Free Republic

Cardinal Pell’s Conviction Announced After New Trial Falls Apart I’m not even going to attempt to present this one as a straight news piece. The inescapable feeling one gets when looking at the story is that it’s a farce.After months under an Australian court’s gag order, the December conviction of Cardinal George Pell on decades-old sex abuse allegations has just been announced. The news comes after another trial scheduled to happen this month has fallen apart. The question of whether the cardinal is guilty or innocent remains.It’s currently breaking news pretty much everywhere.Cardinal George Pell isn’t a man I have...

The NYPD is warning police officers about a possible threat from the MS-13 gang, particularly when they are off-duty. CBS2’s Dick Brennan reports that in a bulletin the NYPD put out this alert: “Members of MS-13 are looking to ‘hit’ NYPD police officers, specifically in the Brentwood/Central Islip area as well as possibly Patchogue.” The bulletin says that the gang members would carry out the attacks on off-duty officers “in order to gain street credibility.”

According to local Minneapolis outlet KARE 11, the flight was traveling to Chicago from Seattle when the smell began to permeate the cabin. As a precautionary measure, the Boeing 737-900 was diverted to Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. KARE 11 spoke with some of the passengers and says they all described a similar “sweet, burning smell.” Some passengers reportedly began to feel light-headed, nauseous, and had trouble breathing. The airline said six crew members and two passengers were medically examined at the airport and four of the crew were hospitalized. Patrick Hogan, a spokesperson for the airport told multiple outlets that the...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A circuit judge has struck down key components of West Virginia’s 2016 right-to-work legislation. Kanawha Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey issued the opinion Wednesday, three years after the Legislature first passed the law. “The new law will require unions and union officials to work, to supply their valuable expertise and to provide expensive services for nothing,” Bailey wrote in her 46-page ruling. “That is, in a word, arbitrary.” The overriding issue is whether employees who join a workplace represented by a union have to pay some form of dues, whether they embrace union representation or not. The unions...

It’s been nearly seven months since the launch of a criminal investigation of forged signatures to help get a candidate on the ballot in a November congressional race. The prosecutor overseeing the investigation said Wednesday, in response to questions from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that it remains underway. “The investigation is continuing. I have no further comment,” Roanoke Commonwealth’s Attorney Don Caldwell said in a voicemail to a reporter. A Virginia Beach circuit judge assigned Caldwell to the case on Aug. 7. The investigation stems from forged signatures submitted by staffers for then-Rep. Scott Taylor, R-2nd, to help get an independent...

No one asked the question, then or now: Who was, and is, Michael Cohen really working for? A Trump-hating Congress needed to bring their visceral hatred to an all-time high crescendo. Hoaxer Jussie Smollett tried but got caught in the act by Chicago cops, so working with Hillary Clinton’s former lawyer Lanny Davis, Congress brought in Michael Cohen. Cohen’s hoax lasted for seven hours, during which Georgia Congressman Jody Hice said of his testimony: “It’s a shameful mockery”. You won’t see this video anywhere on the mainstream or social media today.

Kim Jong Un was not responsible for the horrific injuries sustained by American student Otto Warmbier, who died shortly after being released from 17 months of detention in North Korea, President Donald Trump said Thursday. "Some really bad things happened to Otto - some really, really bad things. But he tells me that he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word," Trump said, referring to the North Korean dictator. The president added that Kim told him that he "felt very badly about it."

President Donald Trump's decision not to hold North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un responsible for Otto Warmbier's death was "reprehensible," former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum said Thursday. "This is the conundrum of Donald Trump for many of us who like his policies and don't like a lot of the things he does and says," Santorum said of the decision to CNN's John Berman on "New Day." "But, this is reprehensible, what he just did. He gave cover, as you said, to a leader who knew very well what was going on with Otto Warmbier," Santorum, who is a CNN political...

