Free Republic

Hours after three shootings resulted in a trooper shot and the suspect killed, police have released additional details about the shooter. Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico identified the shooter as 51-year-old Ahmed Aminamin El-Mofty at a news conference late Friday night. Though details about El-Mofty are being unraveled by investigators, Marsico said it "certainly appears that there's no doubt" he was targeting police officers. Marsico said El-Mofty initially fired "several shots" at a police car belonging to a Capitol City police officer at 4:10 p.m. in the area of 3rd and Walnut streets. One shot came "very close" to...

PITTSBURGH - Pittsburgh police vehicles are showing their pride, but the police union isn’t happy about it. There are rainbow decals on police vehicles that say, “Pittsburgh Police Supports Pride 2017.” Bob Schwartzwelder, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, called the decals “outrageous.” “It’s biased,” he said. “Police are supposed to be neutral laws enforcers, not supporters of any cause. This is an extremely slippery slope. Futhermore, does this decal indicate the Pittsburgh police only support the Pride cause to the exclusion of other causes? This is an official government police vehicle, not a supporter of causes advertisement.” According...

In an exclusive interview seen by millions across the United States, Dr. Phil exposed the deadly secretive, and the highly organized world of elite pedophilia — with a former child sex slave going by the name of “Kendall” describing being literally born into, and growing up in, the world of elite sexual slavery. Kendall explains that she was born to be a sex slave, as her parents intentionally had her for the trafficker she calls her “owner.” Kendall says that her parents sold her at birth to an elite pedophile ring that serviced some of the world’s power elite, describing...

A former Brashear High School math teacher must register as a sex offender after he pleaded guilty to one count of child pornography. Adam Deutsch, of Allison Park, was sentenced to three years' probation and 15 years on the sex offender registry during a non-jury trial. As part of a plea agreement, Deutsch pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography as well as several drug charges. The district attorney's office and a judge determined that probation and registering as a sex offender were a suitable punishment. Investigators said they found about 50 images and 30 videos depicting child pornography on his...

A spreadsheet circulating on social media encourages people to boycott a list of Pittsburgh businesses with ownership, which may support President-elect Donald Trump. The list was created by Liana Maneese who said she was inspired after seeing a list of national businesses to boycott. "It's not just Trump supporters. It's rather what they stand for. Deeply seated fear that fuels the oppression and hatred of any group different than themselves," said Maneese.

am still trying to work out what it was the Pope meant to say when he spoke on the plane to Poland, saying that “It’s war, we don’t have to be afraid to say this … a war of interests, for money, resources. I am not speaking of a war of religions. Religions don’t want war. The others want war.” This is presumably a literal translation of what he said in Italian, but even in Italian it seems rather vague. What are these “interests”, or vested interests as we would put it in English? And who are the “others” who...

Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay will be one of the primetime speakers at Tuesday's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. He's expected to speak sometime between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., after former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. McLay will be followed by actor Tony Goldwyn, who plays the president on the TV show 'Scandal.' According to a release by Mayor Bill Peduto's office, McLay will speak about Pittsburgh's efforts to adopt the best practices on community policing. Pittsburgh is one of six cities nationwide participating in the U.S. Department of Justice's National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice. Mayor...

PITTSBURGH - A heavy amount of police activity is continuing near the FBI building on the South Side after authorities said the driver of a dump truck intentionally crashed his vehicle through the front gate Tuesday morning. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Greg Heeb said the large vehicle briefly went airborne after impact before it came to rest in an employee parking lot outside the building on East Carson Street. Video: Bob Mayo interviews FBI agent at crash scene "He was apparently driving erratically in the area. He ran a couple of red lights, possibly a stop sign," Heeb said. "Pittsburgh...

Sarafina Davis has had enough. “I am tired of these police officers raging war on our black men, and not being held accountable for their actions,” she said. So she decided to create a Black Lives Matter event that ended up attracting hundreds of people to Point State Park on Saturday. She and her sister, Jobie Mack, 21, of West Mifflin, didn't expect the event to draw as many people as it did. Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay estimated the crowd at 1,300 as it headed from the Point up Liberty Avenue to Sixth Avenue, before about 500 returned to...

After 35 radiation treatments and seven chemotherapy sessions to reduce a cancerous lump in his throat from the human papillomavirus HPV, John Rhodes had trouble eating, swallowing and communicating. For a time, he needed a feeding tube, and he has yet to put on the 80 pounds he lost as a result. As assistant coach for the Duquesne men’s basketball team, he had to use other tactics to get his players attention so he could teach them without the booming voice he used to have. Mr. Rhodes, 50, expressed his support for the HPV vaccine at the Allegheny County Health...

