Free Republic

Maryland’s chief medical examiner has officially ruled that a Black man found hanging from a tree in Prince George’s County on Sunday morning died by suicide. The ruling came Monday, just one day after the body was discovered high in a tree in front of an industrial business on the 9300 block of D’Arcy Road in unincorporated Upper Marlboro, WTOP News reported. Police and fire crews arrived around 7:55 a.m. Sunday. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Because of the height of the body and the need to wait for the medical examiner, many drivers passing by saw...

A medical examiner determined a man found hanging from a tree Sunday morning in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, had committed suicide, officials in Prince George’s County said Monday. County leaders reached that conclusion just hours after it happened. Still, the symbolism behind the death meant emotions were raw and heightened as county leaders held a press conference — something nearly unheard of when it involves a suicide — to promise honesty and transparency as the investigation continues. And police say the case is not closed yet. The body, a Black man whose identity has not been made publicly available, was found...

An illegal immigrant rideshare driver accused of sexually assaulting a teenage female passenger in Maryland has a history of sex abuse in New York, federal authorities said. Abdoulaye Dia, of Lanham, Maryland, was charged with first-degree rape, kidnapping, second-degree assault and third-degree sex offense, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said. On Tuesday, Montgomery County Police officers were called to a hospital where an underage teen girl reported a rape. She told police she was raped by an Empower rideshare driver. Dia, a citizen of Guinea, took her to a parking lot in Silver Spring, where the alleged assault occurred....

The Atlantic hurricane season reaches its climatological peak this week, and AccuWeather meteorologist are monitoring just one area for potential development. VIDEO AT LINK.......... As the climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season arrives this week, tropical activity remains largely suppressed due to an unusually strong El Niño. The one exception is off the southeastern coast of the United States, where AccuWeather hurricane experts have highlighted an area with a low chance of tropical development into the middle of the month. "A slow-moving front will drift into the southeastern United States, leading to enhanced thunderstorm coverage. An area of tropical...

A Maryland daughter has claimed that the nurse who provided home care to her father battling Parkinson’s transferred the deed to his South Carolina property for just $5 before he died. Nora Rowland not only learned that the property rights to her 75-year-old father Robert Rowland’s home had been transferred, but also that he had died when she paid what she thought would’ve just been a routine visit on Father’s Day in June 2024, WMBF reported last Thursday. Robert Rowland, who lived in Conway, received visits from his nurse Sarah Smalls in March 2024 before he was moved into a...

A B-24D Liberator bomber called “Suzy Q” went down in flames near Capo Stilo, Italy, on August 16, 1943, and for 83 years nobody could say for certain what happened to its pilot. That changed this week, when the remains of 1st Lt. Walter R. Bateman, a 22-year-old Maryland native, arrived home at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Friday for a dignified transfer ceremony followed by a police-escorted procession to Bel Air. Bateman piloted the bomber, assigned to the 67th Bombardment Squadron of the 44th Bombardment Group, on a mission targeting enemy airfields in Foggia, Italy, when his aircraft...

A Canadian scientist has been arrested for smuggling 22 vials stolen from Canada's National Microbiology Lab, used in Ebola and HIV research, into the United States, Canadian and US officials said Wednesday. Konan Michel Yao, 42, "was taken into custody" while crossing from Manitoba into North Dakota A Public Health Agency of Canada spokeswoman [said] Yao "was working on vaccines for the Ebola virus and HIV, among other things." The Ivory Coast-born scientist is said to have studied at Laval University in Quebec and briefly worked at the University of Manitoba's plant sciences department.

The Prince Georges County Police Department (PGPD) has arrested six suspects who are accused of leading an alleged retail theft ring. A lengthy investigation revealed a multi-state organization that included Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. Six suspects involved in the ring are currently in custody. They are 30-year-old Daryl Michael Jackson of Washington, D.C., 25-year-old Cyan Rocke of Capitol Heights, 37-year-old Marco Morgan of Washington, D.C., 31-year-old Tia Courtney of Capitol Heights, 26-year-old Chyna Parker of Suitland and 22-year-old Quasaan Parker of Suitland. On Monday morning, PGPD, together with Maryland State Police, the Metropolitan Police Department,...

Licensed Maryland clinicians can receive abortion training and a $4,000 stipend through the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) “Reproductive Health Fellowship.” The fellowship offers a “comprehensive curriculum on abortion and reproductive health care,” a $4,000 stipend, an abortion simulation, and post-completion support “to actively deepen your knowledge in reproductive health and abortion care.” “Join Maryland’s next generation of reproductive health leaders in providing high-quality, trauma-informed abortion care,” the description reads. “Build your confidence and expertise in prescribing medication abortion while gaining valuable exposure to procedural abortion care.” “Upon completing the program, clinicians become part of a strong, supportive community committed...

