Free Republic

AUSTIN, Tex. — A grand jury indicted Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts on Friday, charging that he abused his power last year when he tried to pressure the district attorney here, a Democrat, to step down by threatening to cut off state financing to her office. The indictment left Mr. Perry, a Republican, the first Texas governor in nearly 100 years to face criminal charges and presented a major roadblock to his presidential ambitions at the very time that he had been showing signs of making a comeback. Grand jurors in Travis County charged Mr. Perry with abusing...

[...] Fletcher, 34, was abducted on her regular 4 a.m. jog Friday after stalked by Cleotha Abston, who’d waited for her to run past him, the police affidavit alleged. She had run from her home in the fancy Central Gardens neighborhood to a nice area near the University of Memphis campus. Court records show Abston, 38, is a previously convicted kidnapper: he pleaded guilty to especially aggravated kidnapping and robbery in 2001. He was sentenced to 24 years and 11 years in prison respectively, although it is unclear how long he remained incarcerated and if he served his sentences concurrently....

When Border Patrol radios crackled with a request for aid from local Uvalde police on Tuesday, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Agents often act as first responders to emergencies in their communities. The alert on Tuesday, however, was horrific: a gunman had entered Robb Elementary School. Customs and Border Protection agents were among the first to respond to the mass shooting, in which at least nineteen children and two teachers were killed. That response speaks to the outsized role CBP has in small towns near the border, like Uvalde. A CBP official told Texas Monthly that as emergency...

Greitens released a written statement Tuesday after her ex-husband, former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, alleged she had been working with his political enemies to undermine his campaign for U.S. Senate. The accusations are included in a sworn affidavit she filed as part of an ongoing child custody dispute. “I stand by my sworn statements,” she said. “I did not discuss the contents of my affidavit with anyone other than my counsel and, after the affidavit was filed, my immediate family.” Her only interest, she wrote, was “what’s best for my two children, and for the last four years, I have...

1:06:13 AM MDTOfficers advise all the bars are shut down in the vicinity.1:01:34 AM MDTCitizen users have shared video of the scene.1:00:26 AM MDTOfficers are canvassing for additional possible gunshot wound victims.12:59:01 AM MDTWitnesses report a suspect and another person fired shots at one another.12:57:17 AM MDTThere are additional gunshot wound victims at the hospital that were transported by personal vehicle, according to officers which brings the total to 16.12:55:51 AM MDTOfficers have updated the total of gunshot wound victims to 10.12:50:50 AM MDTThere may be another gunshot wound victim.12:50:01 AM MDTPolice are searching for a man wanted in the...

He summarized that witnesses told APD a vehicle began honking its horn as it turned south onto Congress Avenue from 4th Street. He said the vehicle stopped “as there were a large number of people in the roadway.” Manley said that Foster, who was holding an AK47-type assault rifle, approached the driver side window of this car as others in the crowd began striking the car. “Gunshots were fired from inside the vehicle at Mr. Foster,” Manley said. “During the initial investigation of this incident, it appears Mr. Foster may have pointed his rifle at the driver of this vehicle...

The worst outbreak of coronavirus in Europe has spurred the U.S. government to issue the highest level of warning Sunday to the two Italian regions hardest hit by the virus. The State Department updated its travel advisory to its highest level -- Level 4 -- urging Americans, "Do Not Travel" to the Lombard and Veneto regions in northern Italy. The travel advisory cited quarantines set up in 10 Lombard towns and one in Veneto, with a combined population of 50,000 people, as well as "the level of community transmission of the virus" Sunday's message comes after an earlier warning late...

About 4,515 cases of the illness have been recorded across the country, including almost 1,000 people in critical condition, according to state media. Though the number of cases appears to have risen quickly, from 2,887 on Monday, this was likely to be due to better reporting, and the numbers remain small compared with the population.

AUSTIN — Cody Wilson, the Austin man who owns controversial 3D-printed gun company Defense Distributed, has been accused of sexually assaulting a child, an affidavit obtained by KVUE reveals. During a forensic interview with the Center with Child Protection on Aug. 27, the victim told counselors she met Wilson through the website, SugarDaddyMeet.com. Court documents show Wilson used the profile, "Sanjuro," and told the victim that he was a "big deal." During the conversation, he also identified himself as "Cody Wilson." Police said the two exchanged cell phone numbers and continued their conversations using the Apple iMessage service on her...

