Free Republic

U.S. fighter jets are having worrisome aerial encounters in Arizona’s restricted air combat training areas, which fits with a broader trend. Encounters with small unidentified "objects," sometimes in swarm-like groups of as many as eight. Sightings of other objects, including some characterized as drones, flying at altitudes up to 36,000 feet and as fast as Mach 0.75. Another apparent small drone actually hitting the canopy of an F-16 Viper causing damage. These incidents and many more, all occurred in or around various military air combat training ranges in Arizona since January 2020. The events are described in reports from the...

...A grand jury in Brownsville, Texas, on Monday handed up sixteen counts against Pascale Ferrier, court records show. The 53-year-old resident of the Montreal area is in federal custody in Washington, D.C. on similar charges, prosecutors said Tuesday. ...In September, Ferrier pleaded not guilty to making threats against President Donald Trump by mailing a package containing ricin to the White House after she was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border. A federal judge in New York denied her release on bail. Ferrier is also alleged to have sent ricin to six detention centers and law enforcement agencies in the Rio Grande...

According to the World Health Organization, there have been 6,947,192 confirmed COVID-19 deaths globally as of June 28. Of those, 1,127,152 occurred in the United States, making the number of Americans killed by the virus more than 19 times the number of American soldiers killed in the Vietnam War.And yet, over three years since the beginning of the pandemic, we still don’t know where the virus originated. The fear is that the next time around, the number of deaths could be much higher; because we didn’t learn from this pandemic, we wouldn’t be as prepared as we should for the...

Provided Tactical Guidance in Attempt to Help ISIS to Attack U.S. Forces in the Middle EastThe Justice Department, along with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and U.S. Army Counterintelligence, announced today the arrest of a private first class in the U.S. Army, on federal terrorism charges based on Bridges’ alleged efforts to assist ISIS to attack and kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East.Cole James Bridges, aka Cole Gonzales, 20, of Stowe, Ohio, was charged by complaint with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder U.S. military service members. The...

A Northeast Ohio native pleaded guilty to terrorism charges after investigators say he tried to help terrorists ambush and kill U.S. troops overseas. Cole Bridges, 22, of Stow, pleaded guilty to trying to offer material support to the Islamic State group and trying to murder U.S. soldiers. Bridges faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the two charges he admitted to. He will be sentenced on Nov. 2. According to court records, Bridges, also known as Cole Gonzales, joined the U.S. Army around September 2019. In the same year, court documents say he started researching online propaganda...

Cholo Abdi Abdullah Obtained Pilot Training and Researched How to Hijack Aircraft in Order to Conduct a 9/11-Style Attack at the Direction of al ShabaabThe Department of Justice announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Cholo Abdi Abdullah with six counts of terrorism-related offenses arising from his activities as an operative of the foreign terrorist organization al Shabaab, including conspiring to hijack aircraft in order to conduct a 9/11-style attack in the United States. Abdullah was arrested in July 2019 in the Philippines on local charges, and was subsequently transferred on Dec. 15, 2020 in connection with his deportation from...

The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois. Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation,...

"This release includes bug fixes, increased stability and performance improvements." The routine software update may be one of the most familiar and least understood parts of our digital lives. A pop-up window announces its arrival and all that is required of us is to plug everything in before bed. The next morning, rather like the shoemaker and the elves, our software is magically transformed. Last spring, a Texas-based company called SolarWinds made one such software update available to its customers. It was supposed to provide the regular fare — bug fixes, performance enhancements — to the company's popular network management...

Confessed Highland Park shooter Robert Crimo III admitted to cops three years ago that he was a depressed teenage drug user when quizzed about threatening to “kill everyone” in his family, newly released documents show. A Highland Park police report details why the then-18-year-old alleged shooter was flagged as a “clear and present danger” in 2019 — just a few months before his dad helped him start amassing the arsenal he allegedly used to kill seven and injure dozens at his local Fourth of July parade.

The suspect in the Highland Park, Illinois, Fourth of July mass shooting was flagged by police as a "clear and present danger" in 2019, authorities said Tuesday. Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo III, 21, the suspect in the mass shooting that killed seven people and wounded dozens of others at a Fourth of July parade, was still able to clear state-required background checks to purchase firearms on at least four separate occasions between 2020 and 2021, the Illinois State Police said. "In September 2019, ISP received a Clear and Present Danger report on the subject from the Highland Park Police Department....

