Free Republic

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner will not run for Congress in 2018. Miner has long been mentioned as a potential challenger to U.S. Rep. John Katko for Central New York's 24th Congressional District. Thursday morning, she ruled out a run. "After much thoughtful consideration and conversations with my family, I have decided I will not be a candidate for Congress in 2018," Miner said in a statement Thursday. "This was not an easy decision given magnitude of issues faced by our community, but I believe we are best served supporting other progressive leaders in this election both at...

George W. Bush hinted Thursday at his dissatisfaction with Donald Trump, complaining in a New York City speech that 'bullying and prejudice' has become a caustic norm in American public life. At an event hosted by the George W. Bush Institute, the 43rd U.S. president rattled off a thinly veiled litany of complaints about the current commander-in-chief, focusing on both his tone and his isolationist policy choices.

The Canadian province of Quebec has passed a sweeping ban on face coverings – barring public workers from wearing the niqab or burqa and obliging citizens to unveil when riding public transit or receiving government services – ushering in a law believed to be the first of its kind in North America. The legislation was adopted on Wednesday, capping off two years of work by the province’s Liberal government to address the issue of state neutrality. The resulting law has been condemned by critics who say it deliberately targets Muslim women and will fuel the province’s simmering debate on identity,...

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — A sweeping multistate manhunt that kept the Mid-Atlantic region on high alert for more than 10 hours ended when law enforcement officers on foot chased down a man they say shot six people, killing three, in two separate shootings. Radee Prince, 37, of Elkton, Maryland, shot five co-workers early Wednesday at a granite company in Maryland, then drove to Wilmington, Delaware, and shot an acquaintance in the head at a used car lot, police in Maryland and Delaware said. Wilmington Police Chief Robert Tracy said at a news conference Wednesday night that police and federal agents...

A school in Mississippi is dropping its connection to the American Confederacy's only president, Jefferson Davis, and renaming itself after President Barack Obama. Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School in Jackson will be renamed Barack Obama Magnet IB following a vote. The move, which when approved will come into force in the next academic year, was proposed by parents and approved by a majority of students, parents, faculty and staff members. Ninety-eight percent of the students who attend the school are African-American.

Three people are dead after a workplace shooting in Maryland, police said today. Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told reporters this morning that the suspect was still on the loose. The shooting took place inside a business complex at Emmorton Business Park in Edgewood. "Multiple injuries reported," the Harford County Sheriff's Office tweeted earlier today....

WASHINGTON — Three people were killed and two critically injured in a shooting at a Maryland business park north of Baltimore Wednesday morning. The shooting occurred at a business in the Emmorton Business Park in Edgewood, Maryland, and police continue to search for the shooter, who officials identified as Radee L. Prince, 37. The five victims were believed to all be employees of Advanced Granite Solutions, which Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler said was targeted by the shooter. “There’s an individual out there on the loose who committed one of the most henious acts we’ve ever seen in our county,”...

The NHS will ban patients from surgery indefinitely unless they lose weight or quit smoking, under controversial plans drawn up in Hertfordshire. The restrictions - thought to be the most extreme yet to be introduced by health services - immediately came under attack from the Royal College of Surgeons. Its vice president called for an “urgent rethink” of policies which he said were “discriminatory” and went against the fundamental principles of the NHS. In recent years, a number of areas have introduced delays for such patients - with some told operations will be put back for months, during which time...

Senate Republicans have drafted a Homeland Security spending bill that includes the full $1.6 billion President Donald Trump wants for a wall at the Mexican border, increasing the chances of a shutdown fight before current government funding runs out Dec. 8. Bill author Senator John Boozman of Arkansas told reporters Tuesday the border wall funds would be resolved in a giant trillion-dollar spending bill in December, along with the issue of whether to continue work permits for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, known as Dreamers. "That will be part of the negotiations," he said. "I think at...

