Free Republic

Turkey has said it will suspend the European Convention on Human Rights during a state of emergency declared in the aftermath of last weekend’s coup attempt. “Turkey will suspend the European Convention on Human Rights insofar as it does not conflict with its international obligations,” the deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus, was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency. The state of emergency will allow the government to rule by decree, passing bills that have the force of the rule of law unless they are overturned by parliament, where the majority of MPs belong to the ruling Justice...

Azerbaijan, a strategic ally of Turkey, has suspended a national TV station that reportedly planned to broadcast an interview with Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based imam who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blames for instigating a failed coup. In a July 19 statement, Azerbaijan’s National Council for Television and Radio announced that it would suspend for one month the privately run ANS TV’s broadcasts “to prevent the provocation aimed at undermining the strategic cooperation relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, and not to allow the open propaganda of terrorism,” Trend news agency reported. The Council added that it also would sue to...

What happened on Tuesday isn’t going to do anything to help CNN shed the “Clinton News Network” moniker. As reporter Brianna Keilar was appearing live from Hillary’s speech in Springfield, Illinois — and critiquing her record — the feed was mysteriously lost. (...) “And remember Hillary Clinton has some vulnerabilities herself." “Even as she calls for criminal justice reform because of her support in the 1990s for anti-crime legislation that ultimately helped contribute to this era of mass incarceration that she now speaks out again–,” Keilar was saying. The screen suddenly went black with only the graphics — referring to...

A masked gunman has been shot dead by police after storming a German cinema complex and opening fire. The man entered the cinema complex in Western Germany at about 3pm carrying a gun and munition belt. The gunman apparently entered the Kinopolis cinema 'Rambo-style' with a gunbelt of cartridges draped across his shoulder and his weapon in his hand. (...)

THE sick ISIS killer who brutally hacked down a police chief and his wife has sent out a chilling message warning of mass murder at Euro 2016. French jihadi Larossi Abballa posted the terrifying Facebook live video just moments after he murdered Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his wife. The pair were stabbed at their home on the outskirts of Paris last night. In the video he said: “Did you think that we would say inattentive? Well you have another thing coming. We have other surprises for you, the Euros. “The Euros will be a cemetery. You too (President) Hollande, I haven’t...

TRYING TO PLEASE EVERYONE Trying to please everyone is by far the worst disease the West contracted. Today, critiquing any other religion besides Christianity is considered a sin while mocking Christianity is applauded. I argue that anyone who tries to combat anything without using biblical concepts is an idiot no mater how ‘brilliant’ society thinks they are. A Christian will always be attacked no matter what they say. I as a Christian could type any sentence and instant objections will arise. I could even publish a single line article that says: “Mankind does good and evil” and someone will object....

ALBANY – An Albany County grand jury indicted three University at Albany students Monday on charges related to an incident on a CDTA bus in January. Ariel Agudio, 20, of Huntington, faces one charge of assault, three counts each of attempted assault and falsely reporting an incident, all misdemeanors, and three counts of harassment, all violations. Asha Burwell, 20, of Huntington Station, is charged with one misdemeanor count of assault, four misdemeanor counts of falsely reporting an incident and one count of harassment, a violation. Alexis Briggs, 20, of Elmira Heights, is charged with one misdemeanor count of assault and...

Science is broken. That's the thesis of a must-read article in First Things magazine, in which William A. Wilson accumulates evidence that a lot of published research is false. But that's not even the worst part. Advocates of the existing scientific research paradigm usually smugly declare that while some published conclusions are surely false, the scientific method has "self-correcting mechanisms" that ensure that, eventually, the truth will prevail. Unfortunately for all of us, Wilson makes a convincing argument that those self-correcting mechanisms are broken. For starters, there's a "replication crisis" in science. This is particularly true in the field of...

A French-language television station captured footage of a woman wearing a hijab ripping up an Israeli flag at a makeshift memorial for the victims of Tuesday’s bombings in Brussels The images were captured by the RTL television network and disseminated on the web and social media. The incident took place at the vigil that was set up in the central Brussels landmark Place de la Bourse. In the clip, the woman is seen sifting through the flags that were lining the pavement. After lifting a Palestinian flag, she then spots an Israeli flag and begins tearing it up. She then...

The drug cartel in the Mexican state of Guerrero demanded from Coca-Cola one million dollars to keep their distribution center in the region. Coca-Cola refused to pay the money. The cartel retaliated and began to burn down Coca-Cola trucks. The violence got so severe that Coca-Cola removed its distribution center. This story signifies just how powerful the narco state of Mexico is becoming, even to the point of driving out major American industries. To learn more about this story, and the political significance behind it, I spoke with Jorge Vazquez Valencia, the spokesperson for the Autodefensas, a self-defense group that...

