Free Republic

A democratic socialist candidate running her first political campaign is expected to become the next mayor of Buffalo, New York, after a stunning primary upset over the city's longest-serving mayor. India Walton, 38, would be Buffalo's first female mayor and the first socialist mayor of a major American city in six decades. The Associated Press on Wednesday morning called the Democratic primary for Walton, a nurse and activist who was supported by the Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party. Walton defeated Byron Brown, the incumbent who has led the city since 2006. … She said in a...

An off-duty New Jersey state trooper chased after three unarmed teenagers and shot at them early Sunday after they accidentally knocked on his door, officials said Wednesday. Trooper Kissinger Barreau told investigators he believed the teens were trying to break into his Sparta home, CBS New York reported. Police said they are investigating the shooting, but Barreau remains on active duty and hasn’t faced any charges. One of the teens, 18-year-old Jesse Barkhorn, said he and his friends were dropping people off after a party Sunday. They mistakenly knocked on the trooper’s door, having mistaken it for a friend's house,...

The little girl got dragged through her neighborhood in Farmington as she gripped onto the driver’s side running board, screaming and banging on the car window, KARE reported. She eventually jumped off the car and fell into the road as her mom, 46-year-old Rena Mae Giancherio, drove away last Monday. “I went over to check on (the girl) and her knees are all cut up,” neighbor Terry Heller told the station. “She’s on the curb just crying and the mom is already gone, just drove off, she didn’t stop or look down.” The girl injured her foot from the fall,...

NAACP leader of Washington state chapter lied about being black, parents say BY JASON SILVERSTEIN An NAACP leader and prominent civil rights activist in Washington state has been pretending to be black for years, her parents told local media Thursday. Rachel Dolezal, who heads Spokane’s NAACP chapter and teaches Africana studies at Eastern Washington University, refused to directly answers any questions about her alleged racial ruse after it was reported. A KXLY reporter bluntly asked her, “Are you African-American?” After a stunned pause, she replied: "“I don’t understand the question."

ISIS appears to declare war on controversial blogger Pamela Geller on Tuesday in an ominous online message claiming it has fighters across America ready to attack "any target we desire." The threat, posted on anonymous message board JustPasteIt, singles out Geller, who helped plan a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that was attacked by two gunmen in Garland, Texas, over the weekend. ISIS claimed responsibility for the shooting early Tuesday, marking the first time the terror group called an American attack one of its own, though lawmakers believe the two men were influenced by the group, not guided directly by it.

Full Title: ISIS seems to threaten anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller in message boasting of ‘71 trained soldiers in 15 different states’ ISIS appears to declare war on anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller on Tuesday in an ominous online message claiming it has fighters across America ready to attack "any target we desire." The threat, posted on anonymous message board JustPasteIt, singles out Geller, who helped plan a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that was attacked by two gunmen in Garland, Texas, over the weekend. ISIS claimed responsibility for the shooting early Tuesday, marking the first time the terror group called an American...

A security video showing a mob of students brutally beating two high schoolers in a Philadelphia subway station on Tuesday is being investigated by the city’s transportation officers. “It’s an outrageous event. This is so dangerous, it’s not even funny,” Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Police Chief Thomas J. Nestel III told Philly.com. “We have operating trains down there. There are passengers waiting for the train ... it’s horrendous.” The video, which was time-stamped around 3:15 p.m., shows about a dozen teenagers either participating in a one-minute assault on two male students, or cheering it on. One of the assailants falls...

Officers in Framingham, Mass. swarmed a home Tuesday morning with guns drawn, shouted for its residents to come out, searched inside — and then realized the bust was a bust. This home was the latest victim of "swatting," a prank where an anonymous caller tricks police into sending a heavy presence to a quiet home that has no crime happening inside. In this case, Framingham resident Irandi Waighe and her 96-year-old mother-in-law — who is a double amputee in a wheelchair — were the ones awakened to a false alarm. The call came in around 8 a.m. from a blocked...

He's the hero Baltimore deserves — and, for better or worse, the one it needs right now. A man built like a brick house, wearing a surgical mask and wielding a machete, has been dubbed the "Baltimore Batman" for taking justice into his own hands when chaos came over Baltimore during protests over the death of Freddie Gray. Brian Woodyard — who has the same initials as Bruce Wayne — said he'd warded off dozens of rioters from The Old Clubhouse, a bar where he works, fittingly, as a bouncer.

Konstantin Sivkov has previously spoken about expecting to see American society "decay" and has elaborate plans for how that could happen.What would happen if the Russians tried to launch nuclear bombs onto American soil, aiming to trigger a giant tsunami or the eruption of a supervolcano? That was precisely the plan one Russian military analyst laid out to combat the West, and it's fit for a Superman comic book or an Eisnehower-era James Bond caper. "The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States — a country just disappears," Konstantin Sivkov, director of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems in Moscow,...

George Zimmerman's Twitter trolling has reached a new low. Days after retweeting an image of Trayvon Martin's corpse, Zimmerman went on a depraved Twitter tirade Monday afternoon, spewing racist rants and boasting about "mocking all you trolls." The man who shot and killed Martin three years ago also gave out an apparent stranger's phone number, referring "all media inquiries" to the unsuspecting man.

California mother gunned down in front of 12-year-old son after chuckling at stranger on the road: cops BY JASON SILVERSTEIN She chuckled, then she got killed. A California mother innocently laughed at a stranger on the road moments before the man shot her and her 12-year-old son, killing the woman, police said. "It appears to be random or misguided," Lt. Dave Coleman told the Daily Breeze about the cold-blooded killing. Denise Chiffon Berry, 44, was driving in Hawthorne Wednesday afternoon with her son when the boy made eye contact with three men driving by in a Cadillac, police said. The...