drive their busted-up '78 Honda Civics to their jobs scrubbing restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming the residual cocaine from the seat cushions of numb SUV...

Think sex and drugs destroy America? Try naive chastity. Oh, and "Purity Balls" There are these things. These unholy events called "Purity Balls" and you should probably fall to your knees right this minute and thank a merciful and lubricious and happily polyamorous God that you do not know what they are and that you have access right this minute to vast quantities of wine to deflect their nasty karmic arrows because, you know, oh my God. But hey, free country. Purity Balls. No, not some sort of newfangled spherical chastity device to be inserted using vacuum tubes and pulleys,...

It's a shockingly eco-friendly plan from the world's most toxic retailer. Did hell just freeze over? Sometimes you just have to let the possibility breathe. Sometimes you just have to allow that something grand and good and healthy might actually be born from the bowels of the dank and ravenous megacorporate world, like flowers from a dung heap, like vodka from old potatoes, even if it comes right alongside the nastiest, most abusive federal environmental policy you will see in your lifetime. Take Wal-Mart, the most famously offensive, town-destroying, junk-purveying, labor-abusing, sweatshop-supporting, American-job-killing, soul-numbing, seizure-inducing, hope-curdling retailer in the known...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2006 – The Armed Services YMCA honored individuals and organizations for their support of military families in 2005 at its 19th Annual Recognition Luncheon here today. Bryce Moorehouse, 11, shows Navy Force Master Chief Dave Pennington his art contest entry that earned first place during the Armed Services YMCA 19th Annual Recognition Luncheon in Washington. Bryce's mother, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Andrea Palermo, is stationed at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington. Photo by Samantha L. Quigley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The ASYMCA provides social and support services for military families, organization officials said. Last...

A Christian organization betrays its mission and early beliefs and sides with Muslim terrorists. Then this organization finds out the truth about the Muslim terrorists too late. The group then becomes the target of the Muslim terrorists' wrath only because of its empty "Christian" name...YMCA gets its just deserts

JERUSALEM -- The leadership of a West Bank Palestinian city now controlled by Hamas has warned a local Young Men's Christian Association to close its offices and leave town or face likely Muslim violence, WorldNetDaily has learned. The move highlighted long-standing fears Hamas would use its win in last January's Palestinian parliamentary elections to impose an anti-Christian, anti-Jewish hard-line Islamist regime in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Flushing YMCA said four people were killed in an accident on the New York State Thruway at 7 a.m. en route to a swimming meet in Buffalo, N.Y. The victims included a 47-year-old woman, her two sons and a 14-year-old girl, who died when a tanker truck slammed into their minivan, New York 1 reported. Two other passengers in the vehicle were removed from the battered minivan and taken to a local area hospital, New York 1 reported. In addition, the driver of the tanker truck was taken to the hospital, according to New York 1. Neither the Flushing...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The lifeguards find bare breasts distracting. That's one of the reasons officials at the Ann Arbor, Mich., YMCA said they've banned breast-feeding at the pool. But nursing moms counter that's no excuse. The breast-feeding mothers plan a nurse-in at the Y Saturday to protest the ban. However, Krista Dragun, one of the protest organizers, said they'll be nursing their babies in the lobby, not the pool area. She said they want the Y to adopt a more mother-baby friendly policy for the pool. Y officials note there's no eating or drinking allowed at the pool for...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The lifeguards find bare breasts distracting. It's News that Dares to be News! Click here for more Bizarre Bazaar. That's one of the reasons officials at the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Y-M-C-A say they've banned breast-feeding at the pool. But nursing moms counter that's no excuse. The breast-feeding mothers plan a nurse-in at the Y tomorrow to protest the ban. However, Krista Dragun, one of the protest organizers, says they'll be nursing their babies in the lobby, not the pool area. She says they want the Y to adopt a more mother-baby friendly policy for the pool....