Free Republic

Most police departments—including Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police—are required to release an officer’s name within days of a fatal shooting. Not the U.S. Capitol Police, which is controlled by Congress and answers only to Congress. It can keep the public in the dark about the identity and investigation of an officer involved in a shooting indefinitely. Which is what happened with the Jan. 6 shooting of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester in the U.S. Capitol riot who was fatally wounded by a plainclothes police lieutenant as she attempted to breach a set of doors inside the building. For the past six...

In broad daylight, masked assailants infiltrated North Korea’s embassy in Madrid, tied up the staff, stole computers and mobile phones, and fled the scene in two luxury vehicles. The group behind the late February operation is known as Cheollima Civil Defense, a secretive dissident organization committed to overthrowing the Kim dynasty, people familiar with the planning and execution of the mission told The Washington Post. The group’s alleged role in the attack has not previously been reported, and officials from the governments of North Korea, the United States and Spain declined to comment on it. The identity of the assailants...

Anti-government protesters in their thousands took to the streets of Belgrade on Saturday night for the tenth weekly demonstration of its kind. The protesters are a mix of citizens movements, opposition parties, from both left and right, academics, students and ordinary people. They are united in the belief that Serbia with president Aleksandar Vucic at the helm is sliding towards autocratic rule and that the country is gripped by political violence and a climate of fear. After more than two months of weekly protests people are still coming out in huge numbers and many political analysts believe the protests are...

A venture capitalist and political fundraiser was sentenced today to 144 months in federal prison for falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials, evading the payment of millions of dollars in taxes, making illegal campaign contributions, and obstructing a federal investigation into the source of donations to a presidential inauguration committee.Imaad Shah Zuberi, 50, of Arcadia, California, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips, who also ordered him to pay $15,705,080 in restitution and a criminal fine of $1.75 million.In November 2019, Zuberi pleaded guilty to a three-count information...

Non-profit humanitarian agency World Vision United States improperly transacted with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2014 with approval from the Obama administration, sending government funds to an organization that had been sanctioned over its ties to terrorism, according to a new report.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) recently released a report detailing the findings of an investigation his staff began in February 2019 into the relationship between World Vision and ISRA.The probe found that World Vision was not aware that ISRA had been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2004 after funneling roughly $5 million to Maktab al-Khidamat,...

United Nations follows Pope Francis's lead in declaring international dayWith unanimous vote in the General Assembly, February 4 becomes the International Day of Human Fraternity.The United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to designate February 4 — the anniversary of the signing of the “Document for Human Fraternity” by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb — as the “International Day of Human Fraternity.”The General Assembly voted Tuesday and invited Member States and the United Nations system to include this celebration in their calendar beginning in 2021.Supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco, Burkina Faso and...

A former United States Air Force counterintelligence agent was charged with espionage after she defected to Iran and helped it target her former colleagues, the authorities said. In an extraordinarily detailed indictment made public on Wednesday, prosecutors disclosed that Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, gave the Iranians the code name and mission of a secret Pentagon program involving American intelligence operations. According to the indictment, she was working with members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The elite paramilitary group is known to carry out terrorist operations around the globe and has been sanctioned by the American government.

A raw series of text messages show Joe Biden offering fatherly comfort as his son, Hunter, lamented from a rehab facility about being a “f–ked up addict who can’t be trusted” and had damaged his dad’s political career. The intimate family exchange took place on February 24, 2019, two months before Joe launched his campaign for the White House. “Good morning my beautiful son. I miss you and love you. Dad,” the elder Biden wrote at 6:57 a.m. Hunter responded with a lengthy diatribe about his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and his father’s political advisers, and he also complained bitterly about...

On February 26, 2018, Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza launched the Black Futures Fund, which discloses on its donations page that “Black Futures Lab is a fiscally sponsored project of the Chinese Progressive Association”. The CPA, active in areas such as San Francisco and Boston, has long and deep ties to Chinese Maoist activity in the United States. Cofounder and board chair emeritus Pam Tau Lee was active during her student days at Cal State Hayward and Berkeley with the I Wor Kuen, a Chinese Maoist counterpart of the Black Panthers which merged with the Red Guard Party, a...

(CARACAS, Venezuela) — The Univision television network said Thursday that it has recovered the video of a contentious interview with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that was confiscated after he cut it short, angered by critical questions from journalist Jorge Ramos. Ramos said the recovery of the video was “a real triumph against censorship” and that it was returned by “confidential sources” who cannot be named out of concern for their safety. On its website, Spanish-language Univision showed an excerpt of the 17-minute interview in late February in the presidential palace in Caracas. Ramos said the video will be broadcast in...

