Free Republic

The remarkable survival of Christa Pike after an attempted execution in Tennessee poses equally remarkable legal questions about whether a second state attempt to kill her would violate the Constitution. snip At the time, it was the only known U.S. case of a condemned person surviving an attempted execution. Francis, who at age 16 had been convicted of murdering a former employer, challenged a second electrocution by arguing it would violate 14th Amendment due process rights, a 5th Amendment prohibition on multiple punishments, and amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment. Attorneys for Christa Pike could likely...

The conversation of capitalism and socialism has been heating up ahead of the November midterm election, with the U.S. House adopting a resolution last month to denounce socialism. In Michigan, new polling from Mitchell Research & Communications found that a majority of voters surveyed favor capitalism over socialism. According to a poll commissioned by CBS News Detroit and other local outlets, 52% of voters support capitalism, compared to 26% who support socialism. When it comes to party affiliation, more Democrats support socialism (42%) than capitalism (22%), whereas Republicans strongly support capitalism (86%). Additionally, socialism receives more support among voters aged...

James Talarico is in one of the most competitive Senate races this cycle, and he disappeared from the campaign trail for almost two weeks. He supposedly reappeared this weekend to poke at Republican Texas AG Ken Paxton over debates, and his team showed him attending a Kacey Musgraves concert. Talarico is once again being hailed as the Democrats’ best hope to win statewide in the Lone Star State, but his absence drew attention, especially since it looked like he checked into a mental health clinic. That’s not what his campaign said; it said he was sidelined with the flu. This...

After making All About Eve, receiving twelve Oscar nominations and winning six (including best picture and best director), writer and director Joseph Mankiewicz directed a film that got no Oscar nominations and has languished in the back forty of his career. It's a comedy where one of the leads attempts suicide and characters spend long stretches discussing death and morality. You might say that they don't make them like this anymore but the truth is that they do – there's no shortage of modern comedies where the tone lapses all over the place (Downsizing, Don't Look Up, JoJo Rabbit) and...

Ever do something foolish when you were 15? Of course you did. I’d steal change from my father to buy pistachio nuts. They only came covered in red dye, back then, thus I carried the evidence on my fingers to render my dinner table denials useless as I compounded my theft then my lie by being literally caught red-handed. Last week Braiden Bell, 29, was hired by the NBA Trail Blazers as their new play-by-play voice. Dream job delivered. But it lasted minutes, as Bell was fired after some enterprising local television snoop revealed some ugly, silly and childish social...

Iran announces a large oil tanker has hit a naval mine while exiting the Strait of Hormuz through the US-backed southern Omani corridor, with a massive explosion and fire in the engine room. It is the second such incident under 24 hours. A crude oil supertanker exploded and caught fire after it hit a mine while trying to leave the Strait of Hormuz using an "unauthorised and dangerous route", Iranian media Press TV has reported. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in a statement said the crude oil supertanker had switched off its navigation and global positioning systems while trying...

War Report: The Structural Metric of Planetary Automation: How Elite Robotics via Elon Musk, Autonomous Logistics, and the Declassification of Tesla Hardware Will Shift the Universal High Income under Genuine Land Law; the Material Spearhead of Transformation; Tesla Optimus 2027; and the Surge of Household Fleets The irreversible release of advanced allied utility technologies is no longer confined to the shadows, but breaks with mathematical precision directly through the civilian infrastructure wall. Elon Musk has officially declassified that the first units of the humanoid robot Tesla Optimus will enter large scale manufacturing and distribution for the civilian household sector in...

“On October 8, 2026, Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) released the latest issue of its Urdu-language magazine Nawa-i-Ghazwa-e-Hind ("The Voice of The Battle of India"), celebrating Hamam al-Hammami – the co-pilot of the Flydubai plane carrying mainly Israeli passengers – for attempting to hijack and crash it into Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport. The cover of the latest issue of the magazine features an image of the Flydubai aircraft crashing onto an Israeli airport and honoring the co-pilot Hamam Al-Hammami. The magazine tells Muslim pilots that, though the operation failed, it still "carries a message for Muslim commercial pilots...

Charles Murr on one of Spain's most-watched podcasts: "John Paul I died two hours after trying to remove Baggio" In the United States, for months now Catholic priests have been appearing on the country’s major podcasts—those that draw millions of viewers far removed from the Church and accustomed to uncut conversations lasting three or four hours. The exorcist Chad Ripperger has been on former soldier Shawn Ryan’s show twice, in March and in July, to discuss possessions, the Antichrist, and the diabolical attack on the family. In September, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, devoted two...

Guess what, Audie? President Obama was not on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Truman was not aboard the Enola Gay. Ordering something and carrying it out are different jobs. But on Friday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish held Pete Hegseth to a different standard. The setup was Jonah Goldberg criticizing the way Hegseth had announced the public firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the Islamist terrorist who murdered 13 soldiers at Fort Hood: "Secretary Chesty McBroseph is just trying to show off how macho he is; a max-T thing." Cornish then took her shot at Hegseth. "And...

