Free Republic

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Richard Dowling's statue ended up saving a whole lot of lives. Here's what happened now. Andrew Cecil Schneck, 25, was charged with attempting to maliciously damage or destroy property receiving federal financial assistance, federal prosecutors announced. A park ranger doing a routine patrol of the area around Hermann Park on Saturday caught Schneck kneeling in the bushes near the statue of Richard Dowling, a commander in the Confederate army

New evidence suggests Iran received help from Venezuela with its nuclear program despite a decade of U.N.-mandated sanctions aimed at curbing the rouge regime’s controversial nuclear and ballistic missile programs. A 2009 document obtained by Brazil’s leading weekly, Veja magazine, shows late dictator President Hugo Chavez signing off on the release of funds to help Iran with its nuclear ambitions. Specifically, the document states the funds were to be designated for the import of equipment for a gunpowder factory and the development of production plants for nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, elements used in rocket propulsion for Iran’s government. There is also...

SNIPPET: "Indonesian anti-terror police, Densus 88 secure a terror suspect's house during a raid in Mojosongo, Solo in Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested 11 members of an Islamic group allegedly planning attacks on American diplomatic missions, a spokesman says." SNIPPET: "The group had planned to hit the US embassy and a US consulate, as well as a building near the Australian embassy in the capital Jakarta that houses the office of American mining giant Freeport-McMoran, police said. Police said they were from a new outfit called HASMI, the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, and explosives and a bomb-making manual...

Researchers at Queen’s University have identified a new mechanism that could potentially explain why the body’s immune system sometimes fails to eliminate cancer. The new findings shed light on the possible cause of immune resistance in cancer cells, and indicate that nitroglycerin, a relatively safe and low-cost drug used for more than a century to treat angina, may be effective for managing certain cancers. “This discovery may lead to new approaches for the treatment of patients with certain forms of cancer,” said Charles Graham, a professor in the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences who lead the Queen’s research team...

"Alleged Bomb Maker Arrested in Murder-for-Hire Plot" SNIPPET: "TAMPA, FL—On Friday, April 23, 2010, the Tampa FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which consists of numerous representatives from local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, arrested JOHN NICHOLAS COORS, age 20, without incident. COORS was arrested in Tampa, Florida, after meeting with an undercover law enforcement asset (UCA) and attempting to detonate an improvised explosive device (IED)." SNIPPET: "According to the federal complaint, the JTTF initially learned about COORS during November 2009. The JTTF received information that COORS was trained in “special forces” type military tactics, considered himself a mercenary,...

Doctors in the United States wrote more than four million prescriptions last year for nitroglycerin tablets, heart drugs placed under the tongue to reduce the chest pain angina or to stop a heart attack. But the majority of the drugs sold had not been approved for sale, nor had their safety and effectiveness been vetted, by the Food and Drug Administration. And many doctors, who discovered only last week that pharmacies were giving their patients unproved heart tablets, now say they have no way of knowing whether patients have suffered unnecessarily as a result. “If it’s not approved and no...

AMMAN, Jordan - Islamic militants planned to detonate an explosion that would have sent a cloud of toxic chemicals across Jordan, causing death, blindness and sickness, a chemical expert testified in a military court Wednesday. Col. Najeh al-Azam was giving evidence in the trial of 13 men who are alleged to have planned what would have been the world's first chemical attack by the al-Qaida terror group. The accused include al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi, and three other fugitives who are being tried in absentia. Jordanian security services foiled the plot in April last year. Jordanian officials say that...

Source: Duke University Medical Center Date: 2004-02-06 Popular Drug For Chest Pain May Promote Blood Vessel Damage DURHAM, NC -- Nitroglycerin -- a drug commonly prescribed for the treatment of chest pain in patients with heart conditions -- has the frustrating property that its beneficial effects are short-lived. Now, new research conducted by a German group and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators at Duke University Medical Center reveals the cellular mechanism underlying the drug's lost efficacy and raises additional concern about its potential to cause long-term injury. In rats treated with nitroglycerin for a period of three days, the activity...

Secrets of Heart Drug Used for Decades Revealed Mon Jun 3, 5:32 PM ET By Merritt McKinney NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Nitroglycerin has been used to relieve chest pain for more than a century, but researchers have just now discovered how the drug works. A team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, has discovered that an enzyme in the power plants of cells is the key to nitroglycerin's effects. What's more, the scientists have found that long-term use of nitroglycerin slowly depletes the supply of this enzyme, which probably explains...