Free Republic

five facts about crime in the United States. 1. Violent crime in the U.S. has fallen sharply over the past quarter century. ... Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 51% between 1993 and 2018. Using the BJS data, the rate fell 71% during that span. ... 2. Property crime has declined significantly over the long term. ... FBI data shows that the rate fell by 54% between 1993 and 2018, while BJS reports a decline of 69% during that span. ... 3. Public perceptions about crime in the U.S. often don’t align with the data. Opinion surveys...

Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., died Thursday morning at Johns Hopkins Hospital from “complications concerning longstanding health challenges,” his office said in a statement. Cummings, 68, was the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and heavily involved in the impeachment inquiry. Cummings, of Baltimore, has not returned to work after an undisclosed medical procedure that he said would only keep him away for about a week. […] He missed two roll call votes Thursday, the first day back following a two-week recess. He previously released a statement saying he’d be back by the time the session resumed. The...

BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a sharecropper’s son who rose to become a civil rights champion and the powerful chairman of one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, died Thursday of complications from longstanding health problems. He was 68.

Elijah Cummings esteemed longtime Baltimore congressman died today 2019 10 17 at age 68.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a sharecropper’s son who rose to become the powerful chairman of a U.S. House committee that investigated President Donald Trump, died early Thursday of complications from longstanding health issues, his office said. He was 68.

Just announced. He was 68.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the powerful House Democrat who represented Baltimore for more than two decades and was a vocal critic of President Trump, died early Thursday after battling health problems, his office said in a statement. Cummings, who was 68, died at Gilchrist Hospice Care, a Johns Hopkins affiliate. As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, he was one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, and played a key role in the House Democrats' ongoing efforts to impeach Trump.

Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (MD-07) died early Thursday morning due to complications concerning longstanding health challenges, according to a statement from his office.

President Trump on Wednesday claimed in a series of tweets that it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not him, who suffered a “meltdown!” at an earlier White House meeting on Syria. Trump sent out three tweets with photos from the gathering, blasting Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, who stormed out of the meeting and claimed the president called Pelosi “a third-rate politician.” In the first photo shared by Trump, which focuses in on the two lawmakers, the president wrote, “The Do Nothing Democrats, Pelosi and Schumer stormed out of the Cabinet Room!”

President Trump on Wednesday blasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) following a heated meeting at the White House, questioning her mental fitness and commitment to the country. "Nancy Pelosi needs help fast! There is either something wrong with her 'upstairs,' or she just plain doesn’t like our great Country," Trump tweeted. "She had a total meltdown in the White House today," he continued. "It was very sad to watch. Pray for her, she is a very sick person!" Pelosi's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. SNIP

Speaker Pelosi: "I pray for the president all the time...I pray for his safety and that of his family. "Now we have to pray for his health—because this was a very serious meltdown." - ABC News https://www.mediaite.com/trump/pelosi-says-shes-praying-for-trumps-health-after-very-serious-meltdown/

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced at a news conference outside the White House on Wednesday that they had just walked out of a meeting with President Trump on Syria policy, after he apparently called Pelosi a "third-rate politician" and angrily suggested the Democrats probably appreciated communist Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take the case of a public school teacher who required her students to recite the Islamic "conversion prayer" or receive a failing grade. The Thomas More Law Center is defending Caleigh Wood, a Christian student in 11th grade at La Plata High School in La Plata, Maryland. Wood refused to deny her faith "by making a written profession of the Muslim conversion prayer known as the shahada – 'There is no god by allah and Muhammad is the messenger of allah,'" Thomas More said. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rebuffed an appeal from a Christian former high school student who argued coursework on Islam at her Maryland school violated her First Amendment rights. The dispute involves Caleigh Wood, a student at La Plata High School in Charles County, Maryland, who enrolled in a state-mandated World History course during the 2014-2015 school year. As part of the class, the then-junior was required to complete coursework on “The Muslim World,” in which she learned about Islam. Wood took issue with two parts of the class: a PowerPoint presentation that said most Muslims’ faith “is stronger than...

Natural gas developers in Pennsylvania are hoping a recent water quality report by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission could squelch plans for a fracking ban that’s currently being considered by the neighboring Delaware River Basin Commission. The SRBC’s Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network report, which was released last month, revealed that water quality scores at 14 of the 16 stations in the basin were in the “good” or “excellent” categories According to a fact sheet from the Susquehanna commission, the monitoring stations are located in areas where active drilling takes place, as well as areas free of development, in order...

President Trump is barreling toward a showdown with Congress over his decision to pull back U.S. troops in northern Syria despite widespread opposition. The announcement, which caught leadership and traditional GOP allies flatfooted, sparked a wave of condemnation, with Republicans calling it a “disaster in the making,” a “catastrophic mistake” and a “terrible decision.” Lawmakers are already weighing how to respond to Trump’s decision, setting the stage for a high-profile clash with Trump as soon as Congress returns from a two-week break on Monday. “Congress must and will act to limit the catastrophic impact of this decision,” said Rep. Liz...

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD — Maryland state lawmaker Tawanna Gaines, a Democrat from Prince George's County, has abruptly resigned after being suspected of using money she raised for her reelection campaign for personal use. She submitted her resignation to House Speaker Adrienne Jones on Friday, Oct. 4. She now faces a federal wire fraud charge. Gaines, 67, has served in the Maryland House of Delegates since 2001 and, according to the AP, defrauded her campaign and its contributors of more than $22,000 from at least January 2015 through April 2018. "After much thought and consideration, I have decided to submit...

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, Md. - Prince George’s County Council is replacing Columbus Day with Native American Day beginning in 2020. The council noted that Oct. 14, 2019 will be the county’s final official Columbus Day. The bill arrives on the heels of a similar measure passed by the D.C. Council, which voted Tuesday to rename the day traditionally reserved for Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day.