Free Republic

The suspect in the Highland Park, Illinois July 4 mass shooting that killed seven and injured dozens had two "prior incidents" before the massacre, police said on Tuesday. Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo, 21, was taken into custody Monday evening after gunning down revelers from a rooftop perch at the Highland Park July 4 parade. Speaking to reporters at an afternoon press conference, Christopher Covelli said Crimo had two prior incidents before the shooting. In April 2019, an individual called police a week after learning of Crimo attempting suicide, Covelli said. The matter was handled by mental health professionals with no...

Police provided the public with details on Tuesday at a press conference, where they said that the rifle that was used was legally purchased. Robert Crimo III, 21, allegedly opened fire from a rooftop during the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, and evaded arrest for hours. Police said that Primo wore women's clothing in an attempt to conceal himself, specifically to help cover up his face tattoos. He may have worn a wig during the shooting.

Tirana, Albania — It is the stuff of wild nightmares. Despite the passage of three decades, for Iranian dissidents residing in a sprawling Albanian compound — far from their homeland — the torture and trauma of life inside an Iranian regime prison is still raw. “I was a university student, almost seven months pregnant, when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) came,” Kobra Jowkar, now 59, says softly. “They raided our home at midnight and were very ruthless.” That ruthlessness, she claims, included kicking her around like a soccer ball — and walking on her bulging belly. The worst would...

Mr Biden made the declaration with Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the second day of his visit there.... The US and Israel have long accused Iran of state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East and further afield. Iran provides funding, training and weapons to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement, and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. Iran denies that it sponsors terrorism and says the organisations it backs are resistance groups fighting Israeli and US aggression... Iran is embroiled in a crisis with the US and other Western countries over its nuclear programme. It has breached...

The Trump administration rolled back a controversial Biden-era policy Tuesday that aimed to force emergency room doctors to perform abortions under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), drawing praise from pro-life leaders and religious liberty advocates. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the reversal in a press release, framing it as a move to protect both pregnant women and their unborn children. “CMS will continue to enforce EMTALA, which protects all individuals who present to a hospital emergency department seeking examination or treatment, including for identified emergency...

(CNN) - It’s so hot across the globe, roads and roofs are melting. The deadly heat waves of the last week have sparked strange infrastructural events around the world as millions endure searing temperatures that are still on the rise. The heat-related events also speak to aging infrastructures worldwide, most of which – roads, bridges, railroads, buildings – are not prepared for the sweltering conditions as of late. So how hot has it been, exactly? Well… It’s so hot, the runway at a London airport melted The United Kingdom saw its hottest day on record Tuesday, when temperatures breached 40...

Leader of White Supremacist Group ‘Maniac Murder Cult’ Recruited Others to Bomb and Poison the Jewish Community and Racial Minorities Defendant Allegedly Planned Scheme to Distribute Poisoned Candy on New Year’s EveGeorgian national Michail Chkhikvishvili, also known as Mishka, Michael, Commander Butcher, and Butcher, 21, of Tbilisi, was extradited to the United States from Moldova on May 22, and will be arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn today. Chkhikvishvili was arrested in Chișinău, Moldova, in July 2024 in connection with a four-count indictment returned in the Eastern District of New York charging him with soliciting hate crimes and acts of...

For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia... Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war. But that is above ground. Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders. On one screen, a red line followed the route of an explosive...

Under the news radar, two ugly power grabs from a pair of would-be Marxist dictators were announced yesterday from South America. From socialist Venezuela: CARACAS (Reuters) -Maria Corina Machado, one of the favorites to win the Venezuelan opposition's nomination for president in an October primary, has been barred from holding public office for 15 years, the country's controller general said in a letter. Machado, a 55-year-old industrial engineer and former lawmaker, is leading polling for the 13-candidate primary, convened to select a unity candidate to face socialist President Nicolas Maduro in a 2024 election. A previous ban placed on her...

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was once the richest man in Russia until he challenged Vladimir Putin and was sent to jail for 10 years. Now, he has advice for Western leaders trying to deal with his former adversary, telling CBC’s Terence McKenna that a show of strength is key.

