Free Republic

A Minneapolis child care center with a history of safety violations is being investigated by federal and state authorities for possible financial fraud. The FBI and the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at Salama Child Care Center at 1411 Nicollet Av. near downtown Minneapolis. Families of children at the facility were turned away for a time as authorities from both agencies carried out computers, boxes and folders of documents to waiting vans. Officials from DHS, the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Minneapolis all declined to comment on the nature of the...

One of Venezuela’s most powerful leaders may have put out an order to kill Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a fervent critic of the South American country’s government, according to intelligence obtained by the U.S. last month. Though federal authorities couldn’t be sure at the time if the uncorroborated threat was real, they took it seriously enough that Rubio has been guarded by a security detail for several weeks in both Washington and Miami. Believed to be behind the order: Diosdado Cabello, the influential former military chief and lawmaker from the ruling socialist party who has publicly feuded with Rubio. At...

Minnesotans begged House Majority Whip Tom Emmer more than a decade ago to halt the flood of Somali refugees to the area, but the lawmaker scolded them for their concerns. Minnesota’s Somali population is back in the spotlight after YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video canvassing multiple Somali-run childcare centers accused of fraud. However, A resurfaced audio clip from “This American Life” shows that voters were concerned about mass Somali migration long before the recent controversy. In an episode that aired in October 2016, journalist Zoe Chace narrated portions of the story, including a reflection on a July 2015 town...

The ongoing daycare fraud scandal in Minnesota dates back a decade as an unearthed 2015 video appeared to show parents pretending to drop their children off at an alleged phony center. The bombshell footage came to light as FBI Director Kash Patel revealed the bureau is cracking down on potential abuse after one daycare was accused of stealing $4 million in taxpayer's money. The video from Hennepin County - Minnesota's largest county by population - was recorded in March 2015, then uncovered in 2018 and has now resurfaced. It shows parents appearing to bring their kids in, purportedly to spend...

The decision comes after an interview in which a former militant revealed the government collaborated in attacks carried out in 2007. Spain's top prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, called on Monday to investigate claims of links between the former Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh and al-Qaida. The decision comes after an investigation made by Qatar's Al Jazeera TV network, which revealed in an interview earlier this month that a former member of the designated terrorist group confirmed that Saleh had collaborated with the group. The revelation has sparked the prosecutor's reaction as one of the case cited by the former al-Qaida member...

Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein had big plans — so big that children in the United Kingdom would have read about them in their history books and memorized their names, whether they would have been lionized as heroes or excoriated as villains. To their everlasting disappointment, however, their rendezvous with destiny never happened. Their big plans ended up being disrupted before they had a chance to carry out what has been called “the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history.” Sky News reported Tuesday that Saadaoui, 38, and Hussein, 52, have just been found guilty of plotting a jihad massacre with...

Researchers have discovered there was an anomaly in Earth's gravitational field between 2006 and 2008, potentially caused by a mineral shift deep within Earth's mantle...The large gravitational anomaly lasted for about two years over the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It peaked in January 2007, the same month Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone (though, of course, there was no connection between the two events).Researchers recently discovered the signal while analyzing data collected by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites between 2003 and 2015. The gravitational anomaly happened around the same time as a geomagnetic "jerk" -- an abrupt change...

From 7/7 to Manchester 2025 – the story they refuse to tellAfter the Manchester synagogue attack, I began tracing two decades of Islamic terrorism in Britain – uncovering a disturbing pattern hidden in plain sight. This is not prejudice. It’s record-keeping – and a warning about policies putting us all at risk.ManchesterI didn’t learn about the Manchester synagogue terrorist attack until I opened my phone after Yom Kippur had ended. I had also missed messages from my cousin, who had witnessed the event and been evacuated from her home by the police.By 7:30 the following morning, I had already traced...

The Islamic State’s so-called “Khorasan province” threatened the Taliban in a video released late last month. The video, which is more than 15 minutes long, features a lengthy speech by an unnamed jihadist (see image above) in front of armed fighters and local villagers. The speaker, citing the Prophet Mohammed, warns that there cannot be two caliphs. If one of the caliphs fulfills the appropriate criteria for being the ummah’s supposed leader — that is, the head of the worldwide community of Muslims — then the other must be vanquished, the speaker says. Although he doesn’t name Afghan Taliban leader...

Al Qaeda confirmed that the US killed its military commander for the "Khorasan," or Afghanistan and Pakistan, in a drone strike in Waziristan in early 2014. Sufyan al Maghribi, a Moroccan who served as the group's military chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of many unknown al Qaeda leaders who "work in silence and leave in silence," according to a prominent jihadist who reported his death one year ago. Maghribi was also a contributor to the jihadist group’s Vanguards of Khorasan magazine. Maghribi's death was confirmed in a message released yesterday by al Qaeda that featured Ayman al Zawahiri....

