Free Republic

A UK man accidentally stabbed himself to death while trying to separate two frozen burgers with a knife in a freakish accident that initially left cops baffled, a court hearing into his bizarre death was told. Barry Griffiths, 57, died after he accidentally plunged the blade into his stomach at his home in Powys, Wales, in July last year, the Western Telegraph reported.

Russia has made sweeping advances in recent days that threaten to outweigh the gains made by Ukraine in its cross-border attack into the Kursk region. Russian forces are just a few kilometres from the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a crucial logistics hub used by the Ukrainian military. Home to a key railway station and major roads, Pokrovsk is an essential supply and reinforcement point for Ukraine’s troops on the eastern front line. Critics in Kyiv fear that the country's military has made a serious miscalculation.

According to Fox Sports’s president of Insights and Analytics, Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech drew 22% more viewers than former President Donald Trump’s speech. Michael Mulvihill shared via social media that Harris’s speech, which started at 10:30 and ran to 11:15, saw a 15.0, while Trump’s speech in late July, which also started roughly at 10:30 and ran through to midnight, pulled a 12.3 number. Mulvihill appears to be referencing early Nielsen numbers, which are subject to slight change when final numbers are released later in the day.

The first night of the Democratic National Convention averaged 20 million viewers across 13 networks, surpassing the audience for the initial day of the Republican National Convention, according to Nielsen. The numbers are for the 10 p.m. ET to 12:30 a.m ET time frame, as the proceedings went way overtime, finishing with the address by President Joe Biden. The first night of the Republican National Convention drew an estimated 18.13 million in the 10 p.m. ET hour across 12 networks. That was up slightly from the 17 million who watched in 2020.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will introduce legislation Thursday reaffirming that presidents do not have immunity for criminal actions, an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month. Schumer’s No Kings Act would attempt to invalidate the decision by declaring that presidents are not immune from criminal law and clarifying that Congress, not the Supreme Court, determines to whom federal criminal law is applied. The court’s conservative majority decided July 1 that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their official duties — a decision that threw into doubt the Justice...

The shooter who opened fire on Donald Trump was rejected from his school’s rifle club over his poor aim, his former classmates have said. Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was identified by the FBI as the man who tried to assassinate the former president at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening. Classmates at Bethel Park High, where the shooter graduated from in 2022, described him as an intelligent student with few friends.

Richard Simmons -- the legendary fitness guru -- has died at 76 ... TMZ has learned. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... police and fire responded to a call from his housekeeper just before 10 AM Saturday and pronounced him dead at the scene. We're told no foul play is suspected at this time, and cops are looking into it as a natural death.

Bill O’Reilly is “90% percent sure” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio will be former President Donald Trump’s vice president pick. O’Reilly shared his prediction on NewsNation’s “On Balance with Leland Vittert,” emphasizing that Rubio as a running mate would help secure the Hispanic vote.

Russia's economy has defied sanctions in the two years since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022 — so much so that the World Bank is now classifying Russia as a "high-income country." On Monday, the World Bank announced it has upgraded Russia from an upper-middle-income country to a high-income country, according to a report from the financial institution's economists. "Economic activity in Russia was influenced by a large increase in military-related activity in 2023," World Bank economists wrote in their report. Russia's trade jumped by nearly 7% last year, while activities in the financial sector and construction grew by 6.6%...

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a federal ban on bump stocks approved by former President Donald Trump, the latest opinion from the conservative court rolling back firearm regulations. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for a 6-3 court. The court’s liberal wing, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented. Trump had pushed for the ban in response to a 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas. Bump stocks allow a shooter to convert a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute.

NEW YORK — By this time next week, Donald Trump could be a convicted felon — or a newly acquitted man declaring complete and total exoneration. His Manhattan trial on charges for concealing a 2016 hush money scheme is suddenly hurtling toward a conclusion, with Justice Juan Merchan encouraging attorneys to prepare for closing arguments as soon as Tuesday. He would then instruct jurors on legal matters before sending them to deliberate.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told MSNBC on Wednesday there was “no question” that the economy under President Joe Biden was “strong” and “doing well.” After MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked Romney during an interview why he was so optimistic about the future of the country, Romney replied, “First of all, America is an extraordinarily resilient country.” He explained, “We just had this extraordinary pandemic, and yet our economy is strong, low levels of unemployment, it’s extraordinary, and it’s not because the president is pulling all the levers in the right way. No, it’s not. It’s because the American people are...

I'm in Victory Park, Moscow's giant memorial complex dedicated to the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany. A new open-air exhibition has just opened. But it has nothing to do with World War Two. On display is Western military hardware captured by the Russian army in Ukraine. They are war trophies and Russia has decided to flaunt them. Among the armour here is a British Army Husky tactical support vehicle which had been donated to Ukraine. Its windscreen is covered in bullet-holes. Opposite the Husky I can see Western tanks that had been transferred to the Ukrainian military. There's an...

WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) - Donald Trump said on Thursday the survival of Ukraine is important to the United States, a shift in tone days before the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives is due to vote on a $61 billion aid package.

Fast food giant McDonald's is to buy back all its Israeli restaurants following a boycott of the brand in response to the Israel-Hamas war. The company said it had reached an agreement with franchisee Alonyal for the return of 225 outlets across the country employing 5,000 people. McDonald's was criticised after Alonyal started giving away thousands of free meals to Israeli soldiers. Sales in the region have slumped since the conflict began in October. On Thursday, McDonald's said a deal had been signed with Alonyal which has been running the chain of Golden Arches in Israel for more than 30...

Former President Donald Trump is urging his supporters to buy a "God Bless the USA" Bible for $59.99 as he faces mounting legal bills amid his third presidential run.

By a long shot, the enduring image of a NATO-standard modern main battle tank in the Russo-Ukraine War is a video of a stopped vehicle getting hammered by cheap FPV drones, before it gets set on fire and burns down to a six-million-dollar hulk. Combat video posted by the 79th Air Assault Brigade on Tuesday, reportedly from the eastern Avdiivka sector, was typical, showing a stationary US-made M1A2 Abrams tank hit with a detonation in the back of the turret, probably by a Russian FPV drone. Three crew hurl themselves from the main battle tank (MBT) as ammunition stored in...

Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who dramatically defected to Ukraine by flying his helicopter across the border, is dead, according to Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR). The news comes after the Spanish Civil Guard in Alicante province told CNN that a man had been shot to death on February 13 inside the parking garage of an apartment building in Villajoyosa, a seaside resort on the Mediterranean Sea. Initially, the Civil Guard said the victim was a 33-year-old Ukrainian but later said the identity of the body was still to be determined and part of an investigation, which had been sealed...

HUR Confirms Death of Russian Helicopter Pilot Who Defected to Ukraine With Mi-8 28-year-old Captain Maxim Kuzminov seized control of a Russian armored combat Mi-8 helicopter and brought it safely to an airbase in the Kharkiv region in August of 2023.

Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Donald J. Trump from the Oval Office.President Biden has not had a lot of fun perusing polls lately. He has a lower approval rating than every president going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower at this stage of their tenures, and he trails former President Donald J. Trump in a fall rematch. But Mr. Biden can take solace from one survey in which he is way out in front of Mr. Trump.A new poll of historians coming out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranks Mr. Biden as the 14th-best president in American...