Free Republic

A federal judge has sentenced former Detroit Riverfront Conservancy CFO William Smith to 19 years in federal prison for embezzling more than $44 million from the nonprofit over more than a decade. The judge also ordered him to pay more than $48 million in restitution. The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy released a statement after the sentencing. It reads: "Today, we move forward to a bright future. We are incredibly grateful to U.S. District Judge Susan DeClercq for imposing a sentence commensurate the damage Will Smith inflicted on the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy and its community of visitors, donors, and supporters. The U.S....

"That’s quite the name. Will be fun for the announcers to say for sure."The 2024 MLB Draft got underway Sunday night in Fort Worth, Texas, coinciding with the rest of MLB’s All-Star break in the Dallas area. With the fourth overall pick in the draft, the Oakland Athletics selected Nick Kurtz, a first baseman from Wake Forest who is a two-time member of the All-ACC first team. It is, by many accounts, a great pick for Oakland. Almost immediately upon hearing the pick, however, some on social media pointed out that the player’s name could prove tricky for broadcasters....

Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Wednesday that he has turned down numerous requests from “various different federal agencies” to use the Metropolitan Police Department for immigration enforcement outside the agency’s limited role at the Clark County jail. “And I just won’t do that,” McMahill told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, adding that his agency doesn’t have the resources to do so. “I’ve got a lot going on when it comes to crime here,” he added. He noted that crime has continued to decrease in the last three years. As President Donald Trump’s administration moves to fulfill his campaign promise of carrying out...

A killer babysitter wrote 'everybody who played me is cursed' in blood on the wall after killing a toddler, cops say, as harrowing 911 audio emerged. Marketta Phillips, 41, was arrested on Wednesday for the death of Journei Ross, three, who died from multiple stab wounds in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jeremy Ross, Journei's father, came around from work around 3:30am to find his roommate and on-again-off-again girlfriend sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by knives and covered in blood, according to 8 News Now. When he walked into the bedroom, he found his daughter unresponsive and began chest compressions. Written...

The American people are left in the dark on a whole host of things. Sadly, it’s almost become commonplace. So, when a major catastrophe occurs, we’re usually getting half-truths, scripted responses, and total political spin jobs. Or hey, sometimes we get absolutely nothing, like what went down in Las Vegas when a supposed “lone gunman” opened fire on country music concertgoers. Actually, we recently published an interesting update on that very story and shared more of the coverup with our readers, thanks to investigative work from an independent journalist: ‘They slaughtered us like fish in a barrel’—citizen reporter exposes Vegas...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont - champions of the left - repeatedly targeted President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk as they kicked off a three-day swing through three electorally important western states. But Sanders, and especially Ocasio-Cortez, also trained some of their fire on the Democratic Party, with the best-known member of the so-called "Squad" of diverse and progressive House members urging her own party to have "the courage to brawl" against Republicans. And Sanders and Cortez took to the stage at their first stop in Las Vegas, Nevada, while...

Authorities say multiple cars were set on fire at a Tesla service center in Las Vegas Tuesday Morning

Failed Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris appeared drunk and rambled about nonsense during the AI conference HumanX at Fontainebleau in Las Vegas over the weekend. It’s hard to understand why Harris would be invited to speak at such a conference because if Harris were an expert on anything, it certainly wouldn’t be AI. This is probably why Harris veered off-script and droned on about her obsession with Doritos. Harris once said she binged on Doritos in dismay after former President Donald Trump secured the presidency in 2016. The story was recounted at the HumanX conference, where the former Vice President...

Maybe she needed the snacks for another reason … **SNIP** The failed 2024 Democratic presidential candidate went off on a bizarre (and nacho cheese-flavored) tangent while trying to make a point about DoorDash and affordable housing during her headline slot at the HumanX conference at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas on Sunday. Harris, 60, left many baffled during her conversation with Nuno Sebastiao, CEO of data science company Feedzai, as she recounted ordering food on DoorDash to keep her going while watching last week’s Oscars. “We did DoorDash ’cause I wanted Doritos. And the red carpet part was about to start...

An amended lawsuit against Sean 'Diddy' Combs has named Maui's police chief as a co-conspirator, alleging the officer helped the music mogul cover up a woman's rape in 2018. Maui's Police Chief John Pelletier, 52, is one of several new defendants, including NFL wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and Drew Desbordes, a comedian known as Druski, added to the damning lawsuit on Friday. The documents, filed by a woman and two additional plaintiffs, accuses Pelletier of posing as a Contra Costa, California sheriff in order to deter a woman from filing a rape charge against the disgraced rapper. At the...

