Free Republic

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani decided to throw his cops under the bus in the non-fatal shooting of Jabez Chakraborty, a 22-year-old man, who charged officers while wielding a large knife.

Democratic Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott accused a local reporter of racism Friday when she questioned why his SUV cost over $163,000. The 2025 Jeep Grand Wagoneer was the most expensive executive vehicle used by a Maryland public official, Baltimore-area television station WBFF reported, coming in at twice the cost of the vehicle used by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland. Investigative reporter Tessa Bentulan, who works for WBFF as part of a venture called Spotlight on Maryland, questioned Scott about the vehicle’s cost. “How do you justify the cost for this vehicle?” Bentulan asked. Scott responded, “We’ll just stop you...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., leads a committee on Capitol Hill that has jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security. That agency has been under heightened scrutiny after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens who were protesting immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis last month. In letters to the heads of three federal immigration agencies, Paul wrote, “The Department of Homeland Security has been provided an exceptional amount of funding to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws. Congress has an obligation to conduct oversight of those tax dollars and ensure the funding is used to accomplish...

The UK economy would be 3.6% smaller by 2040 if net migration fell to zero, forcing the government to raise taxes to combat a much bigger budget deficit, a thinktank has predicted. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said falling birthrates in the UK and a sharp decrease in net migration last year had led it to consider what would happen if this trend continued to the end of the decade. In this scenario the UK population would stop growing at about 70 million in 2030. The latest official figures showed the UK population was 69.3 million...

At first glance, the decision by Bill and Hillary Clinton to drop their long resistance and agree to testify before a GOP-controlled House panel about Jeffrey Epstein looks like a huge defeat for them. And it is, since the Clintons’ separate appearances, scheduled to take place in public later this month, are certain to turn into circus-like spectacles that will heap embarrassment and scorn on the former first couple. Yet it’s worth noting that it wasn’t the goodness of their hearts that led the Clintons to give into the congressional demand to testify under oath about Epstein. They did it...

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son to late long-time Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, was killed on Tuesday in his home in the western town of Zintan in western Libya. Sources close to him say four masked gunmen stormed his home to carry out the “heinous crime”. Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son and one-time heir apparent of Libya’s late dictator Moammar Gadghafi, was killed in Libya late on Tuesday. Sources close to him say the 53-year old was shot by gunmen in the town of Zintan, 136 kilometres southwest of the capital Tripoli. The death was confirmed by Gadhafi’s lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, who announced...

The Brief Senior Atlanta Housing executive pleaded guilty to three federal fraud counts. Prosecutors allege misuse of Section 8 funds, COVID-19 relief and mortgage fraud. Sentencing is set for May 5, 2026; defendant remains on bond. ATLANTA - A senior executive at Atlanta Housing has pleaded guilty to multiple federal fraud charges tied to housing assistance, pandemic relief funds and mortgage refinancing, according to court records filed in U.S. District Court.PREVIOUS STORY: Senior Atlanta Housing executive charged in Section 8, pandemic relief fraud caseWhat we know:Tracy Denise Jones entered a guilty plea on Feb. 2 to three counts in a...

A former Atlanta Housing Authority executive pleaded guilty Monday in a federal court to collecting more than $300,000 in federal housing and pandemic funds. Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Ashli Lincoln was in the courtroom as former senior vice president Tracy Jones pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of government funds, wire fraud and credit application fraud.

The former first couple have been trying to reach an agreement with the Oversight Committee to avoid a vote to hold them both in contempt of Congress. WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are in a standoff with House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., over testimony the panel is seeking in its investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The dispute is over the format of the Clintons' testimony to lawmakers. The Clintons' legal team wrote a letter to Comer on Tuesday offering their public testimony before the committee at...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Immigration officers with guns drawn arrested activists who were trailing their vehicles on Tuesday in Minneapolis, while education leaders described anxiety and fear in Minnesota schools from the ongoing federal sweeps.Both are signs that tension remains in the Minneapolis area after the departure of high-profile commander Greg Bovino of U.S. Border Patrol and the arrival of Trump administration border czar Tom Homan, which followed the fatal shooting of protester Alex Pretti.“There’s less smoke on the ground,” Gov. Tim Walz said, referring to tear gas and other irritants used by officers against protesters, “but I think it’s more...

