Free Republic

An appeals court overturned the conviction of a disgraced former UCLA gynecologist serving 11 years in prison for sexually abusing patients, after determining the trial judge failed to disclose that jurors had concerns that one of their own barely spoke English. James Heaps, 69, will be retried on the charges involving the two patients he was convicted of abusing in 2022, a three-judge panel of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported. John Manly, who represented more than 200 former Heaps patients in a lawsuit that resulted in a $243.6 million settlement,...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A federal judge has ordered a temporary restraining order restricting the ability of federal agents at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Portland from using tear gas and other chemical munitions at people unless there is an imminent threat of physical harm, according to court documents filed on Tuesday afternoon.“In a well-functioning constitutional democratic republic, free speech, courageous newsgathering, and nonviolent protest are all permitted, respected, and even celebrated. In an authoritarian regime, that is not the case. Our nation is now at a crossroads,” U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon wrote.Meanwhile, U.S. Sen....

Police allowed anti-deportation activists to maintain a road blockade in Minneapolis, Minnesota, until Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Jorge Ventura was assaulted nearby. The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) on Monday cleared traffic cones and other debris that the mob used to direct traffic and deter Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles from Cedar Ave. News of the blockade first broke on Sunday, but it remained standing by Monday, when Ventura was harassed and shoved into a car by masked men for investigating it.

SIR Keir Starmer is one boat away from claiming Britain’s worst-ever small boats record. New figures show 65,703 migrants have arrived on his watch in just 19 months. That puts him within touching distance of Boris Johnson’s 65,811 tally, which took the ex-PM three years to reach. Crossings in 2025 alone hit 41,474, with another 23,242 pouring in as Labour took power. Monday’s crossing saw 56 migrants reach Britain – the first arrival since January 19, when 275 made the journey. Only 933 crossed last month, the lowest January figure in five years, but Storm Chandra and brutal winter seas...

Church and government officials in Italy have launched an investigation into claims that the face of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was painted on an angel during the restoration of a fresco in Rome. Italy's culture ministry has sent officers to inspect the artwork in a chapel of the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina, while the Diocese of Rome expressed its "disappointment" and said it would determine who had been responsible. The artist, Bruno Valentinetti, said he had simply restored the fresco he painted in 2000 and denied modelling the angel after the prime minister. Meloni responded in a post...

A new poll shows 76% of Greenlanders say they wouldn’t benefit from becoming part of the U.S., noting their concerns about exchanging the Danish welfare system for American healthcare, elder care and education. Only 3% of Greenlanders had a “very positive” view of U.S. government-provided benefits, while 59% held a mainly or very negative view of it, the poll shows. The U.S. has some of the highest healthcare costs in the world. In a new survey conducted by Verian in Denmark for Berlingske and Sermitsiaq, Greenlanders are asked: "Do you want Greenland to leave Denmark and become part of the...

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned on Tuesday that Moscow would take "military and technical compensatory measures" if the United States deploys elements of its proposed "Golden Dome" missile defense system on the Arctic island. Ryabkov made the remarks during a briefing at the Russian Embassy in China. His remarks came as US President Donald Trump seeks to assert greater control over Greenland, the semi-autonomous Danish territory, and advances plans to deploy the "Golden Dome" missile defense system — a multibillion-dollar project he says will be operational before his term ends in 2029. ...His controversial plan comes as the...

Federal and local authorities have uncovered what they allege was an illegal biological laboratory operating inside a Las Vegas home owned by a Chinese national. Newly released footage from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shows a dramatic hazmat response as agents hauled bags of medical tubing, vials and containers filled with unknown liquids from the suburban property. During a press briefing on Monday, LVMPD Sheriff Kevin McMahill revealed investigators discovered a 'significant volume of material' stored in refrigerators and freezers throughout the home, including vials and containers holding liquids of varying colors and compositions. Investigators also located 'pathogen-labeled containers'...

It’s the same dark money, with new signs. Anti-ICE protests in Minnesota may appear to be “grassroots” efforts organized by concerned citizens, but they’re really funded with megadonor money — some coming from China. A so-called “ICE Out” march drew an estimated 15,000 left-wing political activists to a frozen, snow-covered Minneapolis on Friday, with attendees chanting “ICE out now” and demanding an end to federal immigration enforcement in the city. Although framed as a spontaneous uprising of concerned, everyday people, the demonstration — like countless that have regularly metastasized during President Trump’s terms — featured a familiar cast of politically...

The leader of a Canadian separatist group pushing for independence for the province of Alberta said "the Trump administration shows Albertans far more respect than is shown to Albertans by the government in Ottawa." Jeffrey Rath, leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), made the comments in an interview with Canadian Television (CTV) on Sunday, when he was asked if he could understand how some may "view the idea of people here meeting with a government that has spoken the way it has about this country as a whole as problematic." Newsweek has contacted the APP, via email, for comment.

