Free Republic

Radio personality Shavonne Patrice Owens, 37, says she experienced weight discrimination firsthand when she applied for a daycare job in Huntsville, Alabama, two years ago. Despite having all the qualifications for the job, Owens says her friend — a former employee of the daycare center in question (whose employment later terminated) — told her the reason she was ultimately passed over for the job was because of her weight. Owens, who was 525 pounds at 5’11” at the time of her interview with the daycare center, said that this incident “hurt for a second, just for a second… but I...

Philip Merrill, the prominent publisher and former diplomat whose body was found floating in the Chesapeake Bay on Monday, suffered from a heart condition and apparently took his own life, his family said last night. Merrill, 72, was found with a shotgun wound to the head and a small anchor tied around one or both ankles, according to a source familiar with the investigation. ~~~~snip~~~~ In 1996, former CIA director William E. Colby died from drowning and exposure after falling from a canoe off Charles County. ~~~~snip~~~~~ In 1978, another former high-level CIA employee, John A. Paisley, disappeared while sailing...

``The news is going to be heartbreaking for my family,'' Ken MacKenzie, uncle of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, told NBC's ``Today'' show. ``Because the U.S. government did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid for it with his life,'' he said..."