Free Republic

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, walked away Sunday after being asked by a reporter what his “reaction” was to the news that the bodies of six Israeli hostages had been discovered in a Hamas tunnel underneath Gaza, including one American citizen. While at the Minnesota State Fair, Walz was asked “how much” had changed since the “last state fair,” and how Walz was “balancing managing” his role as governor and running for vice president.

British activist Tommy Robinson has reportedly fled the country ahead of a contempt of court hearing and after allegedly being arrested under “anti-terror” legislation. According to the Solicitor General, which launched the latest court case against Robinson on contempt of court charges over a 2021 libel case, claimed ahead of Monday’s scheduled High Court hearing that the activist was no longer in the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. It came after Robinson Kent Police confirmed that a 41-year-old man had been detained Sunday under the Terrorism Act at the English Channel Tunnel, which connects Britain to France.

“That’s it. It’s over.” Those are the words attributed to a U.S. official as Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, reportedly for Tajikistan, Sunday. President Ghani's departure as the Taliban entered Kabul overnight follows a number of other government officials who were spotted at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul awaiting flights out of their country. Ghani's decision to flee the country was followed by reports that the Taliban will move deeper into Kabul as fighters capture the Afghan capital, completing a mission that US intel predicted as recently as this week would take at least one month. The...

The Texas state Senate approved a sweeping election reform bill Tuesday night, one day after dozens of House Democrats fled the state to prevent the chamber from taking up the legislation. The state Senate approved the bill on an 18-4 party-line vote. Nine Senate Democrats had joined 51 of their House colleagues in hightailing it to Washington, DC, though this was not enough to deny the upper chamber a quorum. However, the legislation is now stalled due to the absence of a quorum in the House. Republicans say the measures in the bill — which include ending drive-thru and 24-hour...

One local industry is booming: moving companies, because so many New Yorkers are fleeing the city for the ’burbs in the wake of the pandemic, the spike in violent crime and the general rise in disorder. And Mayor Bill de Blasio’s answer is to cheer. Perry Chance of Show Up movers told The Post his “volume has increased by at least 70 percent” in the past few months. “[People] say the rich are leaving New York. Well, they are!” July saw a 44 percent rise in home sales in area suburbs — with an astounding 112 percent hike in Westchester...

I’ve traveled the country with dogs for over 20 years, so I can honestly say I have slept in some not so swift rooms and some that have been oh-so-divine. Pet friendly, however, is not always what it’s cracked up to be, and if you’ve had a less-than-stellar experience at a supposed “pet friendly” establishment, you are nodding in agreement. How many of you, when calling a hotel or facility to ask if they are pet friendly ask something like this: “Hi. Can you tell me if you allow pets?” How many of you ask, “Hello, are you pet welcoming?”...

Video shows the sentiments on the ground at Sharif University in Tehran, when Ahmadinejad is taunted on his way out. Chants of “Ahmadi bye bye!” “liar” and “death to the dictator” can be heard, as well as MOUSAVI.

LONDON (Reuters) - One person captured on Internet videos helping "Neda," the young Iranian woman killed last week who has become an icon of the protests, was identified by a British newspaper on Friday as a doctor who has since fled Iran. "I felt she was trying to ask a question, 'Why?'," Dr. Arash Hejazi told the Times in an interview as he recalled her final moments lying in a street with blood pouring from her body. "She was just a person in the street who was against the injustice going on in her country, and for that she was...

Judge who sentenced Saddam flees Iraq BAGHDAD, March 9 (UPI) -- The Iraqi judge who pronounced the death sentence on Saddam Hussein has asked for asylum in Britain, al-Jazeera reported Friday. Raouf Abdel-Rahman, a member of Iraq's Kurdish minority, has fled the country, al-Jazeera said. He headed the Supreme Iraq Criminal Tribunal that convicted Saddam of ordering the death of Shiite men and boys in Dujail in 1982. British sources told the Arab-language news agency Abdel-Rahman has applied for political asylum with his family. Abdel-Rahman also pronounced sentence on Saddam co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, the dictator's half-brother, and Awad Hamed...

Turkish novelist flees to US 'in fear for life' By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 2:27am GMT 14/02/2007 The Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk is living in exile in the United States and is believed to be in fear for his life. Amid a climate of intimidation that has seen the prosecution and even murder of dissident intellectuals throwing into doubt Turkey's aspiration to the join the European Union, Mr Pamuk, 54, who is living in New York, is said to have told friends he has set no deadline for his return. Instead, according to the...

