Free Republic

The Iraqi and Kurdish armies continue to progress towards Mosul in northern Iraq, and are now a mere 15 kilometers from the city itself. Terrorist group ISIS slaughtered 284 men and boys, then piled their bodies in a mass grave. CNN reported ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi slaughtered 59 senior ISIS captains after they attempted to negotiate withdrawal from Mosul in return for safely escaping the city. About a thousand people were suffered injuries from breathing gases in the Mosul area, after a sulfur factory in the south of the city was set on fire. The fire is assumed to...

The madman allegedly responsible for four murders in Brooklyn was busted Saturday after slashing someone on the subway in midtown Manhattan, police sources said.

Cairo - SNIPPET: "He said that a man repeatedly stabbed local shopkeeper George Abdu, 63, in the abdomen and the neck, killing him, then fled on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The archbishop said that the killer drove 4 kilometres to the village of Bamahai and repeatedly stabbed a cobbler, who suffered wounds to the head and lung. The suspect then drove to another nearby village, Mit Afifi, and stabbed a third Christian man, Hani Barsum, in the neck. Barsum and the cobbler were hospitalized, Stefanos said.... Wednesday's attacks resembled a string of attacks in April 2006 in Alexandria that led to...

Chicago, IL (AHN) - Eight deaths in Illinois and Missouri are being linked to a 28-year old man sighted near the border of the two states. The Illinois State Police called Nicholas Sheley of Sterling "a person of interest". Sheley is armed, dangerous and has a $25,000 prize money on his head. He has been linked to at least five of the homicides, including four people whose corpse were discovered in an apartment at Rock Falls.

A reader (who found my take on Obama's Milwaukee talk cynical) points me to the audio of his remarks last night, a 23-minute .mp3 file you can listen to here. It's worth a listen, and it captures what moves a lot of people about Obama, and bothers others: His instinct for abstraction and large themes, and his sense that America's problems have at their root solutions that have as much to do with hope and process as with any specific course of action. Other politicians would -- and will -- stay with the concrete. They'll talk about this tragedy, and,...