Comey expected to work for 'President-elect Clinton,' knew top aide was talking to media: emails Emails referenced in a bombshell court filing by acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in which the government rejected Comey's argument that he was being maliciously prosecuted for providing false statements and obstructing Congress about actions he took as FBI director. Federal prosecutors revealed Monday they have unearthed a trove of personal emails showing then-FBI Director James Comey openly talked in the days before the 2016 election that he expected to be working soon for President-elect Hillary Clinton and was being kept apprised by a top...

Social activist ‘surprised but delighted’ to join top cardinal in high-level environment conference at the Vatican She is one of the world’s most high-profile social activists and a ferocious critic of 21st-century capitalism. He is one of the pope’s most senior aides and a professor of climate change economics. But this week the secular radical will join forces with the Catholic cardinal in the latest move by Pope Francis to shift the debate on global warming. Naomi Klein and Cardinal Peter Turkson are to lead a high-level conference on the environment, bringing together churchmen, scientists and activists to debate climate...

Ukrainian officials were left “bewildered and disappointed” by Vice President Joe Biden’s December 2015 trip to Kyiv, during which he gave a speech decrying corruption as a “cancer” — with the Ukrainians accusing the US of a “double standard” given Biden’s family ties to corrupt energy firm Burisma, a trove of newly declassified Obama-era intelligence reveals. In an extreme departure from normal practice, the report on Ukrainian displeasure was suppressed at the request of Biden’s then-national security adviser, Dr. Colin Kahl, and did not appear in the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), according to a senior CIA official who briefed journalists...

The Department of Defense has ordered a review of all labs following revelations that the number of labs that received live anthrax samples is larger than first reported."As of now, 24 laboratories in 11 states and two foreign countries are believed to have received suspect samples. We continue to work closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who is leading the ongoing investigation pursuit to its statutory authorities. The Department will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates to the public," Defense Department said in a statement.The Defense Department had previously reported labs in nine states...

A 29-year-old man, Joshua Jahn, with ties to North Texas and Oklahoma has been identified as the suspect in a shooting at a Dallas ICE detention center. Two people were killed in the shooting. The suspect is also deceased. The investigation is ongoing, and police have not yet released a motive for the shooting. According to FOX News and FOX 4 sources, the sniper who killed at least two people at the Dallas ICE facility early Wednesday morning was 29-year-old Joshua Jahn. A sniper died from a self-inflicted gunshot early Wednesday morning after he shot three ICE detainees at a...

After a startling upset in Sri Lanka’s presidential election, President Mahinda Rajapaksa conceded defeat on Friday morning, bringing an abrupt end to a larger-than-life, increasingly controlling presidency that he had hoped to extend into a third six-year term. Mr. Rajapaksa left his residence, Temple Trees, shortly after 6 a.m. “to allow the new president to assume his duties,” a presidential spokesman announced. Mr. Rajapaksa’s defeat is remarkable because he had an overwhelming advantage going into the election, which he decided to hold two years ahead of schedule. During nearly a decade in office, he had built close ties with China,...

There's a Mormon character in one of ABC's new fall series. And viewers will learn this when they see him wearing nothing but his temple garments. That's just one of the reasons that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may not be particularly pleased with that character in the pilot of "Quantico," which is scheduled to premiere on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 9 p.m. on ABC/Ch. 4. The series is about a bunch of new recruits who arrive at the FBI training base in Quantico, Va., for training.

New York’s most notorious revolutionary tourist — “sandalista” Lori Berenson — is back in Manhattan from Peru, where she served 15 years in prison for terrorism. Forgive us if we don’t put out a welcome mat. The LaGuardia HS grad and MIT dropout has been stuck in Peru by law until her full 20-year sentence expired. Now that it has, she’s heading home to her parents’ Kips Bay apartment. Though lionized by the left and worshiped by The New York Times, Berenson, now 46, was no naive idealist. She spent years traveling Central America with Marxist groups until she hooked...

Quillette has been under fire since it was founded by Claire Lehmann in 2015. The old guard doesn’t like a fresh face, so when Lehmann launched and was then lauded by Jordan Peterson, the media lined up to take shots. Quillette may not have been the birthplace of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, but it’s been an essential publication for the documenting of free speech concerns and heterodox ideas. It also made space for voices that had been cancelled and writers and intellectuals who had been unpersoned in their communities. Publishing both controversial ideas and controversial people made it a...

But don’t be concerned: Governor Cuomo says there is no “ongoing threat.” In lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, a Muslim named Sayfullo Saipov, screaming “Allah akbar,” drove a rented truck along a bicycle path, killing at least eight people and injuring numerous others. According to Al Arabiya, “New York state governor Andrew Cuomo told media that there is no evidence to suggest wider plot or wider scheme.” And Time.com reported that Cuomo said that there was no “evidence of an ongoing threat or any additional threat.” No evidence to suggest a wider plot or an ongoing threat? Really, Governor? Here’s...