Free Republic

Moscow may be projecting a tough image abroad, but Russia is facing severe internal problems, including worrying trends that suggest the world's biggest country could run short of people. That's not what you might assume, judging by the number of babies in buggies and strollers in any large Russian city. At a neighborhood park in St. Petersburg full of young families with children and toddlers, it looks like this country is in the midst of a baby boom. Natasha and Shariv Azizov are here with their three children. Natasha says they're looking forward to having more, because, as Christians, they...

A brigadier general and a colonel from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed while fighting jihadists and rebels in Syria over the past several weeks. Nine other IRGC members were also killed during that time. Colonel Mostafa Ezzatollah Soleimani, who served as a “military adviser to the Syrian army,” was killed in battle against “the Takfiri terrorists” in Aleppo province, according to Fars News, Iran’s semi-official news organization. The Iranian news agency did not relay how the colonel was killed, or which groups his unit was fighting. Soleimani previously served as the “commander of the Elite Battalion of...

Hitting Back 10.12.151:03 AM ET Written by Austin Bodetti, David Axe Syria Rebels Plan Suicide Attacks on Russians The Homs Liberation Movement, a Free Syrian Army faction close to al Qaeda, plans to infiltrate the Syrian military to find where the Russians are—and blow them up. After more than a week of Russian aerial attacks, Syrian rebels plan to hit back with double agents and suicide bombers. “First, we will endure the violent aerial bombardment, then move to weaken Russia by all means available, such as recruiting agents in the ranks of the regime to provide us with the movements...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who came to West Virginia as a young man from one of the world's richest families to work on antipoverty programs and remained in the state to build a political legacy, announced Friday he will not seek a sixth term. The 75-year-old Democrat's decision, coming at a time when his popularity in a conservative state had been waning for sparring with the powerful mining industry and supporting President Barack Obama, told The Associated Press ahead of his formal announcement that it was time to retire.

There's strange news coming — and being redacted — from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Heath about the death toll of Saturday's Hajj stampede in Mina. As the baffling fatality numbers have shown, this is the worst disaster to strike Hajj since 1990. But just how large those numbers are is a debate still raging days after the accident. The ministry's Arabic website said Tuesday some 4,000 people died in the crush. The announcement's since been wiped from the page, but not before people (including Al Bawaba) managed to capture a screen shot. See it below. Here's the translation: The...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A 19-year-old is dead, after accidentally shooting himself in the neck while posing for photos with a gun. The shooting happened at an apartment complex in the 9800 block of Forum Park in southwest Houston. Police say Deleon Smith found a gun and was taking photos of his cousin and himself. Police say Smith was posting photos to social media when the 19-year-old accidentally shot himself and died. Police have taken his cell phone as part of their investigation.

A New York Magazine writer and author of the 2014 book about Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, "The Loudest Voice in the Room," said in a recent televised interview the cable station's biggest star, Megyn Kelly, may not be re-engaging in public disputes with presidential hopeful Donald Trump because she doesn't want to hurt her chances to move to a more mainstream network, like CNN. Kelly, on the heels of widespread criticism of her debate night questioning of Trump – after which the billionaire businessman called her a "bimbo" in a tweet – went on what she and Fox officials...

Des Moines, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz criticized former President Jimmy Carter's administration during a stump speech in Iowa, one day after Carter announced he was suffering from cancer that has spread to his brain. Speaking on a political soapbox at the Iowa State Fair Friday, Cruz said there were parallels between the Obama and Carter administrations. "I think the parallels between this administration and the Carter administration are uncanny. Same failed domestic policy, same misery, stagnation and malaise. Same feckless and naive foreign policy,"(continued)

After former President Jimmy Carter criticized “the government of Israel” during a Thursday press conference for having “no desire for a two-state solution” with the Palestinians, MSNBC Hardball host and former Carter speechwriter Chris Matthews hailed his old boss: “...he stuck it to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. Why not?...He might as well stick it to the guys who’ve caused him trouble, as he’s seen it, especially Netanyahu. Why not stick it to Netanyahu? He deserves it.” Matthews added: “So I think Carter is still that guy, that gutsy guy who knows how to stick it to guys he’s quite...

ATLANTA — Former President Jimmy Carter said Thursday that doctors had found cancer on his brain and that he would begin radiation treatment later in the day. Mr. Carter, speaking at a news conference at the Carter Center here, said his health had been under scrutiny since May, when he had a cold while traveling in Guyana. The former president added that the cancer, which he said was melanoma, had been found in his liver, part of which was removed during a procedure on Aug. 3. He described the melanoma on his brain as four “very small spots.”

