Free Republic

A powerful new synthetic opioid said to be more potent than fentanyl has been linked to dozens of recent deaths in the U.S., prompting warnings from health officials. Tennessee was an early hotspot, with the state’s health department announcing in March that more than 30 fatal overdoses had been associated with cychlorphine since October 2025. An April 2026 notice from the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy cited at least 41 Tennessee deaths between July 2025 and February 2026 and at least 55 deaths nationally. Fatal overdoses have also been reported in Illinois, California and Oklahoma, according to...

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — A pack of veterinarians clambered over hefty metal crates on Tuesday morning, loading them one by one onto a fleet of semi-trucks. Among the cargo: tigers, monkeys, jaguars, elephants and lions – all fleeing the latest wave of cartel violence eclipsing the northern Mexican city of Culiacan. For years, exotic pets of cartel members and circus animals have been living in a small refuge on the outskirts of Sinaloa’s capital. However, a bloody power struggle erupted last year between rival Sinaloa cartel factions, plunging the region into crippling levels of violence and leaving the leaders of...

An illegal immigrant pulled over for speeding in Nevada allegedly had enough fentanyl in his truck to kill millions, federal prosecutors say. Francisco Joel Garcia Farias, 26, now faces federal drug-trafficking charges after a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy stopped his pickup on a rural highway and a narcotics detection dog alerted to the vehicle, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada. Inside, authorities say they found 13 large storage totes packed with approximately 30 pounds of suspected fentanyl and 677 pounds of suspected methamphetamine, a combined haul of more than 700 pounds. “The massive scale of...

A member of one of the world’s wealthiest royal families was found passed out on a busy London street after a cocaine binge while a barefoot toddler wandered dangerously close to traffic, a British court has heard. Mahrah Al Nahyan, 32, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family through marriage, was discovered slumped against railings alongside an unconscious man as a three-year-old child played unattended nearby. The shocking incident unfolded June 13 in west London, where concerned members of the public rushed to protect the child before alerting police, according to The Times. Al Nahyan reportedly remained unconscious for approximately...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Multiple packs of synthetic Kratom were found at Smoke Plus in Newbern, Tennessee, by the West Tennessee Drug Task Force on Tuesday. Agents say that during an undercover investigation, lab-created Kratom was sold to one of the undercover agents out of the back room. Synthetic kratom, $1 million in cash seized from Memphis wholesaler That is when a search warrant was issued for the smoke shop on 603 West Main Street. The task force seized multiple packs of the drug after the warrant was executed. The drugs were then sent to a lab for testing. The Newbern...

AI firms say simulations are being used to identify which pharmaceutical programs are worth moving forward and to assess the value of acquisition targets. As AI tools get better at flagging clinical risks, they say unexpected trial failures may become less frequent. Novartis' experimental del-desiran for a rare type of muscular dystrophy was expected to be a winner, with the Swiss company's CEO predicting annual peak sales of $5 billion. When a late-stage trial missed its goal last month, shares fell 11%, erasing $30 billion in market value. AI start-up BioinvestGPT was not surprised. In July, it ran a simulated...

OXFORD, Miss. – An Ole Miss student says she was drugged at a bar over the weekend, days before two students were found dead, as bars around Oxford tighten security with fears running rampant through the college town. Lafayette County Metro Narcotics said in a news release that investigators are looking into the deaths of two college-aged individuals whose bodies were discovered at separate locations. Authorities have not established a connection between the deaths, though packaged kratom purchased from a retail store was recovered in each investigation. "We do not have confirmed information indicating that kratom or any other substance...

Five women appear lifeless in the pictures. Two more are still missing. Investigators have already counted 58 alleged victims in the digital wreckage pulled from a rotting twin house on Chew Avenue in Olney. And the man who built that house of horrors died in his bed last year at 82, never answering for any of it. Raymond “R.C.” Horsch was a pornographer who wrote books about serial killers preying on women, filmed sadomasochistic filth, and spent decades fishing vulnerable addicts out of Kensington with cash and narcotics. His son Eugene, 44, is the one sitting in federal custody. The...

Police were called to Kamala Harris’ $8 million Malibu mansion after a mystery woman showed up at the property twice and “illegally entered,” according to authorities and the former vice president’s team. Officers from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene after receiving a call about the unidentified woman outside home of Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff around 10:30 p.m. Friday, the sheriff’s department said. The woman had gotten dropped off by an Uber and contacted security at the pricey pad, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department said. After being told she couldn’t stay, the woman left...

Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and co-chief executive of techbio company Insilico, is among the scientists who have devoted countless hours to studying aging. He has a reality-check for anyone who thinks that artificial intelligence means that the ability to double lifespans is tantalizingly close. “Absolute nonsense,” said Zhavoronkov, whose company uses AI to discover and develop drugs.In 150 years of discovery, no drug has been clinically proven to extend life, he said in an interview. “Regardless of how rich you are…you cannot buy one year of life with a drug.” What could be within reach in the next decade or so—in...

