Free Republic

A registered sex offender allegedly kidnapped a young girl, left her lifeless body behind and strangled her younger sister in a random attack around noon Saturday. The two young girls - ages 10 and 6 - were playing outside their suburban Rockford, Illinois, home when a man, who was later identified as Antonio Monroe, 44, allegedly grabbed them, police said. Less than 40 minutes later, an unidentified man found the 10-year-old unresponsive and flagged down police officers, who tried to save the 10-year-old, but CPR efforts were unsuccessful.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to meet with NATO leaders this week as heads of state converge on the Baltic state of Lithuania for a two-day summit. Zelensky’s visit to Vilnius will come on Wednesday, the last day of proceedings, Bloomberg reported. The 45-year-old previously pressed NATO for clarity on whether Ukraine can eventually join the Atlantic alliance. Ahead of the summit, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who recently received a one-year term extension, stressed that the meeting would not result in Ukraine being invited to become the bloc’s 32nd member. Other NATO leaders have all but ruled out allowing...

Republican presidential candidate former Vice President Mike Pence said Monday on FNC’s “Americas Newsroom” that the only way former President Donald Trump could solve the Ukraine war in a day was if he gave Vladimir Putin what he wanted. When asked how the war ends, Pence said, “I think it ends by giving the Ukrainians what they need to win.” He continued, “My former running mate likes to talk about solving it in a day. The only way you would solve this war in a day is if you gave Vladimir Putin what he wanted.”

A registered Georgia sex offender has been arrested after he allegedly went around a Walmart taking upskirt photos and touching the buttocks of two minors. The victims were 11 and 16 years old, and a relative said at least one was touched in the toy aisle. Gary Moultrie, 33, was chased by police around the superstore in Suwanee, northeast of Atlanta, after being recognized by staff. The chase, on June 9, finally ended when Moultrie was arrested in the garden center section, reports Law & Crime. Police bodycam footage sees officers first encountering the store's own security team as they...

ROME — Pope Francis received former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Alex Soros (son of billionaire George Soros) in a private audience in the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence Wednesday. Alex Soros is the chairman of Open Societies Foundations (OSF), a WEF Young Global Leader, and a champion for the LGBT and abortion lobbies, heir apparent to the legacy of global disrupter George Soros. Along with Soros, Clinton was accompanied to the Vatican by his son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky and his roommate at Oxford and a former deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbot. The 37-year-old Soros, who recently took control of the...

A major financial services company downgraded Fox Corporation stock, citing risks concerning news, earnings, and viewership. Wells Fargo analysts downgraded shares of Fox Corporation (NASDAQ:FOXA) to underweight from equal weight on Monday, lowering the price target to $31 from $35 per share. "Fox News is the FOXA cash cow at ~80% of our FY24E EBITDA," the analysts said, Investing.com reported. "Viewership is down -19% Jan-June'23 vs Jan-June'21 due to cord cutting and/or programming. "More worryingly, Fox News was 52% of cable news primetime viewership for 2020-22, 51% in Jan'23, and that has slid to a low of 38% in June'23...

The new Florida Atlantic University Mainstreet PolCom Lab poll showed that Trump held a 20-point lead over DeSantis among registered GOP voters when asked whom they would support if the 2024 primary were held today. Half said Trump, while 30 percent said DeSantis and 7 percent said they were undecided. Other candidates who trailed behind them include entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 4 percent; Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) at 3 percent; and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), former Vice President Mike Pence and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) each at 2 percent. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley...

A century-old hat boutique has become the latest casualty of the so-called 'retail apocalypse' gripping downtown San Francisco. Goorin Bros. haberdashery was founded in 1895, and specializes in a vast collection of classic fedoras and other hats. The company has joined a host of stores shutting in San Francisco's Union Square, amid widespread crime and plummeting footfall. 'It's never an easy decision but it was time,' a company representative wrote in a statement. 'There are a number of reasons I'm sure but really it was our smallest location and there’s just been a shift in business plan/direction over the last...

#1 Mark Zuckerberg privately told Facebook execs to be cautious about mRNA vaccines because "we just don't know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people's DNA and RNA." He then censored scientists, doctors, and mRNA vaccine-injured individuals. ... #2 On March 15, 2020, Mark Zuckerberg emailed Tony Fauci and said, "I also wanted to share a few ideas of ways we could help you get your message out." Zuckerberg proceeded to censor scientists, doctors, and citizens who opposed Fauci's school closures, lockdowns, and mandates. ... #3 Mark Zuckerberg banned numerous vaccine injury support groups with hundreds of thousands of...

Former USA gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar is 'lucky to be alive' after being stabbed multiple times by another inmate during an assault in federal prison. Nassar, 59, was stabbed twice in the neck, twice in the back and six times in the chest at the United States Penitentiary Coleman in Florida. 'He has a collapsed lung,' said Joe Rojas' who is the prison guard union chief. 'He is lucky to be alive and the only reason he is alive, in my opinion, is because of the staff members who were there.' The extent of his injuries is currently unknown,...

