Free Republic

A Utah man who has been incarcerated in a Venezuelan jail since 2016 was on a flight home to the U.S., Venezuelan officials said Saturday. Joshua Holt, 26, has been jailed in Venezuela after he traveled to the South American country in the summer of 2016 to marry Thamara Candelo, whom he met on a website for Mormon singles. The two planned to return to the U.S. after getting married, but where jailed in El Hilcolde on what human rights groups said were largely trumped-up charges. “Good news about the release of the American hostage from Venezuela. Should be landing...

An American hostage imprisoned by the Maduro regime in Venezuela begged for assistance in a note as police cracked down on political prisoners demanding an end to their repression on Wednesday. “Helicoide the prison where I am at has fallen [sic] the guards are here and people.are trying to break in my room and kill me [sic],” Joshua Holt wrote on his Facebook page. “Help me please united states, how long do I have to suffer unjustly in this place?” he continued. “They want to kill me and paint the walls with my blood. I am a political prisoner, and...

President Donald Trump warmly received three Americans back from North Korean imprisonment early Thursday, calling their release a vindication of his aggressive foreign policy strategy. But many Americans jailed by other repressive regimes around the world appear to have gained little from Trump’s ad-hoc and often confrontational international approach, their advocates say, and in several cases the president may have actually made it harder for them to come home.

FLOTUS was busy this week. Announcing her Be Best initiative.Who moves that gracefully in 6 inch heels and a pencil skirt?Hosting the Military Families Mother’s Day breakfast:Greeting the returning hostages from North Korea:Who looks that good at 2:00 am?And the MSM coverage was everything we’ve come to expect: Gasp! Melania wears white pumps before Memorial Day! Melania designs her own logo, and it’s just as bad as you think! Melania plagiarizes…again! Too much talk, not enough action! Who’s being dismissive, even derisive, of women now I ask you?And by the way, in the FLOTUS logo contest I’m giving it to Melania...

At 3:02 am Thursday morning, President Trump welcomed three American hostages previously held in North Korea back to the United States and  celebrated their freedom."This is a great honor.  Hopefully everything is going to work out at the highest level.  We want to thank Kim Jong-un, who really was excellent to these three incredible people.  They are really three incredible people.  And the fact that we were able to get them out so soon was really a tribute to a lot of things, including a certain process that's taking place right now.  And that process is very important," President...

Americans' homecoming. VP President already arrived at AFB. Secretary Of State Pompeo should land shortly with freed Americans.

These clowns know no shame: “No regime has the right to hold American citizens in captivity without cause, and under no circumstances should American citizens be viewed as bargaining chips.“If countries in the world think they can detain Americans and get something in return, we’ll see many more hostages.” Chuck E. Schumer, Oracle of the West, on the release of the NoKo prisoners Where were you with that wise-acre mouth of yours when Obama negotiated with Iran for the release of our Navy prisoners? Or when he negotiated for the release of U.S. Army deserter, Bowe Bergdahl:Can you ‘splain how...

Three American prisoners freed by North Korea were flying back to the United States on Wednesday, heading toward an air base where President Trump planned to personally welcome them home as he celebrates a diplomatic breakthrough in advance of nuclear talks. The three prisoners, all American citizens of Korean descent, were described as healthy and able to walk on their own after months of imprisonment by one of the world’s most repressive governments. They were scheduled to land at 2 a.m. Thursday at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, where Mr. Trump intended to greet them.

The Latest on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the release of three Americans from North Korea (all times local): 11:50 a.m. President Donald Trump is hailing the release of three Americans detained in North Korea as they make their way back home. Trump says as he kicks off a Cabinet meeting at the White House that he "appreciates" North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's decision to release the detainees ahead of the leaders' planned summit. He says he's looking forward to the meeting and believes it's going to be a great thing for North Korea....

