Free Republic

The Ukrainian parliament has approved a law that would allow authorities to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which Kiev has repeatedly accused of having ties to Russia, according to an MP. The legislation also outright bans the Russian Orthodox Church and all affiliated religious institutions.

Alex Baldwin charges dismissed by Judge.

US President Joe Biden, who is under intense scrutiny amid questions over his age and fitness, mistakenly introduces Ukraine's president as Vladimir Putin at a Nato event in Washington

A member of Israel's three-man War Cabinet announced his resignation on Sunday over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza. Benny Gantz, a popular former centrist military chief and one of the prime minister's most prominent critics, joined Netanyahu's government shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in a show of unity. His presence also boosted Israel's credibility with the country's international partners as he has good working relations with U.S. officials. Gantz said Netanyahu is making "total victory impossible" and that the government needs to put the return of the hostages seized Oct. 7 by Hamas...

In an interview with “60 Minutes” airing this Sunday, Pope Francis takes aim at his “conservative critics” in the United States, reportedly saying a conservative is someone who “clings to something and does not want to see beyond that.” “It is a suicidal attitude,” the pope said as reported by “60 Minutes,” which released a brief clip of the upcoming interview conducted by CBS’ Nora O’Donnell. “Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.”

China sold a record amount of U.S. government bonds in the first quarter of 2024, according to U.S. Treasury data, continuing what many economists believe is a strategic shift away from dollar assets. In the first three months of 2024, China sold $53.3 billion worth of U.S. Treasuries and agency bonds.

A 54-year-old Minnesota man was convicted Thursday in the slaying of a high school student and stabbing of four other people who were tubing on a western Wisconsin river. A Wisconsin circuit court jury found Nicolae Miu guilty of first-degree reckless homicide, four counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety and one count of battery, Minnesota Public Radio reported. No sentencing date has been set.

The government of Ukraine has seized a historic 12th-century cathedral from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), through a court challenge. The government has been harassing the UOC for years, pushing priests and worshipers to switch their allegiance to the Kiev-approved Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Members of the canonical church have been accused of being Russian collaborators.

Aman accused of crashing into a Washington State Patrol trooper’s vehicle – killing the trooper – on an interstate highway near Seattle over the weekend has been charged in the officer’s death, officials said. Trooper Christopher M. Gadd, 27, was killed around 3 a.m. Saturday when a driver struck Gadd’s parked patrol vehicle on the side of Interstate 5 in Marysville, about 30 miles north of Seattle, authorities said in a news release and a probable cause affidavit. A suspect, Raul Benitez Santana, remained at the scene of the crash and was taken into custody, according to the Snohomish County...

Chilean-American blogger Gonzalo Lira has died in a Ukrainian prison, his family said on Friday. Lira, 55 at the time of his death, lived in Kharkov and blogged as 'CoachRedPill,' but switched to YouTube commentary after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. He was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) last May and accused of "discrediting" the Ukrainian leadership and the military. "I cannot accept the way my son has died. He was tortured, extorted, incommunicado for 8 months and 11 days and the US Embassy did nothing to help my son.

The United Nations on Tuesday demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after more than three-quarters of the 193-member General Assembly backed the move, which had been vetoed by the United States in the Security Council last week. Washington does not have a veto in the General Assembly. It voted against the draft resolution, along with Israel and eight other countries. The text garnered 153 votes in favor, while 23 countries abstained from the vote.

Hunter Biden To Be Indicted

The Pentagon failed an independent audit of its accounting systems for the sixth consecutive year, a Pentagon official said Wednesday. "Things are showing progress, but it's not enough," Mike McCord, the Defense Department's chief financial officer, told reporters. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin thinks "we need to be doing better at this and moving faster."

They include doctors, journalists, professors and poets. More than 11,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. While there is no breakdown between fighters and civilians, most of the dead are women and children. In just a little over a month of war, that amounts to over 0.5 percent of Gaza’s more than 2 million people.

In a Telegram message, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, said his assistant and close friend Maj. Hennadii Chastiakov was celebrating his birthday when an "unknown explosive device" detonated in one of his gifts. It was not immediately known where or when the incident took place, or who exactly was in attendance. Zaluzhnyi said Chastiakov's death caused "unspeakable pain" and is a "heavy loss" not only for himself but for the military as well.

Former President Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The Israeli military has said one of its soldiers was killed by an anti-tank missile reportedly shot by the Palestinian armed group Hamas during a raid into the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Army. Three other soldiers were injured in the raid on Sunday, said the statement that came as the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, announced on its Telegram account that it had pushed Israeli forces back into Israel.

Egypt, Jordan Cancel meeting with President Biden.

Israel bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee to ahead of an expected ground invasion, killing dozens of people on Tuesday in attacks it says are targeted at Hamas militants that rule the besieged territory. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said at least 500 people were killed in an explosion Tuesday that it said was caused by an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City Hospital. If confirmed, the attack on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008.

New York judge on Tuesday found that Donald Trump and his family business committed fraud by making misleading valuations on much of his real-estate empire and ordered the cancellation of legal certificates that have allowed the Trumps to do business in the state. The ruling handed a significant early victory to state Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, on part of her civil-fraud case against Trump ahead of a trial that is set to begin next week. She sued the former president last year and has accused Trump in court filings of inflating his annual net worth by as much...