Former President Jimmy Carter has scheduled a Thursday morning news conference to discuss his cancer diagnosis. The 90-year-old Democrat plans to discuss his health in detail at 10 a.m. ET at The Carter Center in Atlanta. Scheduled to last 45 minutes, it'll be Carter's first in-depth comments on his health since announcing last week that cancer is spreading through his body. Carter had a "small mass" removed from his liver in an early-August surgical procedure. Carter, elected in 1976 and ousted in the 1980 election by Ronald Reagan, has a family history of pancreatic cancer -- a disease that claimed...

Former Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican, has given the maximum amount of money allowed under federal campaign finance laws to a candidate who hopes to help Democrats retain the Senate in the 2014 election. Michelle Nunn used the $5,000 donation to appeal to conservative Georgia voters. "I am immensely honored and grateful for Senator Lugar's generous support in this race," she said. "Both in the Senate and in the international community, Senator Lugar's collaborative approach made us safer and moved our country forward. We need more leaders like Senator Lugar -- not less, and I will strive to follow this...

Islamic State fighters on the border between Syria and Iraq. The regime of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, is under mounting pressure on several fronts in the war, losing swaths of territory to opposition fighters as well as Islamic State, with strategic resources under its control coming under attack. Assad’s defeats in Idlib, eastern Homs and Deraa in the south, combined with renewed pressure in Aleppo and Deir el-Zour to the east and the possible loss of gas fields to Isis, have left the regime in a precarious position with little choice but to concentrate its forces in its...

David LettermanÂ’s departure isnÂ’t the end of an era. The era of late night talk shows ended a while back. In Johnny CarsonÂ’s final week in the nineties, he played to an audience of twenty million. Lately, Letterman has been lucky to get 2 million. His final shows have played to around 5 million viewers.Late night talk shows still exist, but their intended audience mainly watches viral clips from them the next day. The average age of LettermanÂ’s audience is 54. CBS hopes that the equally smarmy Stephen Colbert will be able to bring his younger audience demo with him,...

George Galloway, the socialist firebrand best known in America for his condemnations of Israel and the Iraq War, was soundly defeated for re-election to Parliament in Thursday's British general election. Galloway, a former Labour member who won the seat for Bradford West in the northwest of England in a 2012 special election, was beaten by Labour's Naz Shah, a political newcomer who overcome childhood poverty, a teenage forced marriage and the imprisonment of her mother for killing an abusive partner. Shah had urged voters to reject Galloway because "we do not need a one-man Messiah to tell us how to...

THE nauseating canonisation of executed convicted heroin smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran was well under way before their corpses had been returned to their families. At Castle Hill High, the words “merciless”, “barbaric”, “futile” and “weak” were plastered on the noticeboard on Wednesday by principal Vicki Brewer after students ­expressed horror at the executions of Chan and Sukumaran, and six others in Indonesia. “I think it’s affecting students and staff, they’ve been chilled by it, haunted by it and there’s been certainly a good deal of reflection and discussion about the ethical and moral dilemmas this has caused,” she...

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Federal authorities on Tuesday identified the driver killed while trying to ram a stolen SUV through a security checkpoint at the National Security Agency headquarters as a Baltimore resident with a criminal history for robbery and prostitution.. The FBI named Ricky Shawatza Hall, 27, as the driver who died. According to police, Hall and another person ended up at the gates of the huge spy agency Monday morning after stealing the vehicle from a 60-year-old man with whom they had traveled to a budget motel in nearby Elkridge.

A large crowd is expected today at the funeral in Wisconsin for Tony Robinson, the unarmed 19-year-old black man, who was killed March 6 by a police officer in Madison. Police say Robinson was shot after a confrontation in which he allegedly assaulted the officer. Robinson was shot in the head, torso and right arm, according to a preliminary autopsy. A visitation and funeral for Robinson, whose father is black and mother white, will be held today in a high school field house to accommodate the expected crowd. Protests against his death have been peaceful in line with a call...

(CNN)—An Iraqi man watching his first snowfall in his new American hometown was shot and killed by an unknown assailant, according to Dallas police. Authorities have stepped up patrols in the neighborhood where Ahmed Al-Jumaili lived -- and died -- in their effort to find whoever killed the 36-year-old early Thursday as he and his brother watched the snow while Al-Jumaili's wife took photos.