Braving a funding ban put in place by America’s top health agency, some U.S. research centers are moving ahead with attempts to grow human tissue inside pigs and sheep with the goal of creating hearts, livers, or other organs needed for transplants. The effort to incubate organs in farm animals is ethically charged because it involves adding human cells to animal embryos in ways that could blur the line between species. Last September, in a reversal of earlier policy, the National Institutes of Health announced it would not support studies involving such “human-animal chimeras” until it had reviewed the scientific...

PITTSBURGH —A press conference was held Saturday to announce a new collaborative agreement between the Pittsburgh Police and the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay and Islamic Center Executive Director Wasi Mohamed spoke at the Islamic Center.The press conference came days after police arrested Anthony Mohamed at his Hazelwood home in connection with a Thanksgiving Day shooting of a Muslim taxi driver. The FBI, in conjunction with Pittsburgh Police, was reviewing the case after the Muslim civil rights group asked the Justice Department to determine if it was a hate crime. Saturday night, Chief Cam McLay said...

PITTSBURGH —An arrest has been made in the shooting of a cab driver in Hazelwood -- a case that the FBI was reviewing after a Muslim civil rights group asked the Justice Department to determine if it was a hate crime. Pittsburgh police identified the suspect as 26-year-old Anthony Lamar Mohamed and said he was arrested Wednesday at his Hazelwood home. Mohamed faces charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and recklessly endangering another person. Authorities said the 38-year-old Muslim taxi driver was shot in the back early on Thanksgiving morning. The Moroccan immigrant, who hasn't been identified, was hospitalized in...

PITTSBURGH — Authorities continue investigating the shooting of a taxi cab driver in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood. Now, that investigation could have national implications. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on the FBI and the Department of Justice to join the investigation of the shooting. According to police, the victim was driving on Second Avenue around 1:40 a.m. when a bullet struck him. He was able to drive to the area of Second Avenue and Mansion Street to get help. "We see it as part of that phenomenon. It's why we asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to...

NORTH VERSAILLES, Pa. - The elections judge for a polling place in North Versailles was arrested Tuesday, several hours after failing to show up for Election Day, the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office said. Satellite technology helped investigators track down Darrin Farmer shortly before noon in Swissvale. Sheriff's deputies said he was driving his wife's car with two passengers who claimed they paid him for a jitney ride from Edgewood Towne Centre. "Deputies recovered a case that contained all of the missing voting equipment and materials, which consisted of electronic PB devices, special ballots, absentee ballots, and books and binders of...

NEW YORK -- Three U.S. airlines have banned the transport of lion, leopard, elephant, rhino or buffalo killed by trophy hunters, in the latest fallout from the killing of Zimbabwe's Cecil the lion last month. American Airlines said today it would join Delta Airlines and United Airlines in banning the transport of animals known in Africa as the “big five," coined by hunters because they are the hardest to kill on foot. There has been an international outcry against trophy hunting among animal lovers since it emerged that American dentist Walter Palmer killed Cecil, a rare black-maned lion that was...

A conservative legal firm filed a complaint with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies on Wednesday on behalf of Colorado Family Action, a religious advocacy group, alleging that a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic failed to learn of and report the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl, and performed an abortion in 2012 without notifying her parent. The complaint filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom alleges that the teen was sexually abused by her stepfather, who raped her and brought her to the Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood clinic for an abortion — the same clinic that is the focus of a...

PITTSBURGH, Pa. —The airline Sun Air Express maintains the Essential Air Service is truly essential after a WTAE investigation raised questions about the program’s validity. Pennsylvania taxpayers funding nearly empty $29... A federal program that enables low-cost commercial flights from Pittsburgh on almost empty aircraft every day is being funded by taxpayers, paying for the trips of ghost planes to locations that are easily drivable. More Essential Air Service (EAS) is a federally funded program started in 1978 by congress, to ensure commercial flights to small communities. VIDEO: Watch Beau Berman's update This year, the program received more than $260...

With sales of bogus prescription drugs amounting to tens of billions of dollars worldwide, imperiling public health systems and pharmaceutical supply chains, counterfeit medications are an enormous threat — but the solution to that threat could be smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. And it could be designed here in Pittsburgh. Oh, and you’d have to swallow it. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working on a radio-frequency tagging system that could be embedded into pills and encrypted with codes that would guarantee the provenance and authenticity of the medication. “Think of a grain of salt....

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) –A suspect is in custody after allegedly trying to run over a bicycle cop Downtown Tuesday afternoon. According to emergency dispatchers, the incident happened near the intersection of Market Street and the Boulevard of the Allies around noon. One person is in custody, but no other details have been released at this time.