Free Republic

Rare and decorated bone and ivory items from the biblical period and ancient bowls dating back some 1,500 years, bearing spells and incantations in Hebrew, were uncovered in the home of a resident of the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem, suspected of illegal trade in antiquities. ..... The incantation bowls, known as the “swearing bowls” were used as a kind of amulet in ancient times, and date back to the 8th-4th centuries CE. It was common practice to bury them under the house floor for protection. Inside the bowls, magical inscriptions were written in the Babylonian-Aramaic language. The inscription in...

<p>Protesters gathered in Minneapolis on Friday evening after the sentencing of former Minnesota police Officer Kim Potter to two years in prison in the April 2021 shooting death of Daunte Wright, according to reports.</p><p>In addition, reports were emerging on social media that looting was underway at stores in Brooklyn Center, the Minneapolis suburb where Potter worked and where the death of Wright occurred.</p>

Photos and videos showing piles of empty boxes littered alongside rail tracks in Los Angeles County, California have gone viral as shipping companies say they've seen a dramatic spike in railroad theft. Some of the boxes are packages from companies like UPS, Amazon and FedEx. Union Pacific, one of the country's largest railroad companies, says it may avoid operating in Los Angeles County following the spike in thefts, which it blames on lax prosecution of crimes. The containers and trains are locked, but can be broken into. Union Pacific said last month in a letter to the Los Angeles District...

Critics excoriated California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats Thursday over a set of videos showing the shocking aftermath of looted trains in Los Angeles. The videos, posted on Twitter by local CBS photojournalist John Schreiber, showed massive amounts of opened packages, cardboard, and packaging materials strewn around the tracks. "Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to [Lincoln Heights] to see it all. And… there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, [UPS] boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains," Schreiber...

You can count on three fingers how much Al Sharpton has in common with Pastor Corey Brooks, the pastor who’s on a 100-day rooftop “campout” in frigid, single-digit weather to bring attention to the culture of violence and poverty in Chicago. They’re both black. They’re both focused on issues in troubled black communities. And they both hold titles as members of the Christian clergy. Other than that, these men are worlds apart in their approach to solving the generational problems of blacks – especially young black men – in urban areas. Sharpton curses the darkness from a distance, then adds...

In today’s urban America, if you are a thief, why wouldn't you smash a glass door or glass display case and grab all the merchandise you could? Seriously, why wouldn't you? In the old days you wouldn't because you would be scared that you would get caught. In the past, “smash and grab” robberies occurred, but it was a very infrequent occurrence. It was rare because thieves understood if they were caught there would be consequences, and even punishment, perish the thought! A criminal would have to raise bail to be released. If not, he would have to spend weeks...

So long as crime remained in San Francisco’s low-income, historically black Tenderloin neighborhood, it was acceptable to San Fran’s far-left ruling elites, but when it erupted in the high-end stores the elites frequent, “the reign of criminals” had “to end.” The reaction to the looting of Louis Vuitton on Union Square reveals San Fran’s liberal elites are “Fair Weather Marxists” and hypocrites. As we know from their contributions to liberal candidates’ campaign coffers and support for socialism, San Fran’s elites have an affinity for Marxist revolution, but apparently only for revolutionaries who rob, rape, maim, and kill each other in...

Philadelphia Councilwoman Cindy Bass wants to outlaw bullet-proof glass in retail stores because it "encourages loitering, public urination and potential drug sales." Her rationale seems weak. Store owners install bullet-proof glass to protect themselves from armed robbers. Bass argues that "this glass is an indignity for everyone who enters the store. It conveys the message that anyone could be a thief. For every armed robber who is thwarted hundreds of honest people are so psychologically damaged that they can't help themselves from urinating in the street, idly loitering in the area, and make drug deals." Bass went on to complain...

Twenty chief executive officers (CEOs) of leading retailers are calling on Congress to pass legislation to curb the sale of stolen goods online in the wake of “organized retail crime” across the United States. The Retail Industry Leaders Association sent a letter to Congressional leadership on Thursday, which was signed by CEOs of Home Depot, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, and executives of many more retail titans.

