Free Republic

Sir Keir Stamer has insisted the "vast majority" of Labour MPs supported him and wanted him to continue doing his job as prime minister. He was speaking to the Sunday Times at the end of a week in which speculation about a potential leadership challenge has risen. Sir Keir told the paper "in politics, you get this sort of thing all of the time, there is always talk". Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the prime minister should resign over his decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to the US, adding that Labour MPs should "develop a...

Fifteen years ago, I helped make the case for what became California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission. It was a first-of-its-kind body of 14 ordinary Californians, neither politicians nor their appointees. It was balanced with equal Democratic and Republican representation, charged with drawing fair districts after the 2010 Census. The argument was simple, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put it: “Gerrymandering has created an absurd reality, where politicians now pick their voters instead of the voters picking their politicians.” In this effort I often partnered with a type of Democrat one rarely sees these days: the reform-minded Democrat.

A shooting near President Donald Trump and several Cabinet members Saturday night is putting a spotlight on the Secret Service’s funding shortfall amid an ongoing standoff in Congress.

A Los Angeles County deputy district attorney has revealed he is close friends with the parents of the gunman snared at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Paul Thompson, a Democratic major crimes division prosecutor, told the California Post he lives next door to the family but said Cole Allen “pretty much kept to himself.” He said the Caltech-educated gunman, who is accused of trying to storm the doors just yards away from President Trump, still lived with his parents at the address in Torrance. SNIP He continued: “I’m friends with his father. I know them to be really nonviolent and...

A chorus of bipartisan criticism is mounting over the security loopholes at the venue for the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner — while President Trump and his allies insisted Saturday’s shooting proves the need for his planned über-secure White House ballroom. Critics slammed the security loopholes that allowed guests to check into the historic Washington Hilton hotel without undergoing weapons screenings from the outside. Authorities say that’s how Cole Tomas Allen was able to sneak a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives into the building where President Trump, most of his cabinet, and many top members of Congress were mingling...

Children in Gaza are being raped and then blackmailed into joining Hamas or having their sexual abuse made public, investigators in the enclave say.

Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone. Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing. No damn security. Not in transport. Not in the hotel. Not in the event. Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance. I walk in with multiple weapons and not a...

Nine people were wounded in a mass shooting near the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington early Sunday morning. Gunfire erupted as crowds of revelers were celebrating the famed “Little 500” college cycling race on the popular strip of Kirkwood Avenue just after midnight, WTHR reported. Police responded to the 400 block of East Kirkwood – a block from Indiana University – where they found “multiple wounded individuals.” Nine people were taken to local hospitals, including six by ambulance, as of 3 a.m., the outlet reported. Officials did not give their conditions or types of injuries. Witnesses said a fight...

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Hungary’s amended Child Protection Law violates EU law and discriminates against gay and transgender people. It is the first time the court has found that an EU member state breached the fundamental values set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The law was pushed by Viktor Orbán in a referendum coinciding with a general election vote. At the time, the law faced accusations that it unfairly criminalised gay men as pedophiles. The ruling on Tuesday comes nine days after Hungary’s parliamentary elections, in which the opposition Tisza Party defeated Orbán’s...

For months, Kevin Warsh’s path to the Federal Reserve chairmanship ran straight through one Republican senator who refused to budge: Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Tillis had made clear he would block Warsh’s confirmation until the Justice Department dropped what he called an illegitimate criminal probe of current Fed Chair Jerome Powell. On Friday, the DOJ dropped it. On Sunday, Tillis dropped his block. The Senate Banking Committee is now expected to vote Wednesday on Warsh’s nomination. A floor vote could follow before Powell’s term as chair expires on May 15. Tillis had made his position clear since January, when...

A top North Dakota lawmaker was killed in a small plane crash just moments after takeoff, police said. Rep. Liz Conmy and a pilot died on Saturday afternoon after the aircraft crashed into a nearby park in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, around noon, state Sen. Tim Mathern told the Star Tribune. The mother of four was aboard a Beechcraft BE33 on the runway at Crystal Airport when the aircraft suddenly 'couldn't get up in the air,' Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesperson Jeff Lea said, the outlet reported. Conmy, 67, and the unidentified pilot were pronounced dead after the fiery crash, the Brooklyn...

The Texas Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit over the state's investigations into families with transgender children because most of the investigations were closed and the children are no longer minors. In a ruling Friday, the state’s highest civil court ruled that because the Department of Family and Protective Services isn’t actively investigating the families, they no longer face the alleged threats they outlined in their 2022 lawsuits against the agency. The plaintiffs argued against dismissing the case, suggesting DFPS could choose to reopen its investigations without the injunction. But the Texas Supreme Court dismissed those concerns over future investigations as...

Former prime ministers announce merger of Yesh Atid and Bennett 2027 into a single party, with Bennett at the helm.

Evidence found on Allen's electronic devices and in his writings point towards the theory he intended to target administration members in attendance at the dinner. His family members told law enforcement that Allen had sent them some of his disturbing writings before the attack, which prompted one of them to alert police. The writings did not specifically mention the dinner on Saturday. Another family member told investigators that Allen has made radical statements and that he frequently mentioned plans to do 'something' to fix problems with today's world.

WASHINGTON — Gunman Cole Allen sent an anti-President Trump manifesto to his family members about 10 minutes before opening fire at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner — calling himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and revealing he was trying to kill Trump administration officials, The Post has learned. “Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial,” Allen wrote in the document, which a relative provided to police, a US official said. “I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved...

The suspected White House Correspondents' Association Dinner shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, signal boosted posts on the left-wing social media platform Bluesky arguing that President Donald Trump should be "immediately removed from office and tried for high crimes" and criticizing a "Freedom of the Press" pocket square that many journalists donned at last night’s dinner as "a white flag that no one can read unless you pull it out and wave it in defeat," a Washington Free Beacon review found, suggesting he thought a stronger message of opposition to the president was called for. "the president of the united states is...

A faction of Boko Haram, officially known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS), has reportedly selected 68 women from a group of 416 abducted victims, with plans to distribute them among its members. The alarming disclosure was made on Thursday by the President of the Borno South Youth Alliance (BOSYA), Samaila Ibrahim Kaigama, who told SaharaReporters that he was directly contacted by one of the insurgents detailing their next line of action amid what they described as government inaction. According to Kaigama, the contact occurred around 8:00 PM on April 23, when individuals identifying themselves as members of JAS...

Narrated video embedded An explosive device killed 13 people traveling on a bus in southwestern Colombia on Saturday, an attack the country's army chief described as a “terrorist act" that also left at least 38 injured as violence linked to drug trafficking in the region escalates. ...

Greetings from Ukraine, where, notwithstanding constant Russian bombardment through till morning, it's still safer than a Saturday night out in DC. Immediately following the excitement at the White House Correspondents Shoot-Out, the Director of the Secret Service, Sean Curran, stepped to the microphone and said: Tonight, we saw exactly what our brave men and women do each and every day. Yeah, you can say that again - and probably will, in late spring, early summer or so. Butler, Pennsylvania... West Palm Beach, Florida... Washington, DC... A famous line of Ian Fleming's seems more germane: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence....

The Allen family are seen with Allen, second from right, together with brother Gabriel, his mother Kathy, father, Thomas, and sisters Stephanie and Avriana