A popular Egyptian TV presenter has been sentenced to death by hanging after she was convicted for her role in a massive drug trafficking ring. Sarah Khalifa, a 39-year-old former host of Egyptian crime show “Mission Impossible” sobbed in court as she was ordered to be executed in Cairo, Al-Jazeera reported. “Please listen to me, sir. My parents raised me well; they are people who pray, and I don’t need drug money,” Khalifa, who has more than 2 million followers on social media, pleaded to officials. Khalifa and 11 others were sentenced to death after they were convicted of operating...

MIAMI — The Florida woman who shot and killed a drugged-up Army vet in a spat over a parking spot at a Walmart will not face charges after he threatened to ‘f— her s— up’, prosecutors revealed Thursday. Bart Diguglielmo, a 62-year-old retired staff sergeant, was fatally shot in front of the supercenter in North Lauderdale just before 12:30 p.m. on June 30. The shooter, identified as Melissa Payne, is immune from prosecution because she acted in self-defense due to the state’s “stand your ground” law, the Broward County state attorney’s office announced. One witness said she had heard Diguglielmo...

Given that he deliberately allowed Iran to flood America with deadly drugs and grow its nuclear program, it’s easy to argue that he is. As Barack Obama slowly fades from the landscape, let’s consider how he has helped to destroy Western civilization, especially the United States of America. He did this via his fealty to Iran, which allowed unchecked, deadly drug trafficking into America while giving Iran the time, space, and funds to develop its nuclear weapons. The Obama Administration killed hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing the Iran-founded and funded terrorist organization Hezbollah to operate in the Western...

Former first lady Jill Biden is refusing to close the door on one of the wilder theories surrounding her husband’s disastrous 2024 debate performance. That he was drugged.

Ever since Prince Harry and his attention-seeking grifter of a wife, Meghan Markle, moved to the United States, many of us have half-jokingly wondered why we can't deport them right back to the United Kingdom. Well, Meghan is a U.S. citizen, so I guess we're stuck with her, but do we really need a deadbeat "royal" trust fund baby from Europe who does nothing but whine about how hard his privileged life has been? Didn't we rid ourselves of that 248 years ago? This "royal" couple serves absolutely no purpose at all outside of creating mediocre content, irritating anyone they...

"Mother Earth" Pagan Worship by Vatican Representative: Doctrine of the Faith Official makes Offering of Coca Leaves at Pachamama Ceremony during Official Church Meeting Rorate Note: Official Vatican News covering of the event here (in Spanish); Spanish page Infovaticana adds the grotesque context.A Pontifical Commissioner and a Bishop Deposit Coca Leaves in an "Earth Offering": Jordi Bertomeu as Offerer at a Pachamama Ceremony InfovaticanaAugust 18, 2026The Southern Macroregional Encounter "Interweaving Voices for Dignity" — presented by Vatican News as part of the preparation for Pope Leo XIV's upcoming visit to Peru — opened without any Catholic prayer whatsoever. In its...

Samotria Matthews, the top deputy and closest ally of Milwaukee County Clerk of Circuit Court Anna Maria Hodges, was arrested Thursday and is currently incarcerated in the Milwaukee County Jail, the Heartland Post has learned exclusively. Sources tell the Heartland Post that Matthews was arrested during a raid at her home and is being held on potential drug charges. She is one of the longest-tenured employees at the Milwaukee County Courthouse and came out of a brief retirement in 2022 to join Hodges’ staff. Ironically, she had been serving as the senior admiinistrator for Milwaukee County Criminal Court. “An individual...

[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]After Biden’s withdrawal, the fighting ended in Afghanistan and moved into Europe.Even before the Taliban takeover, a massive traffic in migrants and drugs flowed over the ‘Balkan Route’ that took Afghans into Iran, Turkey and then Eastern Europe. One of the biggest holes in Europe’s armor was the former Yugoslavia, illegally invaded and partitioned by the Clinton administration, with a large Muslim population in Bosnia and heavy criminal organizations across the former republic that tie together the Russian mob, local gangs,...

Police say “graphic and dark” evidence leads them to believe two women were killed in Eugene and Raymond Horsch's house. Philadelphia police now believe at least two women were killed inside the decrepit Olney home at the center of a sprawling missing persons investigation, officials said Wednesday — a stunning breakthrough in a probe that began nearly two months ago after a chance encounter near Independence Mall. Inspector Raymond Evers said homicide detectives had recovered photos and videos on hard drives inside the home that appeared to show the deaths of two women who had been reported missing — neither...

Russian soldiers are operating drones over Venezuela as part of a search operation for members of a paramilitary force that led a botched invasion this week, local media reported on Friday, citing deleted tweets from a state military command centre. At least eight Russian special forces members will be “operating drones to run search and patrol operations” near La Guaira, the coastal state just north of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, according to a report from local news outlet El Nacional. It posted a screenshot of a tweet it said was later deleted on Thursday from the profile of the military command,...