Free Republic

UCF Vice Chair Harold Mills was arrested for soliciting a prostitute and indecent exposure this week after he showed his penis to an undercover agent in Altamonte Springs’ Sanlando Park, according to the Seminole County Sheriff’s arrest report. “These misdemeanor allegations are being investigated independently by me and my team and as most know, facts as they unfold are often markedly different than what is initially reported,” Mills’ attorney, Mark NeJame said in a statement Saturday. “However, none of this should overshadow the immense contributions that Harold has made to the underprivileged, the arts, business and his countless employees over...

Chicago police say a 13-year-old girl was shot by a car owner Tuesday morning while allegedly trying to steal the car. Police updated information on the incident, saying that the owner shot at the 13-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy who was allegedly with her, according to ABC 7. A bullet hit the girl “in the right side of her body” and she was taken to the hospital, where she was “in stable condition.”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The Vodou faithful sing, their voices rising above the gunfire erupting miles away as frantic drumbeats drown out their troubles. They pause to swig rum out of small brown bottles, twirling in unison as they sing in Haitian Creole: “We don’t care if they hate us, because they can’t bury us.” Shunned publicly by politicians and intellectuals for centuries, Vodou is transforming into a more powerful and accepted religion across Haiti, where its believers were once persecuted. Increasingly, they seek solace and protection from violent gangs that have killed, raped and kidnapped thousands in recent years....

Meanwhile, fewer than one in 10 are openly conservative, analysis finds Nearly three in four recipients of this year’s prestigious, federally funded Truman Scholarship have clear ties to Democratic politicians or progressive causes, a College Fix analysis found. Approximately 43 of the 60 students have worked for Democratic politicians, advocated for progressive causes, or identify as left-leaning — continuing an annual trend exposed in past Fix analyses. In contrast, only five scholars have worked for Republican politicians, advocated for conservative causes, or identify as right-leaning. The College Fix determined this information based on provided biographies, LinkedIn profiles, and email inquiries....

Cops prevented a raging mob of Harlem locals from attacking a maniac accused of slashing an 11-year-old girl in the head on a spree through Manhattan Friday afternoon — leaving the youngster now afraid to go outside, her distraught mom said. Shaquan Cummings, 30, allegedly preyed on the girl after flying through the 116th Street 6 subway platform around 2:15 p.m., moments after allegedly punching an unsuspecting 43-year-old woman around the street corner, according to sources. The fiend — who has a lengthy rap sheet — knifed the youngster in the back of the head and cut her ear as...

It is a presidential election year and a leading candidate for president of the United States, who also happens to be a former president of the US, is currently a criminal defendant chained to a dingy courtroom four days of the week -- time that he should be spending interacting with voters out on the campaign trail. That's terrible. But it's only the beginning. The daughter of the presiding judge is a professional political operative for the presidential candidate's opposition party, and the candidate himself is subject to an over-inclusive and unconstitutional gag order. The George Soros-funded district attorney, who...

Media fact-checks have asserted that the 2020 presidential election in Georgia didn’t have serious irregularities. But more evidence regarding Fulton County’s handling of ballots and signature verification appear to challenge those claims. Numerous issues have been documented regarding the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, specifically in Fulton County. The media repeatedly "fact-checked" these irregularities, despite confirmation of the issues by election officials. This has resulted in former President Donald Trump and other Republicans who raised concerns about election irregularities often being labeled “election deniers” by Democrats and the media. Georgia election officials have recently confirmed issues that occurred in Fulton...

A serial 'dine and dash' couple who bailed on bills worth hundreds of pounds in restaurants across south Wales have pleaded guilty. Bernard McDonagh, 41, and Ann McDonagh, 39, both from Port Talbot, just east of Swansea, pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud when they appeared at Swansea Magistrates' Court today. A judge heard how they bailed on bills at several locations across Wales and were charged by police last month. The court heard the main aggravating factor in the case was the “presence of children” when multiple offences were carried out and that 41-year-old Bernard McDonagh had antecedent...

A 24-year-old man was shot and killed while walking to work on Chicago's Northwest Side Friday morning. The victim was walking in the 3900 block of North Pittsburgh Avenue around 7 a.m. when an unknown offender shot him in the chest, Chicago police said. He was taken to Loyola Hospital in critical condition and later died. In surveillance video posted on social media, a person in dark clothing was seen running southbound on Pittsburgh Avenue. A woman, who asked she not be identified, told CBS 2 she heard a gunshot and ran to help the man who was on the...

Columbia University janitors were gripped with “sheer terror” as a mob of violent anti-Israel protesters stormed Hamilton Hall and took over the building on April 30 — armed with hand-drawn floor plans and supply lists, says a longtime custodian for the Ivy League university. As dozens of rioters busted through glass and barricaded the entrances to occupy the historic university building, four janitors found themselves trapped inside and afraid, Henry Clemente, a head custodian for Columbia, told The Post. “If you have masked people running through the building with zip ties and chains, you don’t know what they’re going to...

