(July 15) -- The cast of characters in a bizarre murder case keeps getting larger. Seven men are charged with killing Byrd and Melanie Billings -- a crime that made orphans of the Beulah, Fla., couple's 13 adopted children. Now police have tracked down Pamela Long, a real estate agent they call a "person of interest" who could have "significant and substantial information."
Ashley Markham -- one of four other Billings children from previous marriages -- has become the family's public face. On 'Good Morning America' today, she said the family is focusing on plans for funerals and is determined to keep the children together. Watch Video.
The suspected ringleader of the group that invaded the Billings home has also spoken out. During a court appearance Tuesday, Leonard Gonzalez Jr. insisted he's innocent and noted that a civic group just presented him with a "Service to Mankind" award for teaching free self-defense classes for women and children.
Recession's End in Sight?
Well ... it all depends on how you read the signs.
Well ... it all depends on how you read the signs.
Newsweek's Daniel Gross likes what he sees and declares "the recession is really, most probably over."
For True/Slant's Caitlin Kelly, it's not what she's seeing -- it's what she's hearing. Salvation Army Bells ringing in July. It's not a cheery sound.
In Tampa, the economic indicator is a hand-lettered sign at a roadside stand that reads:
Grandma
Struggling
raising 4 teens
Ice cold water $1.00
Struggling
raising 4 teens
Ice cold water $1.00
The St. Petersburg Times has more about what one 58-year-old disabled woman is doing to make ends meet.
The Daily Palin
After Gov. Sarah Palin's op-ed piece opposing President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan ran in the Washington Post, Sen. John Kerry is firing back in the Huffington Post. The failed Democratic presidential nominee says the failed Republican vice presidential nominee left out a lot of important details.
After Gov. Sarah Palin's op-ed piece opposing President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan ran in the Washington Post, Sen. John Kerry is firing back in the Huffington Post. The failed Democratic presidential nominee says the failed Republican vice presidential nominee left out a lot of important details.
Continuing the cycle, the Say Anything blog is ripping Kerry's op-ed for suggesting the Alaska governor has no authority to write an op-ed.
Remember the uproar over Kerry being for Iraq war funding before he was against it? Wonkette has a blast from the past that indicates Palin was for cap-and-trade before she was against it.
"If political figures stand for ideas, victimization is what Ms. Palin is all about," writes Thomas Frank at WSJ.com. Instead of brushing off attacks, her strategy is to develop a thinner skin, he says. The result is to amplify "voices that are ordinarily ignored, relishing every blogger's sneer, every celebrity's slight, every crazy Internet rumor."
In light of all this, Andrew Sullivan asks in our Hot Seat poll: Should we ignore Sarah Palin?
Flesh-Eating Battlebots
This is one of those stories that's too good to check out. Because what fun would it be if this turned out not to be true?
This is one of those stories that's too good to check out. Because what fun would it be if this turned out not to be true?
Fox News reports the Pentagon has a deal with a Maryland company that's building a steam-powered robot that would "fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies."
Its official name is Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. But since the military is involved, there's an acronym ... EATR.
