Free Republic

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday that he will bring up a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote, marking a significant win for supporters including President Trump. "At the request of the president and following improvements to the legislation that has been secured by several members, the Senate will take up the recently revised criminal justice bill," McConnell said from the Senate floor. Backers and advocates have been publicly and privately lobbying McConnell for months to bring the bill to the floor, arguing that they have at least 70 votes in support of the legislation....

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers, automatic rifles buckled to their body armor, filed into a community center in a dangerous Shiite neighborhood of north Baghdad Saturday and for a few hours became social workers, cops on the beat and referees between feuding tribesmen. Tea was passed around, notes were taken, local sheiks spoke in wise tones, heads nodded vigorously in agreement and mundane problems such as garbage collection and distributing electricity generators were tackled. Maj. Michael Fazio, 36, from Warwick, N.Y., pulled out a cheat sheet — photocopied snapshots labeled with long tribal names that he tried to match with...