President Biden said the United States is “rallying the world to stand with Ukraine” and pledged to support the cause “as long as it takes.” U.S. officials have downplayed the (Russian} gains, calling them halting and incremental. The scrutiny is fueled by U.S. government assessments of other wars, notably in Afghanistan, where officials habitually glossed over widespread dysfunction and corruption and sidestepped questions of whether battlefield successes were not only achievable but sustainable. A Ukrainian lawmaker shared similar concerns. “We are losing the most valuable thing, our soldiers and officers.” Benjamin Friedman, a policy director at Defense Priorities, said that...

At least 5 people have been killed and around 50 injured on July 25, 2022, after hundreds of protesters attacked a United Nations headquarters in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, demanding that the mission leaves the country for failing to protect the population. The protest started after President Felix Tshisekedi’s party and civil society organizations called for the demonstration in Goma after the president of the Senate, Modeste Bahati, called on the UN’s MONUSCO mission to leave Congo in mid-July. The mission is present in the country for more than 20 years. It is the largest peacekeeping mission...

The agency said the double crater might indicate that the rocket had a large mass on each end of it. A rocket that has used up its fuel usually will just have its mass on the end with the motor, with the other side being an empty fuel tank. The rocket’s origin is uncertain, but the double crater that it produced might reveal its identity, according to the release. A rocket body hitting the moon has not created a double crater before, the release states.

The two North Korean fishermen were captured near the eastern sea border after their boat drifted into South Korean waters. They confessed to killing 16 fellow crew members and expressed a desire to defect, the South Korean government said at the time. The Moon administration said then that the men’s intentions to defect were insincere given their murder confessions—and deported them five days after taking them into custody. North Korean defectors, upon arriving in South Korea, are typically held for up to a month for a period of investigation and debriefing with Seoul’s intelligence officials. Human rights groups said the...

Yoon Suk-yeol wanted to say goodbye to Joe Biden, but the American president passed by him as if he were not there. Good to know that all of Seoul got to see what we all here in the great USA witness daily.

On June 24, 2012, the body of Shane Todd, a young US electrical engineer, was found hanging in his Singapore apartment. The Singapore Police say it was suicide, but the Todd family believes he was murdered. -excerpt- ... Shane told his family that he was being asked to compromise US security and he feared for his life. Shane refused to do what he was being asked to do and turned in his sixty day notice at IME. Shane found a good job with a company in Virginia, and bought a ticket to fly back to the US on July 1,...

Shi'ite Children In Houston, Texas Pledge To Be The Soldiers Of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: Salute, Commander! We Make An Oath To Be Your Martyrs! On July 27, 2022, a video was posted to the IslamicTV YouTube channel of Shiite children in Houston, TX performing a song titled "Salute, Commander", which is an Iranian children's anthem pledging allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The video had been first posted by the Islamic Education Center of Houston, TX, on its Facebook and YouTube accounts, but these posts were later removed. The children performed the song in English and Farsi....

Two men who were allegedly plotting a mass shooting in Virginia are in the state illegally, with one of the men having been deported several times, according to authorities. Richmond Chief of Police Gerald Smith said during a press conference Wednesday that “a hero citizen picked up the phone and overheard a conversation there was a mass shooting being planned here in the city of Richmond, Virginia,” according to NBC 12 Authorities arrested 52-year-old Julio Alvarado-Dubon and 38-year-old Roman Balacarcel, who allegedly planned to shoot up Richmond’s Fourth of July celebration. Both men were charged with being non-citizens in possession...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Police in Richmond, Virginia, said Wednesday that they thwarted a planned July 4 mass shooting after receiving a tip that led to the arrest of two men and the seizure of multiple guns — an announcement that came just two days after a deadly mass shooting on the holiday in a Chicago suburb. … Police initiated an investigation, along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI, which led to the arrests of two men on charges of being a non-U.S. citizen in possession of a firearm. Additional charges are possible, Smith said. Officers seized...

[AG] Merrick B. Garland is the public face of the government’s unprecedented effort to identify, arrest, and prosecute those connected to the Jan. 6, 2021 protest at the Capitol. But the person handling the day-to-day management of the one of the largest and most politically freighted efforts in the history of American law enforcement has largely flown under the radar: Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for [DC]. [snip] The political nature of the [Jan6] prosecutions is illustrated by the long partisan history of Graves and his wife, Fatima Goss Graves. According to documents on file with the U.S. Senate, Matthew...