An appeals court overturned the conviction of a disgraced former UCLA gynecologist serving 11 years in prison for sexually abusing patients, after determining the trial judge failed to disclose that jurors had concerns that one of their own barely spoke English. James Heaps, 69, will be retried on the charges involving the two patients he was convicted of abusing in 2022, a three-judge panel of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported. John Manly, who represented more than 200 former Heaps patients in a lawsuit that resulted in a $243.6 million settlement,...

Police allowed anti-deportation activists to maintain a road blockade in Minneapolis, Minnesota, until Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Jorge Ventura was assaulted nearby. The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) on Monday cleared traffic cones and other debris that the mob used to direct traffic and deter Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles from Cedar Ave. News of the blockade first broke on Sunday, but it remained standing by Monday, when Ventura was harassed and shoved into a car by masked men for investigating it.

Federal and local authorities have uncovered what they allege was an illegal biological laboratory operating inside a Las Vegas home owned by a Chinese national. Newly released footage from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shows a dramatic hazmat response as agents hauled bags of medical tubing, vials and containers filled with unknown liquids from the suburban property. During a press briefing on Monday, LVMPD Sheriff Kevin McMahill revealed investigators discovered a 'significant volume of material' stored in refrigerators and freezers throughout the home, including vials and containers holding liquids of varying colors and compositions. Investigators also located 'pathogen-labeled containers'...

It’s the same dark money, with new signs. Anti-ICE protests in Minnesota may appear to be “grassroots” efforts organized by concerned citizens, but they’re really funded with megadonor money — some coming from China. A so-called “ICE Out” march drew an estimated 15,000 left-wing political activists to a frozen, snow-covered Minneapolis on Friday, with attendees chanting “ICE out now” and demanding an end to federal immigration enforcement in the city. Although framed as a spontaneous uprising of concerned, everyday people, the demonstration — like countless that have regularly metastasized during President Trump’s terms — featured a familiar cast of politically...

The House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion funding deal to end the four-day partial government shutdown Tuesday, sending it to President Trump’s desk for his expected signature. Lawmakers voted 217-214 to pass the compromise funding package, which cleared the Senate late Friday and keeps about 97% of the government operating through Sept. 30. Now Congress faces a 10-day scramble to negotiate a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security before its key agencies run out of cash Feb. 13, a timeline Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described as “an impossibility.” *** The GOP holdouts were mainly miffed...

Euthanasia conjoined with organ harvesting just took a particularly disturbing turn in Spain, where a woman was euthanized and then had part of her face transplanted.... Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona has performed the world’s first face transplant with a donor who passed away from euthanasia. Around 100 medical professionals took part in the partial face transplant, a highly complex operation using neurovascular microsurgery techniques that lasted about 24 hours. In presenting the milestone procedure, the healthcare director, Maria José Abadías, highlighted the “extraordinary generosity of the donor,” ​the “collective effort” behind the operation and the “pride” of all...

The ex-husband of former first lady Jill Biden has been charged with first-degree murder after the death of his wife. William Stevenson, 77, was indicted on Monday by a grand jury in New Castle County, Delaware, in connection with the death of 64-year-old Linda Stevenson last year. […] New Castle County Police said Stevenson was taken into custody at the home in Oak Hill without incident on Monday afternoon. He has since been arraigned and sent to the Howard Young Correction Institution in Wilmington, where he has been unable to pay a $500,000 (£365,207) cash bail. …

In Minneapolis a war is raging, and it’s no longer limited to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thanks to criminal indictments, the battlefront has moved from city streets to federal courts. At issue are two different rights, each guaranteed by the First Amendment: freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Two defendants invoke the former, while members of the church that was the target of protest invoke the latter. The star of this legal drama is former CNN anchor Don Lemon. On the morning of Jan. 18, according to prosecutors, Mr. Lemon joined 20 to 40 agitators in a “coordinated...

In the garage, investigators found multiple refrigerators with vials of unknown liquids, unknown liquids in gallon-size containers, a centrifuge and other laboratory equipment, authorities said. In an open refrigerator and freezer, investigators saw a "significant volume of material," including vials and storage containers "with liquids of different colors and compositions," McMahill said. "The scene presented a high level of complexity with materials that have not yet been identified and still require careful assessment," McMahill said.

Four Massachusetts residents are accused of using more than 100 stolen identities to get over $1 million in food stamps and pandemic-era unemployment benefits in a multi-state fraud scheme, federal prosecutors say. U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley said stolen identities from Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico were used to obtain $440,000 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The defendants also allegedly submitted fraudulent documents in order to receive more than $700,000 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington and Nevada. --snip-- Three defendants charged...