Free Republic

A Queens landlord was killed by her teen tenant during a fight that erupted this week when he failed to make good on rent, authorities said Thursday. Davi Vidal, 19, lashed out at Leo Zoraida, 55, around 5:15 p.m. Tuesday inside their building on 96th Street near Northern Boulevard in East Elmhurst, cops said. Vidal hadn’t been paying rent, sparking the deadly altercation with Zoraida. Cops say the landlord was found unconscious and unresponsive with scratches on her face inside an apartment.

Hillary Clinton found the notion of Carly Fiorina being strangled a laughing matter. But on today's Morning Joe, Mark Halperin acknowledged that Fiorina is "exactly right" when she suggested that if a conservative candidate had laughed in similar circumstances, the liberal media would be all over it. "I don't think there's any ambiguity about that," added Halperin. No doubt. Can you imagine the media/Dem outcry if a Republican presidential candidate had laughed at a similar suggestion about Hillary? "We interrupt regular programming for Breaking News on the GOP War on Women: Laughing at Murder!" View the video here.

Green River Killer Gary Ridgway is facing his 49th murder charge for the death of a woman whose skull was found by teenagers in a ravine, 28 years after she went missing. Ridgway, 61, is already serving 48 consecutive life sentences after being jailed in 2003 for a strangling spree which terrorised Seattle and its northern suburbs in the early 1980s. He once said he killed so many women he could not keep track of them all. He had previously confessed to killing Rebecca 'Becky' Marrero, a 20-year-old mother and prostitute last seen when she left a motel in 1982.

As California grapples with a fiscal crisis, state lawmakers are facing painful choices about where to cut spending and how to increase revenues this year. California is one of only three states that require a "supermajority" vote to pass a budget, a constraint that results in deadlock and chronically late budgets. The economic downturn has contributed to a massive budget shortfall now estimated at more than $40 billion -- roughly $15 billion for the rest of the current fiscal year and $25 billion in 2009-10. Even in good times, California's outdated tax system does not bring in enough revenue to...

Officer accused of strangling pullout protestor Border Guard officer accused of assaulting protestor during settlers' demonstration at Kissufim checkpoint in July 2005; according to indictment, 'officer held plaintiff by his neck with two hands, squeezed his throat, chocked him' Shmulik Hadad The Police Investigation Unit has filed an indictment against Yaniv Reuveni, a 28-year-old Border Guard officer from the southern town of Kiryat Gat. The officer was accused of attacking a Gush Katif resident during the evacuation of Gaza Strip settlements as part of the disengagement, Ynet learned Wednesday. According to the indictment, which accuses the officer of assault, was...

NEW YORK, March 19 (UPI) -- A New York City man is being held for allegedly strangling his 28-year-old wife, who was found dead in her bed by police. Segundo Aurelio Ortiz, 36, was arrested and charges are pending, the police said. Maria Graciella Calle, the mother of two, was found dead in her apartment Friday after her uncle broke down the door because she did not show up at work at a bakery, The New York Daily News reported Sunday. "He was a controlling guy," said the victim's brother, Carlos Cardenas. "He wouldn't let her go out. My sister...