Greece and Spain are sitting on stockpiles of Patriot air defence missiles nearing their expiry dates that could be donated to Ukraine, The Telegraph can disclose. The two Nato nations hold some of Europe's largest reserves of the interceptors, even as Kyiv pleads for more to defend against Russia's plans for its most brutal long-range bombardments of the war. Ukrainian officials have circulated what they say are intercepted Russian plans for a new campaign to cripple the country's energy grid, plunging cities into darkness and testing the population's resolve through the winter. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has repeatedly pressed...

French far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is celebrating Gen Z protesters driving a school movement shaking FrancePARIS — French far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Sunday celebrated high school students whose protest movement has shaken France as he called at a campaign rally for lowering the voting age to 16 and an end to selective admission to universities.The fiery anti-capitalist Mélenchon also took aim at U.S. President Donald Trump, NATO and the global financial system, in a sweeping speech to thousands of supporters meant to kick his campaign into high gear for next year’s two-round election in April and May....

The crazed killer in a mass murder-suicide in Pennsylvania was a grandfather who slaughtered nine of his own loved ones, including his young grandchildren and a daughter days away from giving birth again, according to horrified relatives. The 45-year-old suspect, who has yet to be fully identified, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot in the family home in Erie late Friday, with the murder weapon beside him, officials told Erie News Now.

Gasoline-only cars fell below 50% of global new vehicle sales for the first time, as the Hormuz crisis and record fuel prices accelerated the shift toward EVs. EV sales surged across major markets, with European BEV sales jumping 52% year-over-year in August and second-quarter global EV sales rising 35% from Q1. High oil and fuel prices could permanently accelerate EV adoption, although charging infrastructure and critical-mineral supply remain major constraints. The share of gasoline cars in global vehicle sales fell below 50% for the first time ever as the Hormuz shock and the resulting record-high fuel prices accelerated the previously...

“Our body our choice,” Cornell’s Jane Doe wrote in a text exchange with one of the seven men she has accused of sexually assaulting her during a 2024 encounter, according to screenshots published this week by TMZ. Doe, who now claims she was raped, casually described the incident as a “gangbang” in the message sent days after it took place. But those comments, which cast further doubt on Doe’s claim that her participation was involuntary, are missing from articles published by The New York Times and CBS New York that were based on the same text thread. Both The Times...

President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to an "energy ceasefire" as part of the ongoing conflict. There was no immediate confirmation from Moscow, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly said this "was news for me."Trump made a similar announcement a month ago, only for the two sides to continue their aerial attacks on each other's energy facilities."Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine," Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday morning. "Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!" He did not elaborate further on what the ceasefire...

11 October 2026 28th Sunday in Ordinary TimePope St. John XXIII Parish, Tacoma, WA Readings at MassThis is a preview of Universalis. The Universalis app gives you every day of every year, not just the single week you’re seeing now, and it doesn’t need the Internet. It gives you the official New American Bible version for the readings at Mass. As well as the Mass, it gives you the Liturgy of the Hours. It costs $9.99-12.99 on your phone, or £19.99 (about $26.50) on your computer. Get it now.Liturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First readingIsaiah 25:6-10The Lord will prepare a...

As traditional software systems were being deployed across the economy over the last few decades, we had the tools and capability to trace behaviors to a specific code path.That same kind of mechanistic understanding eludes us in today’s Super Intelligence systems, even as the frontier models powering these systems are now more capable than traditional software systems. We can’t attribute model behaviors and outputs to specific inputs of training data or configurations of model weights. And yet we are deploying these complex agentic systems and models, with access to our most sensitive data and giving them the ability to take...

The Sinimäed Hills memorial, erected in 1999, has become the site of annual gatherings to honor the SS monument, erected in 1999, has become the site of annual gatherings to honor the SS. (See report in the Jerusalem Post ). Due to the participation of local collaborators, Estonia’s Jewish population was virtually eradicated within months of Germany invading the country in 1941. The two other memorial stones in the main Sinimäed Hills complex honor the 5.SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade “Wallonien” aka the Walloon Legion (French-speaking volunteers from Belgium) and Dutch soldiers, nurses and auxiliaries who volunteered to fight against the USSR. Close to...

The American left always congratulates itself as “First Amendment advocates,” even as they campaign to shut conservatives up. The foundation of Harper’s magazine announced they are giving their 2026 “First Amendment Award” to NPR CEO Katherine Maher. She runs a network that won’t give conservatives a right to speak on their formerly taxpayer-funded airwaves. The invitation to their October 26 ceremony – ticket price “$85-$25,000” – describes the award this way: Named for James C. Goodale, the former New York Times general counsel who helped secure the Pentagon Papers victory before the Supreme Court, the award recognizes visible and consequential...