OAKLAND — A 47-year-old man was shot and killed while using a sledgehammer to break up concrete chunks and hurl them at cars and property, and now the suspect is behind bars facing a murder charges. The strange sequence of events started around 4 p.m. March 28, when Greer was seen using a sledgehammer to break up chunks of concrete outside the abandoned home, then began hurling them at the property and cars parked nearby, police said. At some point while Greer was doing this, Dorn allegedly exited the abandoned residence, got on a green bicycle, rode a short distance...

Five shot in Northeast Side home At around 7:40 p.m. Wednesday evening, May 8, Bexar County deputies were called to home on the Northeast Side of San Antonio after reports of shots fired. Investigators would arrive to a grisly scene where some 30 rounds of ammunition were fired into the home of a family, including two adults and five children under the age of 10. All five of the family members were transported to a local hospital in critical condition, and Bexar County Sheriff Salazar said the shooters – two men donning balaclavas spotted from security cameras on neighboring homes...

Millions of middle-class California households are poised to pay an extra $24 per month for electricity, regardless of how much electricity they use. Regulators are hoping this utility billing policy will rescue their agenda to move everyone to electric cars and appliances by redistributing the massive costs of the state’s electric grid so utilities can lower their usage rates. But critics say the income-based premium will likely further hike utility costs for millions of Californians—nearly one-fifth of whom are already behind in paying their bills after household electricity rates almost doubled in the last decade—and likely won’t do much to...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former Columbus police vice detective who pleaded guilty to kidnapping sex workers under the guise of an arrest was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Thursday. Andrew Mitchell, 60, of Sunbury, will receive credit for the roughly five years he has been in custody since his arrest in April 2019, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. He had pleaded guilty in December to two counts of depriving individuals of their civil rights while acting under color of law and one count of obstructing justice. Mitchell spent more than 30 years...

A man is being held in the Metro Jail on a felony charge after he reportedly destroyed parts of a Catholic charity building. According to an affidavit from the Metro Nashville Police Department, officers responded to a call regarding an irate person “actively destroying items on the property” of a Catholic charity on Monday, April 22 on Lea Avenue. When they arrived, they saw Napoleon Meredith on the roof of the building. Upon accessing the roof of the building, officers said they witnessed Meredith destroying an air condition unit. Officers approached Meredith, telling him to come out from behind the...

A 16-year-old boy spray painted LGBTQ graffiti Wednesday outside of the Central Catholic High School chapel, Lafayette police said. The vandal struck in the early afternoon Wednesday, and school officials covered up the vandalism on the walls with plywood. The vandal returned about 6:10 p.m. Wednesday and spray painted new messages on the plywood covering the earlier graffiti. The graffiti read, "Queer Lives Matter" and "God loves trans kids too," police said. The vandalism included inverted crosses spray painted on the chapel's stained-glass windows, according to police reports.

A pair of men driving a spray-painted van trespassed onto one of Fresno’s Jewish temples and Catholic churches, papering their facilities with fliers, leading to their arrest.Fresno police are investigating a possible hate crime at Temple Beth Israel, a Jewish temple in north Fresno, after vandals papered the religious facility with fliers. Officers apprehended two men around 4:15 p.m. when they began to post fliers on the campus of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church nearly a mile south of the Jewish temple. Driving the news: The suspects’ van, which was spray-painted to read “Repent or Perish” was seized at...

The president of a Detroit-area congregation hoped to play down the antisemitic incidentPolice are investigating after witnesses said a man who reportedly called himself a “Jew hater” drove to a Detroit-area synagogue, yelled antisemitic slurs at two people outside the building and threw a pair of work gloves at one of them. The incident in Oak Park, Michigan began at about 9 a.m. on Thursday, when police said in a statement that a white man “with thick dark hair and a long dark beard” driving a Chevrolet SUV pulled into the parking lot of Congregation Beth Shalom. At the time,...

State Election Board calls for a monitor in Fulton for this year’s elections.. The State Election Board reprimanded Fulton County and ordered an independent election monitor Tuesday, finding that the county likely scanned over 3,000 ballots twice during the recount of the 2020 presidential election. The decision, on a 2-1 vote, resolves one of the last remaining investigations of the 2020 election, drawing jeers from a crowd of Republican voters who wanted more severe punishment against the Democrat county. The case exposed errors in Fulton’s 2020 recount but didn’t indicate any fraud in the election, which Democrat Joe Biden won...

WELLINGTON, Fla. — A suspect accused of fatally shooting a Wellington couple on Saturday confessed to killing them over a dispute related to a basketball hoop, deputies said. ... As they were conversing, "at no point during this encounter" was Taylor Jones recorded being aggressive or threatening, detectives said. However, investigators said the video showed Scott "was clearly upset and appeared to be yelling at Taylor Jones" while both appeared to be looking and pointing toward the basketball hoop that rested between both homes. A short time later the affidavit said Scott reached into his right side and retrieved a...