Free Republic

Christa Pike shouldn’t still be breathing. She survived two injections of lethal drugs in a harrowing failed execution by the state of Tennessee, raising questions about how the procedure was carried out and how it went wrong. Nearly 24 hours after Pike was set to be put to death for a murder she committed when she was 18, she remains in critical condition and is receiving care, her lawyers said Thursday afternoon. Her prognosis is unclear, said Randall Spivey, one of her lawyers. Neither he nor another lawyer, Stephen Ferrell, who spoke with reporters, said he had seen her in...

The economic damage from Russian strikes, resulting in lost sales, disrupted workdays and logistical snarls, is in the billions of dollars. The war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is expanding to encompass both countries’ economies. Military targeting officers are operating as economists in reverse. Increasingly, the objectives of missile and drone strikes are declining output, lost jobs and logistical bottlenecks. Ukrainian officials are calling the current Russian campaign “total war” for its focus on economic impact, rather than on narrower goals like battlefield gains or infrastructure damage. While Moscow has targeted commercial assets throughout the war, its assaults have...

Sal covers the reports of 8 marines wounded in an attack on a "non-US Navy" ship. W*T*H: Did the U.S. Military Turn a Civilian Freighter into an Armed Escort?

PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — A French Muslim apologetics group that actively opposes a Catholic revival has predicted that France could “become Catholic again” within a few generations, following the Pope’s enthusiastic reception in Paris. On September 25 the group Miséricorde pour l’Houmanité (“Mercy for Humanity”) published a message on X predicting that “France will become Catholic again” amid what it described as a growing Catholic revival, strengthened by American Catholic influence. The group lamented that such a revival could undermine Islam’s spiritual influence in Western Europe. “I am sad when I see all this excitement around Catholicism,” the group wrote. “I...

They asked for help, then locked the replies. "We are seeking assistance locating a lost firearm magazine. On September 26, 2026, an on-duty WRPS officer lost their Service-issued magazine from their ballistic vest. The magazine, which was loaded, is similar to the one pictured. The magazine is believed to have been lost in Woolwich or Wellesley Township. Anyone with information is asked to contact police" You'll be happy to know that they found the magazine, but didn't tell us where it was found, which was even more lame than locking the replies.

The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, which was disaffiliated by the national Libertarian Party earlier this year, said this week that it supports the “assassination of basically every elected Democrat” in the state, drawing condemnation from U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander and others. “We openly support the assassination of basically every elected Democrat in New Hampshire,” the organization posted on X Tuesday. “But if you don’t have the balls to do that then you should probably vote GOP.” The post garnered hundreds of comments and reposts by Wednesday morning and drew largely negative responses. Among the more prominent nationally-focused individuals criticizing...

CAVE CREEK, Ariz. - Matthew Ammel, the former bodyguard to ex-Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, is accused of entering her Cave Creek home while she was out of town and causing more than $200,000 in damage, according to a probable cause statement. What we know: According to court documents, the incident occurred Aug. 30, but Sinema did not report it to deputies until Sept. 3. Sinema told deputies Ammel demanded she post a video to her X account and threatened to damage her paintings every 10 minutes if she did not. The probable cause statement says Sinema did not post the...

Viewer video allegedly shows ICE agents entering a Meriden courthouse on Wednesday to make an arrest. A Connecticut law passed in November 2025 says ICE agents can no longer arrest people in public areas of state courthouses without a warrant or signed order. The video also shows the agents wearing face coverings, which violates state law, and judicial marshals assisting them as they ordered advocates and community members out of the courthouse. It later captured a man in handcuffs being escorted away from the area. ... “It is just baffling. We are not going to stand for it. We are...

Kara Swisher declared on the Tuesday episode of her Pivot podcast that she was leaving CNN as soon as legally possible following Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, getting a green light as blue states settled their lawsuit trying to block the deal. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) announced the settlement, which would allow the $111 billion mega-merger to proceed, sparking a bevy of anger on the left. David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, and his billionaire father Larry Ellison are seen as allies of President Donald Trump, who supported their takeover of CBS News...

Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom are both drawing low levels of enthusiasm for potential 2028 presidential bids, with the California governor holding a lead over Harris among the state’s Democratic voters. The September survey, conducted by the UC Berkeley Citrin Center and POLITICO, found that 37% of registered California voters said they would be excited about a Newsom presidential run, compared with 28% who said the same about Harris. The figures mark a substantial decline from the February-March survey, when 48% of registered voters said they were excited about a Newsom bid and 41% were excited about Harris entering the...