On October 1, 2017, shots rang out all over the Las Vegas Strip as concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival fled to safety. In total, 59 people were killed and over 500 injured during the chaos that erupted from above on the country music gathering. John Pelletier, then a captain with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, was the incident commander and was tasked with managing the extensive crime scene. After an incredibly controversial investigation, it was determined that Stephen Paddock, 64, was the lone gunman who opened fire on the crowd from the Mandalay Bay hotel, positioned...

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) announced it had been gifted the country’s first fleet of Tesla Cybertrucks for law enforcement use. During an address, LVMPD said an unnamed donor gifted the department were given about 10 Cybertrucks to use for patrol and SWAT teams from an unnamed donor. “By the way, we ordered these before the Trump Tower [explosion]” Sheriff Kevin McMahill said, according to the outlet Police1, referring to the New Year’s Day incident that killed the driver, who was identified as an active-duty Army solider, and injured several others. “But I will tell you, we want...

FLORHAM PARK, NJ — A changing of the guard was on the horizon in the NFL, as the New York Jets announced that the team had officially decided to keep losing all their games but without quarterback Aaron Rodgers.The Jets struggled to win games on their way to a 5-12 record in 2024, leading the team to the conclusion that it was time to move on from Rodgers and continue losing games in 2025 with a different quarterback."It's time for us to find another quarterback to lead us to defeat," said newly hired Head Coach Aaron Glenn. "We appreciate Aaron...

A man accused of killing his father told police that “aliens had told him to kill his father and that he felt like he was on a different planet,” Eun Jin La, who was discovered in the master bedroom, suffered a gunshot wound to the back right side of his head, according to the Clark County Coroner’s office. Police documents stated La’s mother told police their son lived with them but she had not seen him since the morning when she left for work. She described her son as having a medical condition which was redacted in the report. Police...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twtOnKlfMnQ 58 min Is everything we've been told about the Las Vegas mass shooting a lie? Are they covering up something big? Xander Arena does a great presentation

This is Abe Greenwald, in the Commentary magazine email. I don’t think there is a link, so I will quote extensively: Here’s a current-events quiz aimed at regular news consumers: Why did Los Angeles officials ignore dozens of warnings about the county’s failing water system in the run-up to this year’s wildfires? What caused the Dali cargo ship to crash into the Francis Scott Key Bridge almost a year ago? Who was the captain of that ship? Why were security bollards not in place on Bourbon Street when a terrorist attacked New Orleans on New Year’s Day? What was the...

Sometimes, government makes a bad bet. Case in point: the Ivanpah solar project. Maybe you’ve seen the unsightly, blindingly bright towers while traveling from L.A. to Las Vegas, in the Mojave Desert near the California-Nevada state line. Maybe you’ve read about birds getting fried to death as they fly through the sunlight directed to the tops of the towers by fields of mirrors.

Before police found a woman in a freezer, Daniel Roush, who became the suspect in her death, told police the woman was out of town visiting her brother. Roush, 38, who is transgender and also goes by the name Jazlynn Roush, faces murder, abuse, burglary and drug charges in connection with the death of 68-year-old Monique Gilbertson. Gina Lopez, Roush’s wife, was indicted alongside Roush and faces burglary and drug possession counts. Gilbertson’s body was found stored in a freezer inside her mobile home in the east Las Vegas Valley on Nov. 6. Body camera footage shows Metropolitan Police Department...

President Trump said the U.S. could possibly eliminate the federal income tax if his tariff plans work out as intended. "If the tariffs work out like I think, a thing like that could happen, if you want to know the truth," he said. "Years ago, 1870 to 1913, we didn't have an income tax. What we had is tariffs." Trump also said the additional IRS agents the Biden administration hired could potentially move to the border.

President Donald Trump visited a craps table at the Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, and was welcomed with chants of “USA! USA!” after delivering a speech on his no tax on tips policy agenda. In a video posted to X by Margo Martin, the Special Assistant and Communications Adviser to Trump, a crowd on the casino floor could be heard chanting “USA! USA! USA!” as Trump is walking into the room. In another video posted to X, Trump was seen stopping “by a Craps table” at the casino and interacting with people at the table.