President Trump said on Tuesday that his choice for drug czar is dropping out of consideration after reports that the nominee pushed legislation that undermined efforts to combat the opioid epidemic in the United States. In a Twitter post on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump said that Representative Tom Marino “is withdrawing his name” for the White House job of director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He said Mr. Marino, a Republican from Pennsylvania, was a “fine man and a great Congressman!” Mr. Trump was asked about the future of Mr. Marino’s post on Monday after a joint...

I have Trump supporting kids in a blue state at a blue school that feel very alone. If you have Trump kids, help them speak up, and have them vote in this poll. http://www.nick.com/kids-pick-the-president/

(Google Translation)With the start of operations in Syria began an active information war against Russia. As our country should act in these circumstances? - I would not attach any special significance. We must be prepared for such an attack. Although neither Russian nor American nor European politicians do not like to talk, and carefully avoided the phrase "cold war", but we have a de facto live in a "cold war" with the United States. Not with Europe, and it is with America. Some of its manifestations could be seen in 2008 in South Ossetia, and then during a sharp aggravation...

Missing Santa Cruz girl was raped and strangled, sources say SANTA CRUZ (KRON) — Sources say that the 8-year-old girl who vanished from her Santa Cruz apartment complex Sunday night was raped and strangled before her body was found inside a dumpster. Madyson Middleton’s body was discovered inside of a dumpster at the Tannery Arts Center by one of the department’s detectives Monday night. Police are not sure how long the body was inside the dumpster. [...] Initial reports of Middleton’s disappearance were received at 6:08 p.m. Sunday night, police said. Surveillance video captured footage of the girl riding her...

The search for Malaysian Airlines MH307 plane has been expanded to Sumatran waters, north of Straits of Malacca, as military radar may have detected the missing plane in the vicinity of Pulau Perak. A Berita Harian report today quoted the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) as saying the plane may have reversed course further than expected while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Air Force chief Rodzali Daud ( left ) is quoted as saying that based on military radar readings from its station in Butterworth, MH370 may have turned west after Kota Bahru and flew past the...

The Department of Defense welcomes the Supreme Court's decision today on the Defense of Marriage Act. The department will immediately begin the process of implementing the Supreme Court's decision in consultation with the Department of Justice and other executive branch agencies. The Department of Defense intends to make the same benefits available to all military spouses -- regardless of sexual orientation -- as soon as possible. That is now the law and it is the right thing to do. Every person who serves our nation in uniform stepped forward with courage and commitment. All that matters is their patriotism, their...

During the dot-com boom, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital investment firm, all but minted money, making prescient early investments in Netscape Communications, Amazon.com and Google and delivering astonishing returns to investors. Along the way, it became a symbol of Silicon Valley. But the firm has hit a rough patch over the last decade, frustrated by unsuccessful forays into clean technology and by a catch-up effort to take later-stage stakes in social media companies. Kleiner has held a series of status-report meetings with its outside investors this year, acknowledging that recent fund performance “wasn’t great,” one attendee said....

Rep. David Schweikert has been removed from his seat on the House Financial Services Committee, and aides to the Arizona Republican claim the move was retaliation for voting against House GOP leaders too often. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other top Republicans were huddled in a Steering Committee meeting on Monday. That panel, which is controlled in large part by Boehner, decides who sits on the various House committees. “This morning Congressman Schweikert learned there was a price to be paid for voting based on principle. That price was the removal from the House Financial Services Committee,” said Rachel Semmel,...

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — When you head down to the beach for a little fun this summer, county officials want you to leave the pigskin at home. The Board of Supervisors this week agreed to raise fines to up to $1,000 for anyone who throws a football or a Frisbee on any beach in Los Angeles County. In passing the 37-page ordinance on Tuesday, officials sought to outline responsibilities for law enforcement and other public agencies while also providing clarification on beach-goer activities that could potentially disrupt or even injure the public. The updated rules now prohibit “any person to...

There are moral absolutes in life, and one of them is this: If a man comes across a child rape in process, he should do whatever he can to stop the rape and protect the child. There should be no reasonable debate about this, and the relevant question is not whether that standard is correct but whether we have the individual courage to meet that standard. Those two sentences should be among the least controversial ever written in the pages of NRO. Indeed, there should be no need to even write them, but in the aftermath of my Friday posting...

A fellow skeptic (President of the Granite State Skeptics Travis Roy) recently posted a request on the Skeptoid mailing list regarding an image that has been making the rounds on Facebook. The image is an aerial shot of a supposedly huge turnout for the Occupy Wall St protest against corruption and greed. What appears to be thousands of protesters clog the streets of New York near the City Hall, with a caption stating: Occupy Wall Street Turnout: My TV says nothing. The only thing I hear is its [sic] a small 100 person turn out. Turn off your TV. Ask...