The House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion funding deal to end the four-day partial government shutdown Tuesday, sending it to President Trump’s desk for his expected signature. Lawmakers voted 217-214 to pass the compromise funding package, which cleared the Senate late Friday and keeps about 97% of the government operating through Sept. 30. Now Congress faces a 10-day scramble to negotiate a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security before its key agencies run out of cash Feb. 13, a timeline Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described as “an impossibility.” *** The GOP holdouts were mainly miffed...

On Monday Indiana lawmakers upgraded an immigration bill to require sheriffs to honor immigration detainers, require hospitals to identify illegal aliens using Medicaid, and penalize employers that hire illegal labor.State Rep. J.D. Prescott successfully amended Senate Bill 76 in committee Monday to incorporate key measures of a stronger enforcement bill he proposed in the House, known as the Fairness Act. The bill now goes to the full state House for a vote and then back to the Senate to accept the amendments.“The goal is to get this into a bill where the state of Indiana can partner with the Trump...

Libya's Saif al-Islam Gaddafi went from his notorious father's heir apparent to a decade of captivity and obscurity in a remote hill town before launching a presidential bid that helped derail an attempted election. He has been killed, sources close to the family, his lawyer Khaled el-Zaydi and Libyan media said on Tuesday. Details surrounding the circumstances of his death were not immediately clear. Despite holding no official position, he was once seen as the most powerful figure in the oil-rich North African country after his autocrat father Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled for more than four decades. Saif al-Islam shaped...

Up to 1,000 people have gone missing at sea and are feared dead after a huge storm ripped through the Mediterranean last month. The migrant-rescue non-governmental organisation (NGO) Mediterranea Saving Humans estimated the number based on testimonies from refugees in Libya and Tunisia. Huge waves and gale-force winds caused by Storm Harry battered the coast of southern Italy, parts of Spain and the island of Malta, two weeks ago. Now the NGO's president Laura Marmorale has described it as 'one of the biggest tragedies in recent years on the central Mediterranean route'. She accused the governments of Italy and Malta...

The head of the Minneapolis teachers union said in a recent interview that elected officials are involved in anti-ICE agitation in the city."The notion that people that are actively engaged in ICE watch, in being vigilant in protecting our neighbors, in Signal chat groups, running plates, in their cars doing patrols — that somehow we're ashamed of that activity, that somehow you can call our bosses and show our faces and then we would be shunned by our community..." Marcia Howard told Al Jazeera in an interview that aired last week.Howard is the president of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators,...

The ex-husband of former first lady Jill Biden has been charged with first-degree murder after the death of his wife. William Stevenson, 77, was indicted on Monday by a grand jury in New Castle County, Delaware, in connection with the death of 64-year-old Linda Stevenson last year. […] New Castle County Police said Stevenson was taken into custody at the home in Oak Hill without incident on Monday afternoon. He has since been arraigned and sent to the Howard Young Correction Institution in Wilmington, where he has been unable to pay a $500,000 (£365,207) cash bail. …

U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone that flew towards a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, U.S. Central Command confirmed. The military said the drone "aggressively" approached the USS Abraham Lincoln as it was crossing through the Arabian Sea roughly 500 miles from the southern coast of Iran and "unnecessarily maneuvered" toward the ship. U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said the drone continued to flew toward the carrier "despite de-escalatory measures taken by U.S. forces operating in international waters." The drone was shot down by a F-35 fighter jet, and no American service...

In Minneapolis a war is raging, and it’s no longer limited to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thanks to criminal indictments, the battlefront has moved from city streets to federal courts. At issue are two different rights, each guaranteed by the First Amendment: freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Two defendants invoke the former, while members of the church that was the target of protest invoke the latter. The star of this legal drama is former CNN anchor Don Lemon. On the morning of Jan. 18, according to prosecutors, Mr. Lemon joined 20 to 40 agitators in a “coordinated...

“You bring a gun into this district, count on going to jail, and hope you get the gun back.” Pirro said on Fox News Monday in part, adding, “I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else.” D.C. law requires firearm owners to register their weapons with local police and bars residents from registering certain semiautomatic rifles, effectively preventing civilian ownership of those models in the district, Axios reports.

In the garage, investigators found multiple refrigerators with vials of unknown liquids, unknown liquids in gallon-size containers, a centrifuge and other laboratory equipment, authorities said. In an open refrigerator and freezer, investigators saw a "significant volume of material," including vials and storage containers "with liquids of different colors and compositions," McMahill said. "The scene presented a high level of complexity with materials that have not yet been identified and still require careful assessment," McMahill said.