Venezuelan lawmaker Freddy Superlano, a member of the opposition party, is in serious but stable condition after being poisoned in Colombia, his party says. His cousin has passed away. Voluntad Popular, the party of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, said late on Saturday that Superlano was poisoned at a restaurant in Cúcuta, a city near the border with Venezuela. His assistant and cousin, Carlos Salinas, died.

"The people of Venezuela are standing for freedom and democracy and the United States of America is standing right by their side" President Donald J. Trump Speaks In Miami 2/18/2019 Speaking in Miami Monday afternoon President Donald Trump urged the Venezuelan military to stop its support for Nicolas Maduro and come out in support of Interim President Juan Guaido. Trump noted that Guaido has offered amnesty and also warned that the US knows where the military has any ill gotten gains given to them by Maduro stashed in financial institutions. The President laid out a vision of democracy for Venezuela...

Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and members of his team have been detained in Caracas, Venezuela after dispute President Nicolas Maduro "didn't like the questions" they were asking during an interview, the network tweeted Monday night.

Merida, April 3, 2019 – Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly (ANC) has lifted the parliamentary immunity of the self-declared “Interim President” Juan Guaido, opening the door for criminal charges to be brought against him. Tuesday’s unanimous decision came following a request from the Supreme Court, and included the “authorisation” of the continuation of investigations into the also deputy and president of the National Assembly. “The investigation [against Guaido] is formally authorised to continue in accordance with our Constitution and laws” said ANC President Diosdado Cabello during the session. Cabello added that justice was “necessary” and what would safeguard peace in Venezuela....

The Trump administration simulated the ability of the United States to handle a flulike pandemic months before the coronavirus turned the scenario into a reality. The Health and Human Services Department led the exercise, known as the "Crimson Contagion," last year in conjunction with dozens of states and federal agencies, according to the New York Times. HHS also invited charitable groups, insurance companies, and major hospitals to take part in the effort. Former Air Force physician Robert Kadlec, who has studied biodefense issues for decades, led the exercise, which imagined a contagious disease that originated in China and spread globally...

6 illegal immigrants linked to Mexican cartel arrested in NC for drug trafficking operation, officials saySix illegal immigrants with ties to a Mexican drug cartel — a rival of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, whose notorious leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was convicted last week — were arrested in an elaborate drug trafficking operation in North Carolina, according to reports. The massive drug operation included transporting large amounts of cocaine and methamphetamine across state lines — for instance, from Texas to Georgia and North Carolina, WSOC reported. The feds identified the suspects as Oscar Rangel-Gutierrez, Regulo Rangel-Gutierrez, Francisco Garcia-Martinez, Rodolfo Martinez,...

When CNBC announced that the successful Jewish hedge fund manager would be supporting fellow Jewish billionaire Mike Bloomberg in his run for President as a Democrat, Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN), who has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks on Twitter, responded to their tweet, saying, “I wonder why?” Women’s tennis icon and gay rights activist Martina Navratilova immediately admonished Omar for making yet another anti-Semitic statement on Twitter. Navratilova tweeted, “This is a wrong thing to say Congresswoman…” Omar’s liberal friends attacked Navratilova, who is a liberal to the core. Navratilova’s profile picture on Twitter is an image of...

Nursultan Nazarbayev announces shock resignation in televised address, hands over power to speaker of upper house. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has abruptly announced his resignation, 29 years after taking office. In a televised address on Tuesday, the 78-year-old said he has taken the "difficult" decision to terminate his authority as president, but did not give a specific reason for the shock decision. "I have decided to end my duties as president," Nazarbayev said, before signing a decree terminating his powers from March 30. "This year I will have held the highest post for 30 years," he said. "As the founder...

WARSAW, Poland – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Thursday released a video of a closed meeting in which senior Gulf Arab officials play down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, defend Israel's right to defend itself, and describe Iran as the greatest threat to regional peace. The video, bearing the insignia of Netanyahu's office, gave a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes contacts the Israeli leader frequently boasts of, but which are rarely seen in public. The video was recorded on a mobile device and it was not clear who took it. Netanyahu's office briefly made the YouTube video available to a...

American authorities have arrested a former US Marine who is allegedly part of a group that raided North Korea's embassy in Madrid, reports say. Christopher Ahn will reportedly appear in a Los Angeles court. It would be the first arrest over the incident, which happened in February days before US President Donald Trump met North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Vietnam. Free Joseon, a self-styled human rights group, says it was involved. US federal agents have also raided the apartment of Adrian Hong, one of the group's leaders, says the Washington Post. ... On 22 February, a group of at...