Free Republic

After more than three years of being held prisoner in Iran, Xiyue Wang is returning to the United States. A Princeton University graduate student, Mr. Wang had been held under the pretense of espionage since August 2016. We thank our Swiss partners for their assistance in negotiating Mr. Wang’s release with Iran. The highest priority of the United States is the safety and well-being of its citizens. Freeing Americans held captive is of vital importance to my Administration, and we will continue to work hard to bring home all our citizens wrongfully held captive overseas.

The Pensacola attack that killed three US sailors and wounded eight others including two members of law enforcement is still not being called an "act of terrorism" by either President Trump or Defense Secretary Mark Esper. US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien also not flat out saying there was a terrorist attack but telling CBS..... The attack was called an "act of terrorism" by local Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz.... Information is leaking out of the investigation of the attack now firmly in the hand of the FBI. The FBI is saying it is operating: "with the presumption that this was...

South Lawn 2:52 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. That’s a very bright sun. Beautiful day in Washington. I will say that we’ve had tremendous reports coming out of the economy — it’s been incredible — and numbers like we haven’t seen before. And we have the strongest economy in the world: 266,000 jobs; you can add another 40 [thousand] to that. It’s about 300,000 jobs. Very importantly, it’s 50- or 55,000 manufacturing jobs. We’re the envy of the world. Our economy is the envy of the world, and we’re going to keep it that way. So that’s very important....

Former Secretary of State John Kerry claimed ignorance of Hunter Biden’s work with Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas conglomerate, on Sunday—despite evidence to the contrary from Obama administration officials and even his own stepson. Kerry, who recently endorsed Joe Biden’s White House bid, was asked about the topic while campaigning with the former vice president in New Hampshire. In particular, Kerry was questioned if he knew about the younger Biden’s decision to join Burisma’s board of directors in 2014 and if he was “comfortable with the arrangement” as secretary of state. “I had no knowledge about any of that,...

Tony Shelley's pet potbelly pigs are affectionately named Kevin Bacon and Zoey Hamilton. Or ham and bacon if you will. Shelley told us these are no ordinary pigs. Content Continues Below They are pigs that help this Marine Corps Combat Veteran deal with trauma. “They help calm me down, they are emotional support pigs, and i enjoy their company,” he said. “I have had them for 5 years and these pigs are like family.” Olive Branch Mayor Scott Phillips told us that there is an ordinance against keeping farm animals on small acreage in the city. Combat Veteran says his...

Reuban Kipyego took his pacing duties an unexpected step further when he won the Abu Dhabi Marathon on Friday, December 6. As the designated runner who was tasked with pacing the elite field through a specific point in the race, the 23-year-old Kenyan was expected to drop out around 30K. But Kipyego kept running all the way through the finish line, breaking the tape in a time of 2:04:40. The pacemaker turned champion beat runner-up Joel Kimurer by a minute and 41 seconds. As the marathon champion, Kipyego earned $100,000 in prize money. “I was setting the pace for the...

The Trump administration is heading to court this week in two lawsuits charging that the president is violating the Constitution by profiting off of his hotels and other businesses while in office. The cases revolve around the Constitution’s once-obscure emoluments clauses, which critics say President Trump has flouted, giving foreign diplomats an opening to curry favor with him by patronizing his businesses. On Monday, a panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments over whether members of Congress can sue the president for alleged emoluments violations, and on Thursday, the full 4th Circuit Court...

As many as 20 people may be injured after White Island erupted on Monday afternoon. The volcanic eruption began at around 2:15pm on Monday. A group of people believed to be tourists were on the island at the time. St John has confirmed to Newstalk ZB that they have reports of up to 20 injured in the eruption.

The skeletal remains are thought to date from the 15th Century, when Clan Ross and Clan Mackay fought out a terrifying rivalry in the area that arguably peaked with the Battle of Tarbat in the 1480s, Then, Clan Ross cornered a raiding party of Clan Mackay with many killed in the encounter. Survivors of the attack sought sanctuary in the church, but the Rosses set fire to it, killing all those hiding inside... She said the men and skulls were buried in the most prominent part of the church, in the mouth of the crypt directly under the nave. Dr...