An instructor for the University of Maryland's (UMD) School of Pharmacy was detained by immigration officials last month at Dallas Fort Worth airport, according to the university and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). A statement by UMD said that on July 21, Dr. Berhanu Kibret was arrested at the airport after attending a job-related conference in the city. "He was returning from a meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, where he received a Teacher of the Year award." "Dr. Kibret has a valid Work Authorization, so it is our hope that any issues surrounding his...

A prominent Supreme Court litigator was sentenced on Friday to six years in prison for evading a multimillion-dollar IRS tax debt and engaging in mortgage fraud, a case that cast a spotlight on his secretive lifestyle as a high-stakes poker player and featured trial testimony from a Hollywood movie star. Thomas Goldstein, who also published a popular blog about the nation’s highest court, had asked U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby to spare him from a prison sentence. Instead, the judge sentenced Goldstein to five years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay over $3.1...

Charles 'Sam' Faddis, a retired CIA operations officer, one-time candidate for the US House of Representatives from Maryland, author and frequent contributor to Steve Bannon's Warroom, passed away on July 25, 2026 due to complications from COVID-related interstitial lung disease.

Barry Levinson's 1982 film Diner is set in Baltimore at the end of 1959, in the final days of what had been a momentous year, and just before what would be a pivotal decade. The year had begun with the success of the Cuban revolution and its recognition by both the US and Soviet governments, and Barry Gordy's founding of Motown. Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council and Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash in Iowa. Later in the year China abolished the Tibetan government and replaced the Dalai Lama, NASA...

Congress on Thursday split on advancing a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to abandon his war with Iran, as the conflict escalates into a deadly new phase and oil tops $100 a barrel. The moves were the first vote since Trump informed Congress that he restarted the war with Iran following the breakdown of peace negotiations. The conflict’s revival after weeks of a shaky ceasefire comes just months before the U.S. midterm elections. It threatens to scramble the majority Republicans’ plan to maintain their razor-thin majorities. The Senate on Thursday voted 47-49 to kill...

Beretta’s five-century history—from a small Italian workshop supplying the Venetian Republic to becoming a major manufacturer for the United States military—offers a striking backdrop to its long and increasingly strained relationship with Maryland.

A Baltimore daughter who inherited her late dad’s home claims she has been threatened with having her water cut off as she took on a $228,000 water bill she says belongs to her entire neighborhood, reports say. Kristina Moore was left mystified when she spotted a note plastered on the front door of her childhood home in April warning her that her water could be switched off if the hefty debt wasn’t paid within 45 days, WBFF reported. Moore has been footed with the bill as the 37-home neighborhood, which is part of the Springwood Estates Homeowners Association, has just...

The boy was around 14 when he joined the Continental Army. He signed his enlistment papers with an “X,” suggesting that he’d never learned to write his name. During his three-and-a-half-year military career, he marched more than 1,000 miles. When he died at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780, he was buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten for nearly 250 years. Researchers excavated the boy’s remains in 2022. Now, they’ve discovered this young soldier’s identity: His name was Private John Pumphrey, and he was one of America’s oldest John Doe cases. “As far as we knew,...

It is an unchallengeable dogma of our post-9/11 civic faith that every Muslim in the United States, from the leaders of national Muslim organizations to the rank-and-file believers in the serried ranks of worshipers at mosques around the country, is a “moderate.” Everyone assumes that Muslims in the U.S. all reject terrorism and violence as a twisting and hijacking of their peaceful faith, and that only racist, bigoted “Islamophobes” would dare suggest that the gentle soul in the next cubicle at work or who runs the store down the street could possibly harbor anything but love for his non-Muslim neighbors....

PIKESVILLE, Md. — A massive crash involving a bus and 12 vehicles in Pikesville injured as many as 33 people and trapped two people in the wreckage, Baltimore County fire officials said. Officials said emergency crews were called around 5:48 p.m. Wednesday for a crash involving a Maryland Transit Administration bus and cars in the 1500 block of Reisterstown Road. Authorities declared a mass casualty incident for which 15 ambulances, Medevac helicopters and the Shock Trauma GoTeam responded to the scene. Officials said medical ambulance buses responded from Howard and Anne Arundel counties. Fire officials said one person was trapped...

Maryland is expanding its energy assistance programs, allowing for 200,000 households to receive help with their energy bills. Residents applying for energy assistance through DHS's Office of Home Energy Programs (OHEP) will see up to a 32% increase in their benefits. The new structure, which started on July 1, is designed to offset up to 55% of annual heating costs and up to 47% of electric bills for vulnerable households. The expansion was granted by the Maryland Department of Human Services (DHS). "In our region and across the country, the rising cost of energy has gotten out of control —...