Free Republic

Lou Conter, the last living survivor of the USS Arizona battleship that exploded and sank during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, has died. He was 102. Conter passed away on Monday at his home in Grass Valley, California, following congestive heart failure, his daughter, Louann Daley said, adding she was beside him along with two of her brothers, James and Jeff. The Arizona lost 1,177 sailors and Marines in the 1941 attack that launched the United States into World War II. The battleship’s dead account for nearly half of those killed in the attack.

Presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on Thursday responded to criticism about her past work advocating against gay rights by apologizing in a video. The Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii has apologized for such statements before. But she has come under renewed criticism since she announced during a CNN interview last week that she would run for president. Gabbard, 37, campaigned against same-sex marriage with the group Alliance for Traditional Marriage and Values when she was a state representative in her 20s. Gabbard’s father, who is now a state senator and was a Honolulu City Councilman, founded the organization to lobby...