Jerry Jones is now center stage, but not for a reason he'd like to be. The Hall of Famer owner took ownership of nearly every major headline in the 24-hour news feed when he took a powerful stance regarding how the Dallas Cowboys will handle the National Anthem. Through the team's Week 5 game against the Green Bay Packers, no Cowboys' player had offered any type of demonstration during the signing of the Anthem -- remaining one of the few teams with that designation. Jones' comments were unexpected, considering the aforementioned combined with the discussions that took place after comments...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has declared the city of Marawi "liberated" from militants, even as fighting continues... Mr Duterte's declaration came a day after the army said they had killed top militants Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute. The two men led the Abu Sayyaf and Maute groups which formed part of the insurgency in Marawi. Both groups have pledged allegiance to, or have links to, IS.

President Trump warned on Tuesday that he would "fight back" after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) delivered a blunt denunciation of nationalist forces that was seen by many as a thinly veiled attack on the president. "People have to careful, because at some point I fight back," Trump told WMAL radio host Chris Plante. "I'm being very nice. I'm being very, very nice. But at some point I fight back, and it won't be pretty." McCain responded to Trump's comments moments later, saying that he has "faced far greater challenges than this," according to CNN.

BEIRUT — U.S.-backed forces in Syria claimed full control of the Islamic State’s onetime capital of Raqqa on Tuesday, heralding an end to the militants’ presence in their most symbolically important stronghold and bringing closer the likelihood of their complete territorial demise. Talo Silo, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, said that military operations have halted and that members of the joint Kurdish-Arab force are clearing the city of explosive devices and hunting for sleeping cells. It was still unclear whether some Islamic State pockets remained, but the SDF portrayed the battle for Raqqa as effectively over....

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews. Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks...

A unit of U.S. special forces tasked with carrying out "decapitation" operations is aboard a nuclear-powered submarine in the group, according to a defense source....... Among other assets mobilized are F-15K, FA-18 and A-10 fighter jets, as well as AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, Lynx and AW-159 Wild Cat naval choppers. The U.S. has also deployed a Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) plane to closely monitor the North's ground and naval forces.

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated Monday that they want to see a tax bill passed by the end of the year. "I really believe that we have a very good chance of getting the taxes done ... hopefully fairly long before the end of the year," the president said in a hastily scheduled, roughly 40-minute news conference following a lunch with the Kentucky Republican. McConnell added: "The goal is to get it done by the end of the year."

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California legislative leader announced Sunday he will challenge U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, setting up a 2018 contest between two Democrats that will highlight generational, geographic and ideological contrasts in the party that dominates state politics. The 84-year-old Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor and grande dame of California Democrats, will face state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon, 50, a Los Angeles Hispanic who is largely unknown statewide. In a brief video announcement posted online, De Leon promised to work for job growth and economic security in Washington, recalling his single immigrant mother who...

Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier held as a Taliban captive in Afghanistan for five years, has pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy. The 31-year-old Army sergeant entered his plea on Monday before a military judge at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Idaho native's lawyers have argued he cannot get a fair trial following criticism from Donald Trump during last year's presidential campaign. Mr Trump had called him "a no-good traitor who should have been executed."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is set to sit down with President Donald Trump Monday in a White House meeting that could help patch their relationship, which fractured in a big way over the summer, when the two leaders took shots at each other over health care reform and the effectiveness of Congress. Back in August, Trump said he was “very disappointed in Mitch,” after McConnell said Trump had “excessive expectations” about the legislative process. The meeting comes as conservative groups demand McConnell step down from his leadership role. “We call on all five members of the GOP Senate leadership...

Hillary Clinton has compared Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election and her subsequent loss to Donald Trump with the devastation of 9/11. “We have really well-respected security and intelligence veterans saying this was a kind of cyber 9/11 in the sense that it was a direct attack to American institutions,” Clinton said, referring to the terrorist attack orchestrated by al-Qaeda that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. “That may sound dramatic but we know they tried to recruit into election systems, not just social media propaganda,” she said on Sunday,...