The United States Senate on Wednesday narrowly confirmed Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins to be the next U.S. attorney for Massachusetts.... Vice President Kamala Harris was needed to break two votes that were tied 50-50 along party lines...Republicans all voted against Rollins' nomination.... “to declining to prosecute low-level offenses, Rachael Rollins has really shown that we can take a different approach to law enforcement," said Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)... Rollins has also sparred with Boston’s largest police union, which accused her last summer of inciting violence against law enforcement..

Usually at this time of year, San Francisco’s luxury stores are decked with holiday garlands. Instead, they’re boarded up after widespread “flash mob” looting turned Union Square — the city’s most fashionable shopping district — into an area resembling a blighted neighborhood in Detroit. “It’s a ghost town,” said Michelle Tandler, a San Francisco native and high-tech entrepreneur, whose photos of the stores barricaded in plywood went viral on social media this week. “Every store has a security guard. People are going to lose their jobs. And these things have a ripple effect.” Two weeks ago, San Francisco was the...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denies existence of smash-and-grab robberies amid crime surge.Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss AOC's denial, calling her a 'danger.' See video at link.

Officials in Los Angeles announced Thursday with great fanfare that they had made 14 arrests in connection with recent “mass looting” events in the city — but all fourteen have since been released from jail, either with or without posting bail. The Los Angeles Times reported: After a spate of brazen smash-and-grab robberies left Los Angeles-area retailers and shoppers on edge last month, officials announced Thursday that they had arrested 14 suspects in connection with the crimes. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, joined by other officials and members of the business community at LAPD headquarters,...

AFitchburg man who faced the greatest number of looting-related criminal charges for a riot Downtown last year that followed a protest over the police custody death of a Minneapolis man pleaded guilty Tuesday to all eight of the felony charges against him as part of an agreement that placed him in a deferred prosecution program. Under the agreement between Anthony M. Torres, 21, and District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, Torres could come away with no felony convictions if he completes requirements of the Deferred Prosecution Program, which is run by the DA’s office. Five of the eight felonies would be dismissed...

San Francisco’s Union Square, the high-end shopping district at the center of the city, is boarding up for the Christmas shopping season after a string of “mass looting” events that began on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Normally, Union Square is festive and bright in December. Its giant Christmas tree and menorah attract visitors from across the region, as does its outdoor ice skating rink. Situated alongside the city’s famous cable car, it is an oasis of prosperity in a gritty downtown. However, this year is different, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports: As San Francisco approached the critical December shopping...

In the upside-down morality of the left, it is perfectly acceptable for criminal gangs to target high-end stores free of consequences. At once ascribing poverty, immoral historical legacies, and contemporary systemic racism, we are supposed to believe that what is happening is actually a form of justice. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no moral or humanitarian justification for the now-daily shoplifting and burglary sprees witnessed time and again in various California cities and across the country. Are the black youths hungry? Are they robbing a grocery store? Are they impoverished, thereby stealing the jewelry to sell?...

We tend to think of Black Friday as the day that we can pick up some good deals at the stores.But instead, we’ve been seeing people thinking they could get more than a good deal — a five-finger discount, in fact. It’s happening at expensive stores in Democratic cities, particularly in California when they know that because of leftist prosecutors there, they will likely not suffer any real consequences even if they are caught in the act. This is all courtesy of the Democratic policy of being lenient on crime.When even CNN is recognizing this as a problem in cities...

Just days before a string of high-end robberies targeting Union Square rattled the Bay Area, an apparent burglary at a San Francisco cannabis dispensary was seemingly not stopped by police at the scene.

Early on Friday morning, a group of “organized burglars” conducted flash raids at several Chicago stores hours before shoppers gathered for Black Friday sales. Between 1:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. a group of men traveling in a 3-car convoy broke into and burglarized four stores in Chicago’s Wicker Park area. A fifth store had its front entrance damaged, but it was not clear if the place was also rifled through, according to a Chicago Police Department report highlighted by crime watch website CWBChicago.com.

Our civilization is crumbling right in front of our eyes. We have become accustomed to soaring murder rates, mass shootings, extreme degeneracy throughout the entire entertainment industry, violent rioting in our streets, and severe corruption on all levels of government. To a certain extent, a lot of these things seem “normal” to many of us at this point. But the truth is that what we are experiencing is not even close to “normal”. We are literally watching our entire society slowly but surely go down the tubes, and it is heartbreaking to watch. If you think that I am being...