Free Republic

The search for a missing 3-year-old Massachusetts boy who vanished from his babysitter's backyard ended Wednesday afternoon with the grim discovery of the child's body in a pond, sources told ABC News Boston affiliate WCVB. The toddler's body was found in a pond at a farm near the babysitter's home in Lowell, about 30 miles northwest of Boston, WCVB reported, citing multiple sources.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota; : A third-generation farmer filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is unlawfully preventing him from farming one of his fields. In 2011, a division of the Department of Agriculture ruled that a small seasonal mud puddle on Arlen Foster’s farm is protected by federal law as a wetland. Even though the federal government has no authority to regulate such puddles, the department is forcing Foster to choose between productively using his field or participating in federal programs for farmers, like crop insurance. “The government lacks the authority to insist that he...

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — Deputies said a 74-year-old man playing golf at a country club in Oldsmar drowned in a pond while looking for his golf ball. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office responded to the East Lake Woodlands Country Club after reports of missing 74-year-old Hermilo Jazmines. Jazmines was last seen looking for his golf ball near the green of hole three at the golf course.

Tesla said Wednesday that they have been able to recover enough data to confirm that autopilot was not engaged when a Bay Area driver veered off the road in a Model S and plunged into a pond. “We have been able to recover enough data from the vehicle to confirm that Autopilot was not engaged at the time of this accident," Tesla said in a statement.

To Serve, to Protect, to Brag You could see it coming. Minutes after the news flashed around the nation, FBI agents, active and retired, were preening themselves before the TV cameras, once again basking in the limelight of an arrest they had absolutely nothing to do with. Let this be said loud and clear before it becomes part of the self-created image of an agency that, like the Mounties, says it always gets its man: Eric Robert Rudolph was nabbed by a local cop on the beat. The FBI didn't have a damned thing to do with the capture of...

PRAIRIE COUNTY, AK — Police in two states are trying to determine why two caregivers of an elderly man allegedly stuffed his body in a suitcase and then loaded him into a car and drove more than 1,000 miles from Syracuse, in upstate New York, to dump the corpse in an Arkansas rice field.

$16 million in fines dropped, threats canceled. A Wyoming rancher threatened by the Environmental Agency with $16 million fines for getting a state permit and building a stock pond on his ranch has reached a settlement that will have the fines go away and he’ll keep his stock pond. WND reported in 2015 on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, rancher Andy Johnson by officialsl with the Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to vindicate his property rights. The lawsuit explained federal law clearly exempts stock ponds from the rules of the EPA, which had filed a compliance order...

You might remember that Andy Johnson, the rancher from Wyoming, just won his case this week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That battle concerned their environmentally friendly stock pond on their private property. The EPA demanded that he remove the pond and threatened him with fines of $37,500 per day if he did not comply. The case was settled this week and the Johnson Family are happy. However… He is not the only citizen that the EPA has targeted. More cases are coming to light on the extreme overreach of this organization. Disabled Navy veteran Joseph Robertson, 77, of...

When Andy and Katie Johnson built a pond on their property in 2011 to provide water for their cattle, they never dreamed it would result in threats of $75,000 a day in fines from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Johnsons believed they had done everything necessary to get permission for the pond, where the tiny Six Mile Creek runs through their property south of Fort Bridger, Wyo. The Wyoming State Engineer's Office provided the permit and even stated in an April 4, 2013 letter to the Johnsons: "All of the legal requirements of the State Engineer's Office, that were your...

<p>ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (AP) -- A car veered off a rain-slicked highway ramp in suburban Minneapolis early Thursday, landing in a nearby holding pond and trapping five children underwater for up to 45 minutes until a tow truck could pull it out, authorities said.</p>

HOUSTON - A Houston woman spent up to a week stranded in her car after getting stuck in a muddy pond in Idaho. Lynn Keesler said she took a wrong turn while looking for a hotel in Burley on January 15. Keesler, 61, told deputies she saw water and tried to drive around it, but she got stuck in the mud instead.

This would be a dreary day to be a fish in Lincoln Park's South Pond, what with the poison in the water and the sight of hundreds of your fish colleagues slowly floating to the surface. So if you're reading this, be thankful you're not a black crappie or a largemouth bass. But, for the sake of those that went belly up on Friday to make way for a $12 million pond restoration project, ponder for a moment this age-old question: Do fish feel pain?

This radio show for kids totally mocks mainstream media. And the Tom Brokaw impersionation is dead on. A quote from the site: "A nightly news crew thinks they have a big scoop on The Pond, deciding the whole place is radioactive... without much evidence. The concept: You can't trust the media. Never too early to teach that lesson, is it?"

Little Ali Tuller will soon be sporting a bracelet that contains the inscription “Walking With Jesus.” That couldn’t be more appropriate, after the night she had on October 3. Tracy Ali Jo Tuller, who goes by Ali, is the 23-month-old daughter of Shanna and Robert Tuller. She crawled out of her bed and slipped out the sliding glass door of the couple’s home located a few miles south of town. She started her walk sometime between midnight and 1:30 Saturday morning, which was when her mom discovered her missing. “That night was my birthday, and my husband and I put...

A gatling gun on a hummer, a fighter jet... and a frog. Liberal parents won't like this.

Dennis Prager argues with a frog in this children's video clip about getting the newspaper. Dennis is animated. No, really. Animated - as in he plays a bear!

Dennis: I already get your newspaper Frog: Just one? Dennis: Why would I need two? Frog: One for you, one for the wife... Dennis plays a bear in a children's video.

I have no idea how to categorize this, but it's funny that the party favor craze has gotten to this - The Pond (children's videos) is giving away 20 dvd's to ONE PERSON! Three times, they're doing this as part of their drawing. What a funny idea.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish engineers have poured pig manure into a contaminated pond next to an old mine, saying the bacteria in the slurry will clean up metals in the water. Mining company Outokumpu dumped 450 cubic meters of pig slurry into the waste water near the closed Kangasjarvi mine, which once produced zinc, copper and sulfur. "Pig slurry contains bacteria that bind metals that are in the mine water and they will sink to the bottom. We have used this system to clean mine waters at various mines," Eero Soininen, Outokumpu's mine reclamation manager, told Reuters. "Around 15 years...

Active lava pond in the East Pond Vent, Pu'u O'o, Kilauea, Hawaii: CHALLENGE: Find a good picture of a freshwater spring sand boil. This is where the water of a spring is emerging from a sandy bottom, and the sand "boils" where the water flow is strongest. Example: The white area is a sand boil in a Florida freshwater spring. What I need is a high-quality close-up example of this for a demonstration. (Not critical, but it would be helpful.)