Just when it seemed that cooler heads might prevail, when it seemed that the tension fueled by allegations of a racially motivated attack at the University at Albany might subside, along comes the attorney for Asha Burwell with a phrase that's gasoline for the fire. Academic lynching. Yes, Frederick Brewington went there. That's how the attorney described the UAlbany process being used to determine the potential on-campus punishment for Burwell and the two other black students who said a pack of white passengers beat them on a CDTA bus while yelling racial slurs. UAlbany now believes Burwell, Ariel Agudio, and...

A notorious Romanian computer hacker who released some of Hillary Clinton's private emails is facing extradition to the United States of America. Known online as 'Guccifer,' Marcel Lehel, 42, lost his legal case in his home country after Romania's top court of appeal sanctioned a request by the U.S. to extradite him. The ruling is final and the period of extradition could not exceed 18 months. (...)

The Mexican government has placed six states on high alert following the theft of a vehicle with radioactive material. That alert comes less than a year after Mexico had an almost identical case where authorities throughout most of southern Mexico spent days searching for the missing material. The warning was issued on Sunday evening by Mexico’s Secretariat of the Interior, just one day after the theft of a commercial pickup that had been transporting industrial material, including a yellow container with a rod of Iridium-192. (...)

A handful of video recordings of the alleged racial assault on three black University at Albany students last weekend do not clearly show the women being attacked on a bus by a large group including white men, two community leaders who saw the recordings said Friday. The videos also contain no audible racial slurs — though the audio quality is often "bad" and sometimes nonexistent, said Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin and Alice Green, a longtime social justice activist in the city. But Green and McLaughlin, both leaders in the city's African- American community, stopped short of questioning the women's...

Clare W. Bronfman, an heiress of the Seagram Company business empire, allegedly implanted a "key logger" virus on the computer of her late father, Edgar M. Bronfman Sr., so officials with the NXIVM corporation could secretly monitor his emails, including his exchanges with world leaders and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to court records. The extraordinary allegations are attributed to Kristen M. Keeffe, who was part of the inner circle that ran NXIVM, a "human development" organization that has been described by one expert as an "extreme cult." The accusations by Keeffe are contained in a transcript of a...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people applying for or receiving security clearances whose fingerprint images were stolen in one of the worst government data breaches is now believed to be 5.6 million, not 1.1 million as first thought, the Office of Personnel Management announced Wednesday.</p>

ALBANY, N.Y. -- It wasn't just Troy police officers showing their support for Officer Chad Klein. As he walked out of Albany Medical Center, he was surrounded by fellow officers and K9s from agencies across the Capital Region. "As dark as Saturday was, today we're on the other end of the spectrum," said Troy Police Chief John Tedesco. Troy Police Chief John Tedesco says there's still shock within his department about what transpired Saturday night, but as dangerous as it may be, his officers have a job to do. "It's concern now for every officer going out the door, is...

The online world has been rocked this week by news that a group of hackers obtained the names of registrants on Ashley Madison, a website where people can find partners for extramarital affairs. Needless to say this probably has users of the site more than a little bit worried. The information reportedly lives on the “dark web,” a hard-to-find corner of the internet. The company has gotten some sites to take the data down, but lookup services, based on third parties rather than the actual hacking, remain. In a statement, the cheating site’s owner, Avid Life Media, said the incursion...

TROY – An indictment unsealed in Rensselaer County Court Tuesday revealed a year-long undercover drug investigation that led to the arrest of 20 people, including including a former Watervliet police officer and numerous members of a Troy street gang. The investigation by the State Police and state Attorney General's office was first revealed last month when a Watervliet police officer, Nicholas Pontore, was questioned about his dealings with a suspected drug dealer, Donald Kodadar, who was affiliated with the "Young Gunnerz" street gang in Troy. Pontore, 29, resigned from his police job on June 18 when law enforcement officials said...

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo made it clear Wednesday why he has recently bypassed the Legislature on different issues like raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers. "I run the government," Cuomo said. "I am the executive and therefore I use executive power. And that’s why the executive is given the power," Cuomo said during an appearance on upstate public radio’s “The Capitol Pressroom.” Cuomo dismissed criticism that his actions represent a major power grab by going around the Legislature. In addition to creating a board that has recommended raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food workers,...