Free Republic

Rushdie on ventilator and may lose an eye, agent says Salman Rushdie is on a ventilator, unable to speak, and may lose an eye, his agent told Reuters and the New York Times.“The news is not good,” Andrew Wylie, Rushdie’s agent, said Friday evening. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”

The brother of a murder victim shocked a courtroom on Wednesday as he offered an overtly religious act of forgiveness, urging the killer to turn to Jesus Christ. But you wouldn’t know that from the network morning show coverage on Thursday. Today, Good Morning America and CBS This Morning skipped the appeal to faith, instead portraying it as more generalized forgiveness. Later in the day, View co-host Joy Behar rejected the call to grace and instead insisted, “I think to hold onto the rage gives you strength.” Amber Guyger shot Botham Jean in 2018 when she accidentally entered his apartment,...

At the end of a meeting with President Donald Trump this fall about the Middle East peace process, attorney Alan Dershowitz turned the conversation to a matter closer to home: The prison sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, the Kosher meatpacking executive then serving a 27-year prison sentence for bank fraud. Rubashkin, whose kosher meat firm AgriProcessors was the subject of a Forward expose in 2006 over the mistreatment of its workers, has been a case célèbre in some circles since his conviction in 2010. Dershowitz is among Rubashkin’s most prominent supporters — and was probably the first to bring the matter...

Iran's foreign ministry claimed that warplanes from the Saudi Arabia-led coalition involved in Yemen's ongoing war struck and damaged its embassy in Sanaa, yet another incident that could inflame tensions between Tehran and Riyadh. Iran condemned the strike, according to foreign ministry spokesman Hussein Jaberi Ansari. But it was not immediately clear if the Iranian embassy was targeted or if it got struck unintentionally amid the broader conflict within Yemen. That war pits the Shiite Muslim rebel Houthis supported by Iran against forces loyal to President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, which are being backed militarily and otherwise by the overwhelmingly...

Iran has accused Saudi-led coalition warplanes of "deliberately" bombing its embassy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa. State media quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying members of staff had been wounded in an air strike. Sanaa residents reported dozens of air strikes on Thursday by the coalition, which is battling Houthi rebels. However, residents and witnesses in Sanaa reported there was no damage to the embassy after the air strikes, Reuters and AP report.

Eye for an eye: Iranian man sentenced to have drops of acid poured onto his face for blinding his lover's husband By Michael Theodoulou Last updated at 3:00 PM on 12th December 2010 An Iranian man who blinded his lover's husband is to suffer a similar fate in a tit-for-tat sentencing - by having acid poured into his eye. Iran’s Islamic code allows for ‘an eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth’ retribution - known as 'qisas' - in cases of violent crime. The convict, named only as Mojtaba, threw acid in the face of his rival Alireza, a taxi driver, after an illicit...

A death row inmate in Texas tore out his eyeball with his fingers and ate it, leaving him blind after he gouged out his other eye several years ago, the state's department of criminal justice said on Friday. "We don't know how it happened," said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the department. "There are no indications that he used anything other than his hands." Andre Thomas, 25, was now in a secure psychiatric facility after he pulled out his left eye last month at the death row unit in Livingston in eastern Texas, Clark said. Thomas was condemned for killing...

Two Sebastian River Middle School eighth-graders have been charged with lewd or lascivious molestation and attempted sexual battery on a child, in connection with an incident on a school bus while the school's soccer team returned home from a game. Rodolfo Rodriguez, 14, and Jose Zamora, 15, both of Fellsmere were arrested at their homes Sept. 17, according to arrest affidavits released Tuesday. The two eighth-graders attempted to insert an apple pie box in a sixth-grade teammate's buttocks, while others tried taking photos with cellular phones, according to an incident report released Tuesday .

<p>BAGHDAD _U.S. authorities in Baghdad have received five severed fingers belonging to four Americans and an Austrian who were taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq , U.S. officials said Wednesday.</p> <p>The FBI is investigating the grisly development, and the families of the five kidnapped contractors have been notified, American officials said on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the case publicly.</p>

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli soldiers killed a top Hamas fugitive in a roadside ambush Monday, and in a separate operation, raided a stronghold of the militant Islamic group, shooting dead two Palestinians and blowing up the house of a suspected bombmaker. The two Israeli strikes came in response to a deadly Hamas attack on an Israeli tank over the weekend. Israel said it will intensify its hunt for Hamas militants, who have carried out many of the bombings and other attacks against Israeli targets in the past 29 months of fighting. The Hamas fugitive, Riyad Abu Zeid,...

<p>A Garfield resident whose family's pet cat was killed by a pit bull terrier is accused of setting the dog on fire at least twice while his sister and several other young people watched, a humane officer said Thursday.</p> <p>Michael Grier, 18, was arrested yesterday afternoon at his family's home on Jordan Way, not far from where the young dog was set ablaze and left to die on May 22, said Kathy Hecker, a humane officer for Animal Friends.</p>