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones (D) is in damage control mode after an open records request revealed private text messages in which Jones noted the ineffectiveness of gun control in cities such as Chicago. The text messages appear to counter a pro-gun control stance Jones has publicly maintained after high profile firearm-related crimes in her city. KSDK reported that one of the text messages was drawn from “a chat” with her father on March 21, 2023. Jones’s message noted, “Chicago has strict gun laws as well but that doesn’t deter gun violence.” The text message is being contrasted with a...

A George Soros-backed immigration charity that pushes for open borders is being accused by a conservative watchdog in an IRS complaint of unlawfully failing to disclose how it lobbied Congress. Alianza Americas may have violated federal law in recent years by claiming on tax forms it had not lobbied despite engaging in activities that seemingly constitute formal advocacy, attorneys specializing in charity law say. Now the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog, is calling on the IRS to "conduct a full investigation and audit" into the Chicago group's apparent 2021 lobbying, as well as impose fines and revoke...

The number of students who identify as LGBTQI+ at Brown University stands at just under 40% of the total enrollment, the institution’s Brown Daily Herald reports. Latest data outlines between 2010 and 2023, identification as LGBTQI+ has almost tripled among the student body at the Providence, Rhode Island, university (from 14 percent in 2010 saying they were not heterosexual to 38 percent now). “The Herald’s Spring 2023 poll found that 38% of students do not identify as straight — over five times the national rate ,” student newspaper reported. “Over the past decade, LGBTQ+ identification has increased across the nation,...

A record number of serial knife offenders are being released from prison in the United Kingdom, including one who has had 45 convictions. Shocking statistics have prompted concerns about the rate of criminals reoffending with knives, showing suspended sentences for repeat offenders nearly tripling in the last decade. The appalling case of a knife offender who appeared in court last year with 45 previous convictions for a blade or offensive weapon, the most ever recorded, confused those who were aware of the government’s purported “two strikes and you’re out” rule.

One day after a federal judge temporarily barred key Biden administration officials and federal agencies from communicating with social media platforms about censoring specific online content, Mark Zuckerberg launched Threads — Meta’s new social media platform intended to compete with Twitter. “But have no fear all, hope for censorship isn’t lost,” journalist Kim Iversen told viewers of “The Kim Iversen Show,” “because yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg‘s Twitter knockoff, Threads, was unveiled and it immediately began censoring users.” Iversen reported the app was released with much fanfare, but she said she doubts it will become a real competitor to Twitter for several...

A massive landslide Saturday afternoon led homes to cave in and crumble in a Southern California neighborhood. The Los Angeles County Fire Department said at least 12 homes were evacuated due to a sliding hillside on Pear Tree Lane in Rolling Hills Estates, a city in Los Angeles County on the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. A video posted by the fire department shows massive damage to the homes. A house in Rolling Hills Estates on Sunday, July 9, 2023, is severely damaged after a landslide on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County. Janice Hahn, chair...

In mid-June, the Israel Defense Forces completed a major two-week war exercise, dubbed “Firm Hand,” which simulated a multi-arena war starting with Hezbollah and Lebanon and spreading to other locations, including Iran. The Israeli Air Force played a key role in the exercise, reflecting its centrality as Israel’s strategic arm. In May, the IAF sent, for the first time, F-16 fighter aircraft to Cyprus as part of the “Blue Sun” exercise, which simulated war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The drill also saw Israeli intelligence-gathering jets, C-130 transport helicopters, Apache gunships, and special forces on the ground.

VIDEOBill Mitchell has turned himself into a snake oil shill for Ron DeSantis. His big shtick is to pretend that President Trump is no longer really popular with Republican primary voters. To do this Mitchell has to perform absurd mental gymnastics combined with outright pretense. One example is how Mitchell keeps downplaying the size of the Trump rally crowds. Most recently he has been claiming that the July 1 Trump rally in Pickens, SC was really only about 2000. To "prove" this Mitchell has been flooding Twitter with a blizzard of aerial photos of Pickens purporting to show the small...

A former Florida sheriff’s employee resigned after he fabricated a story to cover up accidentally shooting himself with his own firearm — and now faces charges stemming from the incident. Dakotah Wood, a former telecommunicator with the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, called police on June 30 to report an attempted carjacking and shooting at Linda Pederson Park, the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. Wood, 21, told officers that “two unknown black males attempted to steal his vehicle” and that “the men displayed a firearm and made a threat to kill him before shooting him in the thigh.” He then...

Matthew 9:18-26 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus demonstrates his miraculous power to heal the sick and raise the dead. He cured a woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years who came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. And he took the hand of the official’s daughter and raised her from the sleep of death.Christianity is, first and foremost, a religion of the concrete and not the abstract. It takes its power not from a general religious consciousness, not from an ethical conviction, not from a comfortable abstraction, but from the person of Jesus Christ.It is Christ—in his...