Three American hostages held by the North Korean regime have been released by Dictator Kim Jong Un and are on their way home. President Trump made the announcement Wednesday morning and said Kim Hak-song Kim Dong Chul and Kim Sang Duk are in good health.  I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with Kim Jong Un. Date & Place set.— Donald...

Jimmy Carter began the first Iranian hostage crisis and Reagan ended it. Obama began America’s second Iranian hostage crisis. President Trump just ended it. On January 12, 2016, Iran's IRGC terror force seized 2 US Navy vessels, extracted classified information from their crews at gunpoint, broadcast images of American sailors on their knees and forced an officer to read an apology. A day later, the Islamic terror state released its American hostages. Three days later, Implementation Day lifted sanctions on Iran. By next month, Iran was claiming that it had received over $100 billion in sanctions relief. It was not...

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that three American prisoners released from North Korea were headed home.

North Korea has released three US detainees in the country, according to media reports, and it meets some of President Donald Trump demands for Pyongyang to demonstrate sincerity before its upcoming US summit. Kim Dong-cheol, Kim Sang-deok, and Kim Hak-seong — three US citizens detained in North Korea for years — have been released from a suspected labor camp and given health treatment and ideological education in Pyongyang. The news follows Trump's hawkish National Security Adviser, John Bolton, calling for the release of the detainees as a way for North Korea to demonstrate its sincerity in talks. North Korea has...

BREAKING: North Korea has released all U.S. detainees at the request of President Trump.

Claiming he was just trying to free Josh Holt, a devout young Mormon from Utah held hostage by Venezuela's Maduro regime on phony charges, left-wing Illinois Democratic senator Dick Durbin isn't exactly credible about his real mission in his secret visit to Caracas this past week. Rep. Pete Sessions, a Dallas-based Republican, isn't exactly believable, either, given that he called his secret trip with Durbin "a peace mission" to Caracas last week.

French counterterrorism prosecutors are taking charge of an investigation into the shooting of a police officer in southern France and a hostage-taking incident at a supermarket in a neighboring town. The Paris prosecutor’s office said counterterrorism investigators are taking over the probe into the ongoing hostage-taking incident Friday in the town of Trebes, but did not provide details. The assailant reportedly claimed connections to the Islamic State terror group. .....

In April 2015, Iowa Pastor Terry Amann met privately with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. In less than one year from becoming president, Trump successfully helped release Pastor Saeed who had been languishing in an Iranian prison, keeping his promise to a request Amann made when they first met. Last fall, Amann again asked for Trump’s help to find a missing U.S. missionary who was kidnapped in Africa in 2013. Newsmax published an open letter he wrote to President Trump on September 7, 2017. Over a month later Amann received a letter from the U.S. State Department. Then, in November, the Krause family...

An armed man took three hostages during an "active shooter situation" at a California veterans home Friday afternoon, a fire official said. Earlier, it emerged the veterans home was on lockdown after reports of shots fired. The Napa County Sheriff’s Office said officers responded to the Veterans Home of California in Yountville around 10:45 a.m. local time and a shelter-in-place order was issued.

Pavel Lerner, a blockchain expert, was taken hostage by masked gunmen on December 26Kiev: Kidnappers in Ukraine have released an employee at a United Kingdom-registered cryptocurrency exchange after getting more than $1 million (Dh3.67 million) in bitcoins as ransom, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister told Reuters on Friday. Pavel Lerner, a leading analyst and blockchain expert, was abducted by unknown masked people on December 26, according to a statement by his company, EXMO Finance, on its website. “This is the first such case in Ukraine linked to bitcoins,” Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said...

Among the hazards of public life are the photo ops that come back to haunt you. Our snap-happy Prime Minister is a case in point. Since the tropical vacation with his old friend, the Aga Khan, that cheery photo of the two of them on Parliament Hill has been rerun a thousand times. Whenever people see the picture they remember the private island, and thus it will ever be. Now there's the Boyle family. If you didn't know the backstory, the photos of their meeting with Justin Trudeau are positively heartwarming. After all, these are the hostages who were dramatically...