A team of researchers at The University of Cambridge has recently introduced a unique experimental testbed that could be used for experiments in cooperative driving. This testbed, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, consists of 16 miniature Ackermann-steering vehicles called Cambridge Minicars. "Using true-scale facilities for vehicle testbeds is expensive and requires a vast amount of space," Amanda Prorok. "Our main objective was to build a low-cost, multi-vehicle experimental setup that is easy to maintain and that is easy to use to prototype new autonomous driving algorithms. In particular, we were interested in testing and tangibly demonstrating the benefits...

Video promoting self-harm tips -- spliced between clips of a popular video game — has surfaced at least twice on YouTube and YouTube Kids since July, according to a pediatrician and mom who discovered the video. The suicide instructions are sandwiched between clips from the popular Nintendo game Splatoon and delivered by a man speaking in front of what appears to be a green screen — an apparent effort to have him blend in with the rest of the animated video. "Remember kids, sideways for attention, longways for results," the man says, miming cutting motions on his forearm. "End it."...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) derided President Trump’s push to arm teachers by suggesting arming teachers for self-defense leads to shootouts in the classroom. Politico quoted Cuomo saying, “I mean, how ludicrous a concept — arm the teacher so when the bad person comes into the classroom, there can be a shootout in the classroom.” He added, “I mean, really, ludicrous and nonsensical.”

Israel's attorney general announced Thursday that his office plans to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges after a two-year investigation. The prime minister faces one count of bribery and two counts of fraud and breach of trust. Police have previously recommended indicting Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three different cases.

A baby boy weighing just 268 grams (9.45 oz) at birth was sent home after months in a Tokyo hospital, the smallest surviving male baby in the world, Keio University hospital said. The boy was born through Caesarean-section last August after he failed to gain weight during the pregnancy and doctors feared his life was in danger doctors feared his life was in danger

Robinson would not say why the actor was hospitalized but USA Today reported that both TMZ and The Blast published audio clips from a 911 call in which the word “stroke” can be heard. Born and raised in rural Fredericktown, Ohio, Perry was tapped for heartthrob status along with Jason Priestley on “Beverly Hills 90210,” which ran from 1990 to 2000.

In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent? 2019 Feb 1-10 Republicans: 31 Independents: 37 Democrats: 30

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) responded Tuesday to criticism from Ivanka Trump by suggesting Trump's daughter learned about working "for tips & hourly wages ... 2nd-hand." "As a person who actually worked for tips & hourly wages in my life, instead of having to learn about it 2nd-hand, I can tell you that most people want to be paid enough to live," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, with a link to reports of Ivanka Trump slamming Ocasio-Cortez earlier in the day. "A living wage isn’t a gift, it’s a right. Workers are often paid far less than the value they create," she continued. Rep....

Last Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear who the sanctions targeted: “We’re aimed at a singular mission: ensuring that the Venezuelan people get the democracy that they so richly deserve and that the Cubans and Russians, who have been driving this country into the ground for years and years, no longer hold sway.” The Wall Street Journal said that the policy of replacing Maduro with a friendly Guaidó who would then shut down his country’s flow of crude to Cuba was intentional: [Trump’s foreign policy advisors] have long believed Cuba to be the more serious national-security threat....

The scandal has rocked the Canadian political scene and has led to calls from Conservative opposition lead Andrew Scheer for the prime minister to resign from office.

André Previn, who blurred the boundaries between jazz, pop and classical music — and between composing, conducting and performing — in an extraordinarily eclectic, award-filled career, died Thursday morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 89. His death was confirmed by his manager, Linda Petrikova. Mr. Previn wrote or arranged the music for several dozen movies and was the only person in the history of the Academy Awards to receive three nominations in one year (1961, for the scores for “Elmer Gantry” and “Bells Are Ringing” and the song “Faraway Part of Town” from the comedy “Pepe”).

A former Playboy model and "Big Brother" star has died under mysterious circumstances shortly after making explosive claims linking a number of celebrities to pedophilia. Argentinian-born Natacha Jaitt’s naked body was found over the weekend following a house party in Buenos Aires. Local media report there was evidence of drug use found at the scene — but in an eerie twist, the socialite and former Playboy model seems to have predicted her own death just months earlier. In April last year, the 41-year-old took to Twitter to claim her life was at risk after receiving unspecified threats. "WARNING: I am...