Free Republic

The world’s most powerful nation states are flirting with catastrophic conflict. Whether it is in Europe, Asia or the Middle East, for the first time since the 1960s we are facing a real possibility of nuclear confrontation. With nation states distracted, the threat of irreversible climate change also looms large. Global anxiety is feeding the growth of nationalist movements, emboldened by the drum beat of populism. Anti-immigrant and anti-establishment parties are capitalizing on public disquiet, gaining footholds in political systems across the planet. But as alarming as all this sounds, there are opportunities to head off potential disaster. One of...

Last week, I wrote an article titled The Ferguson Effect: Baltimore Millennials’ Worst Nightmare. The Ferguson Effect is a theory where the increased scrutiny of police post 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Trayvon Martin in Florida will lead to higher crime rates. Baltimore is turning this theory into a reality, as the city descends into chaos before summer start. According to The Baltimore Sun Newspaper, the city has logged in 118 homicides today with the projection of >400 murders for year’s end. It’s so bad here that Baltimore’s Mayor has asked the Federal Government for help...

The bid by Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis for mayor — even if she loses — is the best thing to happen to New York Republicans in a long time. While President Trump and national Republicans continue a misguided campaign to intimidate immigrants and strip funding from cities, local party leaders have been trying to present a different face of Republicanism to a voting public growing younger and more diverse every day. Malliotakis fits the bill. She is the daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Greece, and at age 36 counts as a millennial, winning acclaim in 2013 as one of the...

Doctors found bound, slain in luxury Boston condo, suspect captured after police shootout A couple found brutally slain in their high-rise Boston penthouse were identified on Saturday as respected doctors, police said. Cops reportedly found victims Richard Field, 49, and fiancée Lina Bolanos, 38, dead with their throats slashed inside a bloodied 11th floor apartment at 141 Dorchester Ave. around 8 p.m. Friday after a violent shootout with the couple’s suspected killer. The couple's hands were bound and their bodies mutilated, the Boston Globe reports, citing a source close to the investigation. Blood coated the wall, the paper added.

. . . The worst 1% of counties have 19% of the population and 37% of the murders. The worst 5% of counties contain 47% of the population and account for 68% of murders. As shown in figure 2, over half of murders occurred in only 2% of counties. Murders actually used to be even more concentrated. From 1977 to 2000, on average 73 percent of counties in any give year had zero murders. Possibly, this change is a result of the opioid epidemic’s spread to more rural areas. But that question is beyond the scope of this study. Lott’s...

ESPN “SC6” co-host Michael Smith had a strong reaction Tuesday to a group of Boston Red Sox fans using racial slurs towards Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones Monday night with one fan throwing peanuts at him.

John R. Lott, Jr. | Crime Prevention Research Center The Distribution of murders The United States can really be divided up into three types of places. Places where there are no murders, places where there are a few murders, and places where murders are very common. In 2014, the most recent year that a county level breakdown is available, 54% of counties (with 11% of the population) have no murders. 69% of counties have no more than one murder, and about 20% of the population. These counties account for only 4% of all murders in the country. The worst 1%...

Chicago Public Schools teacher Hector Sanchez brought 20 of his students to the May Day protest Monday across from the county juvenile detention center. The trip came as part of a "democracy in action" program for political science students at the Social Justice High School in Little Village, where they learn about government. In class, Sanchez taught students about lobbying Congress, but some wanted to know: "How do regular people lobby?" "This is part of that," Sanchez said as dozens of protesters holding signs gathered on an empty lot at Roosevelt Road and Ogden Avenue. Around the world, union members...

PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) - The annual 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade and Carnival scheduled for this weekend has been canceled due to "threats of violence," according to organizers. The parade, in what would have been its 11th year, is the first sanctioned event of the Portland Rose Festival. The event is put on by the 82nd Avenue of Roses Business Association in partnership with local businesses, neighbors and community groups. The goal is to "celebrate and promote the diverse community that lives, works and plays on 82nd Avenue." In a statement released Tuesday, the business association said, "Following threats of...

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday that New York City would offer free, full-day preschool to all 3-year-olds within four years, saying that he was building on the success of the city’s prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds and that it was time to go further.