Drudge Siren: Chavez Flees NYC

Venezuelan middle class flees Chávez rule of hate By Sophie Arie in Caracas (Filed: 05/03/2006) Venezuela's once-thriving middle class is packing its bags and fleeing the country, afraid for the future as the socialist president, Hugo Chávez, calls on the slum-dwelling masses to rise up and seize wealth from those better off than themselves. Growing numbers of professionals, business owners and shopkeepers are fed up with the climate of hostility that the Left-wing president has encouraged in his effort to boost his populist credentials. President Hugo Chávez María Carolina García was blowing up helium balloons in her party-decorations shop in...

Entire Darfur village of 55,000 flees after raids by Janjaweed gunmen By David Blair in Menawashi (Filed: 04/02/2006) Exhausted refugees were building ramshackle shelters in a dry river bed yesterday after 55,000 people fled a raid mounted by the Janjaweed militia in the Sudanese province of Darfur. It was the biggest movement of refugees there so far this year. The victims, many of whom have fled attacks twice or even three times before, are camped around the town of Menawashi in southern Darfur. They abandoned the nearby town of Mershing after two attacks from the pro-regime militia in the space...

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese driver, afraid of having to take a breath-test, fled a police drink-driving checkpoint even though he was well under the legal alcohol limit, but ended up crashing his car. The 44-year-old man drove through the checkpoint on a road in the western Japanese city of Ikeda late Wednesday. Pursuing police officers found the car about half a mile away, upside down in a dry riverbed below the road. The driver, who suffered light injuries to his legs, was sitting beside the vehicle. "I'd been drinking, so I fled," the Mainichi newspaper quoted the man as...

SAN DIEGO – Police were searching downtown near Interstate 5 on Monday morning for a woman who ran away after her car hurtled off southbound Interstate 5 and crashed into a gas station on First Avenue. According to reports called in to the California Highway Patrol, the vehicle was seen traveling at speeds up to 100 miles per hour before leaving the freeway shortly before 7:30 a.m. and crashing into the station just north of state Route 163. A woman was seen running from the car and San Diego police officers were searching a nearby hotel for her. Police said...

Husband gets kidney, then flees with lover By ANDY DOLAN 20mar05 Carol Jewell did not hesitate to give her husband, John, one of her kidneys when renal failure threatened his life. But four years later, he showed his "gratitude" by running away with her brother's wife, Marilyn Edmeades, 52. Their world had revolved around local politics. Mrs Jewell is Mayor of Woodley, west of London near Reading, and Mr Jewell, 53, was a member of the same council for 25 years. Mrs Edmeades also was prominent in local politics as a councillor in nearby Bracknell. The Jewells and Mrs Edmeades...

Mahdi army flees shrine as US steps up offensive Luke Harding in NajafWednesday August 25, 2004 The Guardian (UK) Mahdi army fighters loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had largely abandoned Najaf's Imam Ali shrine yesterday before American forces launched a massive offensive, which was under way last night. Sources inside the resistance movement said the majority of the militiamen slipped out of the complex after a secret order by Mr Sadr five days ago. The cleric was no longer in the area immediately around the shrine, which was encircled by American tanks, they said. "He is 100% not...

U.S.: Saddam fears public appearances, may have fled country The United States continues to bait Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to emerge from hiding. U.S. officials and military commanders said Saddam appears too scared to emerge from hiding because of fear of assassination by his senior aides or elite units. They said Saddam and his family might have even escaped from Baghdad and fled Iraq. Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States has not found any trace of Saddam since a March 20 attack on his headquarters in Baghdad. Saddam and his sons...

LAGOS: The author of an article on the Miss World pageant considered blasphemous by many Nigerian Muslims has fled the country after a violent backlash, a senior source at her former newspaper said. The source, who asked not to be identified, said: "I can confirm to you that she has left Nigeria." The article published by the daily This Day on November 16 angered Nigerian Muslims. Riots broke out in the northern city of Kaduna which left around 220 people dead and forced pageant organisers to abandon plans to stage this year's contest in Nigeria. Today the mainly Muslim state...

Friday, July 19, 2002 By JANINE A. ZEITLIN, jazeitlin@naplesnews.com Marco Island police and Collier County court officials are at odds over who was to blame for the swift departure of a Saudi Arabian government official from the United States this week after his arrest on charges of sexual assault of a Marco girl. Court officials say Collier Circuit Judge Ted Brousseau had no way of knowing Dr. Farouk Murad, 66, was a flight risk when the judge set a $50,000 bond Sunday. Brousseau didn't seize Murad's passport. The only address listed on police reports of Murad's arrest was a post...