The suspect in the Highland Park, Illinois July 4 mass shooting that killed seven and injured dozens had two "prior incidents" before the massacre, police said on Tuesday. Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo, 21, was taken into custody Monday evening after gunning down revelers from a rooftop perch at the Highland Park July 4 parade. Speaking to reporters at an afternoon press conference, Christopher Covelli said Crimo had two prior incidents before the shooting. In April 2019, an individual called police a week after learning of Crimo attempting suicide, Covelli said. The matter was handled by mental health professionals with no...

Highland Park shooter Bobby Crimo was questioned by police twice in 2019 including once after threatening to 'kill everyone' and another after he threatened suicide, but was never arrested. Crimo is now in custody awaiting charges for the massacre yesterday. Police at first said he was not known to them but on Tuesday, they revealed he was interviewed twice by authorities. The first was in April 2019 a week after he threatened to kill himself. The second was in September 2019, after he threatened to 'kill everyone' in his family. Police recovered 19 knives and a dagger from his home...

Authorities revealed Tuesday afternoon that the suspect who allegedly shot dozens of people at a parade on Monday had a history of run-ins with law enforcement officials. “I’m going to relay some information from two prior instances that occurred here in Highland Park,” Christopher Covelli, Lake County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer, said at a press conference. “The first was in April of 2019. An individual contacted Highland Park Police Department a week after learning of [the suspect] attempting suicide. This was a delayed report, so Highland Park still responded to the residence a week later, spoke with [the suspect],...

The suspected gunman in the deadly shooting at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, had prior contact with law enforcement, police said Tuesday. Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo III, 21, had two previous encounters with police in Highland Park, with the most recent in September 2019 over a "mental health issue" in which Crimo threatened to kill members of his family, Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force said in a news briefing.

A 27-year-old Florida woman was arrested after her parents found two dozen pipe bombs in her bedroom and called the local sheriff's office, authorities said Friday. Michelle Louise Kolts was arrested early Friday and booked on 24 counts of making, possessing, throwing, projecting, placing or discharging a destructive device.

For Immediate ReleaseTuesday, October 5, 2021Office of Press Relationspress@usaid.govToday, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching an ambitious new project that will work with partner countries and the global community to build better preparedness for future global health threats. Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens - Viral Zoonoses (DEEP VZN), a five-year, approximately $125 million project (pending availability of funds), will strengthen global capacity to detect and understand the risks of viral spillover from wildlife to humans that could cause another pandemic.The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how infectious diseases threaten all of society, up-ending people’s lives and...

Click here to read the full articleJudge Royce Lam­berth on Tues­day denied the release of Jacob Chans­ley, the “Q Shaman” who has been sit­ting in jail for near­ly 6 months for non-vio­lent charges con­nect­ed to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol riot.Jacob Chans­ley, the horned shaman seen roam­ing around the halls of Con­gress on Jan­u­ary 6th, has been locked up in Wash­ing­ton DC for sev­er­al months — with­out bail.Jacob did not cause any vio­lence, he lis­tened to offi­cers and he was let in the build­ing by Capi­tol Hill police.Chansley’s men­tal health has declined while in jail and he has no tri­al date...

On Saturday morning, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took to social media and appeared to question whether Joe Biden had revealed plans “to create a crisis” at the border while pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination more than 18 months ago. McCarthy tweeted a short video clip of comments that recirculated online earlier this week from a Democratic debate on September 12, 2019, that showed Biden vowing to encourage migrants to make their way to the United States if elected. “We should believe him when he tells us his plans to create a crisis in advance,” McCarthy wrote in the...

Preet Bharara knew about FBI leaks two years before his office denied them. No one has been punished Preet Bharara is often mentioned as a possible U.S. attorney general in a Joe Biden administration after building a reputation as a hard-charging federal prosecutor and self-proclaimed ethicist teaching law school and dispensing morality on Twitter. But one of the last cases he handled as the chief federal prosecutor in New York City cuts against the grain of his carefully manicured image, exposing widespread leaking by the FBI — and knowledge of it by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office — during the...

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has called on Muslims to attack U.S., European, Israeli and Russian targets in a speech on the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. SITE Intelligence Group reports that in a video released by the militant group, Zawahri also criticizes "backtrackers" from jihad, referring to former jihadis who changed their views in prison and called the 9/11 attacks unacceptable because innocent civilians were harmed. Zawahri, an Egyptian, became leader of al Qaeda following the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALS. He is believed to be hiding somewhere in...