Seven people were shot during a span of an hour Monday, a day that saw a total of three people fatally shot and 13 others wounded, police said. There were five double shootings including one in the city's Englewood neighborhood on the South Side that left a 19-year-old man dead. About 7:30 p.m., a 19-year-old man was fatally shot and a 17-year-old boy was wounded while they were walking(snip) The shooter got out of a black car and opened fire at the pair, police said. A 19-year-old man was shot in the chest,(snip) A minute after the shooting on Honore...

even people were killed and at least 31 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago between Friday evening and Monday morning. The violence brought the city’s toll to at least 980 people shot, 170 fatally, since the start of the year, according to Chicago Sun-Times data.

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans began the process of taking down Confederate statutes early Monday with the removal of the monument to the Battle at Liberty Place. The city became the latest Southern body to divorce itself from what some say are symbols of racism and intolerance but which opponents say are historic.

Three Seattle police officers were shot and wounded while trying to arrest robbery suspects in downtown Seattle on Thursday afternoon before one of the suspects barricaded himself in a nearby building where he was later found dead. A male officer, who was shot in the face, was initially listed in critical condition but was upgraded to serious condition. He remains in serious condition Friday morning. A female officer, whose Kevlar vest saved her from a life-threatening gunshot wound to the chest, was treated at a hospital and released. A third officer suffered a hand wound and was treated and released...

For the International Church of Cannabis in Denver, there were three reasons to celebrate on Thursday. First, it was opening day. The church, a more than century-old building recently adorned with brightly colored paintings by the artists Kenny Scharf and Okuda San Miguel, welcomed the public early in the afternoon, at which time no cannabis consumption was allowed inside. “It seemed to be a nice steady flow of people,” said Lee Molloy, a founder of the church and a member, who estimated that a couple of hundred people had come by.

Three people were shot to death and 11 other people were wounded in shootings since Tuesday morning, according to officials. A 22-year-old woman was shot dead about 11:35 p.m. in the 10700 block of South Indiana Avenue (snip) police found the woman on the sidewalk with gunshot wounds to her abdomen and left ankle. (snip) The double fatal shooting happened about 8:15 a.m. in the 5100 block of South Halsted Street. The woman, 22, and the man, 25, were sitting in a vehicle when two people stepped from another vehicle and started shooting,(snip) A 20-year-old man was shot in the...

Pedro Hernandez, the bodega clerk convicted for the 1979 murder of New York first-grader Etan Patz was sentenced on Tuesday to 25 years to life in prison, CNN reports. Hernandez, 56, was convicted of kidnapping and murder in February, nearly 40 years after the six-year-old disappeared on May 25, 1979. Etan left home to walk to a school bus stop and was not seen again. In the early 1980s, his photo appeared on milk cartons across the country, the first time the method was used to try to locate missing children. Hernandez was previously tried for the same charges in...

A tragic accident was made worse when a man was killed for being white. Jamie Urton was driving through Cincinnati when he accidentally struck a child with his car. The child’s father murdered Urton, with the help of an accomplice, but the two murderers told the passenger, “Get out of here, you’re black.” (via WLWT5)Deonte Baber and Jamall Killings are both facing murder charges for killing Urton. They did so after Killings’ 4-year-old son was accidentally struck by Urton’s vehicle. The murderers spared Urton’s passenger because he was black, proving that they killed Urton because he was white.Of course, the...

Four people were killed and 16 others hurt in a series of shootings that plagued Philadelphia over the warm Easter holiday weekend. "Summertime is coming, warm weather today, we get shootings that peak and valley during the warm weather," Philadelphia police Capt. Jamill Taylor said early Sunday at the scene of a homicide at 62nd Street and Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia.

Sacramento police issued 233 tickets for jaywalking last year in the police district that includes North Sacramento and Del Paso Heights – nearly triple the number handed out in the entire rest of the city. Black people received 111 of those citations, nearly 50 percent, but account for about 15 percent of the area’s residents. The equivalent of 12 citations were issued to every 1,000 black residents in District 2 last year, more than 5 times the issuance rate for non-blacks, city and census figures show. The citation numbers, released in response to a request by The Bee, drew outrage...