Just when staffers at CNN thought the news giant’s path to the future was becoming more clear, new fog has set in. In recent weeks, the Warner Bros. Discovery outlet appeared to have found its groove. Yes, its linear ratings are down noticeably from the era when it won notice for its aggressive coverage of President Trump’s first term, and there’s serious questions about whether they will ever come back. But the company appeared to be making some gains with digital audiences with its recently launched “CNN All Access” subscription service, where CNN has been testing new programming formats. On...

Donald Trump's visit to the UN General Assembly will not be televised by the major US broadcasters on Monday as they band together to boycott his ban on CNN and MS NOW. Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC, collectively known as the TV pool, are protesting the White House and have decided to not dispatch cameramen or reporters to cover the president on Monday. This means that Trump's trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Monday will go unaired on the major networks. Still, the conservative outlet Real America's Voice (RAV) will be on...

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said he would seek to keep his country out of any military conflict arising under NATO’s collective-defense clause, publicly questioning whether Slovakia should send thousands of troops to defend an ally. Speaking to students and hospital employees in the eastern city of Prešov, Fico criticized what he described as increasingly belligerent rhetoric among European leaders and asked whom Europe intended to fight. “For God’s sake, who do we want to fight? With whom?” Fico said during the event, as his Facebook page reposted. Fico did not identify Russia as a potential aggressor or source of...

The Trump administration is reportedly considering business deals with Russia before the war in Ukraine ends, marking a potential shift from Washington’s previous position that economic ties with Moscow should follow a peace agreement. The administration is weighing whether to conclude separate economic agreements with Moscow even without a broader settlement of the war, according to two people familiar with the talks cited by The New York Times. A US official told the newspaper that such deals could move forward because they would “show that the United States is serious about a reset relationship with Russia.” The administration also wants...

Leaks the past few months out of David Ellison‘s inner circle said the CEO would take his Paramount ball and leave California if state attorneys general didn’t back off on their antitrust suit to stop the $111 billion merger with Warner Bros Discovery. And now it looks like the ball really is in play. Paramount brass have told key officials and stakeholders the company is “deadly serious” about leaving California and the home of Hollywood after over 100 years, sources tell me. Among those told a deposit has been put on the moving trucks is L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and...

New photos obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal for the first time the widespread damage and destruction of buildings and vehicles at multiple U.S. positions across the Middle East, as a result of Iranian missile and drone attacks. The Defense Department's inspector general this week released a fresh report on the war in Iran that revealed "equipment losses" worth up to $3.7 billion — including nearly 60 aircraft. In a first-of-its-kind mandatory report to Congress, the inspector general added that U.S. Central Command reported Iranian strikes at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

An up-and-coming drill rapper was shot and killed in an ambush at a Chicago gas station — with shocking video showing the killers running up and firing dozens of shots into his Tesla. Bloodhound Q50, who had more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify, was shot and killed early Sunday — just weeks after he ominously told a vlogger that he knew he could be a target. Surveillance footage shows the 22-year-old rapper, real name Mikquale Cooper, strolling out of a BP gas station and into his white Tesla where his pregnant girlfriend was waiting, according to Fox 32....

The holdout juror who caused Lindsay Clancy’s mistrial has a history of alleged domestic violence such as grabbing his wife by the throat and punching his nephew, according to a report. The still-unnamed juror, only described as a black man in his 30s, faced a criminal charge in September 2021 for allegedly assaulting his wife, NBC10 Boston reported. A 13-year-old nephew of the man called 911, stating that his uncle grabbed his wife by the throat and threw her into a dresser, according to a police report obtained by the outlet. The juror’s own mom repeatedly screamed, “You’re evil!” as...

Multiple American military aircraft were damaged in Iranian strikes overnight Tuesday into Wednesday local time on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, people with direct knowledge of the matter told CBS News. One A-10 Thunderbolt, an attack aircraft known as the Warthog, was struck and lost a wing, the sources said. Roughly eight F-15s sustained light damage and were reportedly put back into service, according to the people familiar with the damage, who spoke to CBS News under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. No U.S. deaths have been reported in the strikes on...

Rafael Vela Gonzalez was a few steps away from the front door of his Silver Lake home when two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents grabbed him in early January. The 66-year-old, originally from El Salvador, had been in the U.S. since he was a teenager. ... He has spent nearly eight months in ICE detention ... The 81-year-old and Vela Gonzalez have been together for more than 30 years" ... Vela Gonzalez arrived in time to qualify for the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which provided nearly three million undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. He applied for...