The Supreme Court agreed Dec. 6 to hear a challenge to a Delaware law invalidated by a lower federal court that regulates the partisan makeup of that state’s courts. The Supreme Court granted a petition brought by Gov. John C. Carney, a Democrat who has held the post since January 2017. Carney is appealing a loss at the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down the state law on April 10. Current law provides that no more than 50 percent of the judges on the Supreme Court, Superior Court, “or those courts together with the Court of Chancery, may...

Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash., said one of the reasons for his announced retirement from the House of Representatives is that a growing number of Republicans and Democrats in Congress "simply don't believe in compromise, don't believe even in principled compromises" anymore. In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press with Chuck Todd" to be broadcast Sunday, the four-term representative of a district that includes the Washington state capital, Olympia, also said he will "go to my grave not understanding how some of my colleagues could simply turn the other way and overlook the president's behavior and his misdeeds." "My soul...

Experts say deepfakes will be used to swing the 2020 election. deepfake video featuring an actor made to look and sound like the comedian Joe Rogan surfaced last week, stunning for its audio and visual accuracy. And Rogan was a great choice: He’s put out hundreds of hours-long video podcasts. There is a lot of material to work with. If you’re not yet aware of what a deepfake is in the first place, it’s a way of using artificial intelligence to create fraudulent audio or video that sounds and/or looks like a particular person. In this case, we’re seeing a...

... several in the newsroom here took bets on which one is pregnant. We were all wrong, except for Stephen Kruiser. The pregnant one is in the pink. "Fifty bucks says that pic was taken before she was pregnant," Kruiser said.

Law scholar Alan Dershowitz predicted the next Democrat elected president of the United States will be impeached as a result of the same "open-ended" criteria the party is currently using to impeach President Trump. "They have created open-ended criteria which bear no relationship to the word of the Constitution itself," Dershowitz said Sunday on Fox News. "If President Trump is impeached, it will set a terrible precedent, which will weaponize impeachment, and the next Democrat who gets elected will be impeached." How many foreign policy decisions have been made by presidents over the years in order to help them get...

Journalist Tareq Haddad said on Saturday that he had resigned from his position at Newsweek because the outlet "suppressed" details -- potentially "inconvenient" to the U.S. government -- surrounding a chemical weapons watchdog's report on the 2018 attack in Syria. "Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason," Haddad tweeted, referring to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Haddad's tweet came as the OPCW defended itself amid concerns about its reporting on the April 7, 2018, chemical weapons attack in Syria --...

In May 2019, the Elizabeth Warren campaign disclosed a list and descriptions of her legal work. In December 2019, the campaign updated this page to include compensation for that work wherever possible. These disclosures include all of the cases Elizabeth Warren worked on that we have been able to identify and all of the income from each case we have been able to determine from public records, Elizabeth Warren’s personal records, and other sources. Principles of Bankruptcy Counsel Amicus Consultant Expert Witness Mediator

Nearly 100 mayors across the United States are begging President Trump to import as many refugees to the country as possible in order to “bring cultural vibrancy and diversity” to American communities.In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month, about 88 mayors — from Denver, Colorado to Columbia, South Carolina — urged Trump to end his latest executive order that gives American communities more veto power over whether they want refugees resettled in their communities.The mayors said that more refugees are needed to bring about “cultural vibrancy and diversity” to their often small towns, though they admit refugees are an initial...

Time, and history, will tell if Donald Trump is “better” or “greater” than Abraham Lincoln. But if he is re-empowered in 2020 to actually make great Republican principles work, Trump would be the Lincoln we deserve. recent poll, widely reported, found that a slight majority of self-described conservatives say Donald Trump is a better president than Abraham Lincoln. God only knows what such a response means, in an age when our mass media considers it their democratic duty to dox and fire ordinary people for their opinions, and when most historians regard it as unprofessional to teach American history in...

Longtime Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons and MLB Players Association executive director Marvin Miller were elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame, as announced tonight on MLB Network. Simmons and Miller were inducted via the “Modern Era” veterans committee, a 16-person panel focusing on people whose largest contributions to the sport fell between 1970 and 1987.