Free Republic

Vladimir Putin’s presidential plane left Moscow early Saturday, sparking rumors that he had fled the Russian capital as the Wagner Group’s mercenary forces advanced on the city. The president’s aircraft was spotted on flight radar flying northwest from Moscow to the St Petersburg area — but then disappeared from the system near the city of Tver, the BBC reported, where Putin owns a large rural retreat. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that his boss had turned tail amid the crisis, telling news agency TASS that he was “working in the Kremlin.”

A true crime fan who runs an online account called Checkit TV said he found a laptop and other items belonging to 16-year-old Kiely Rodni in the California lake where her body was found submerged in her car last month. The sleuth, who does not make his name public, claims to have made the discovery while out rowing in the reservoir and dived down to retrieve the items, The Sun reported. The other objects included a duffel bag, hairbrush, charge cord, and gift box. Rodni, an honors student, went missing just after midnight on Aug. 6 after a rowdy end-of-school...

A beautiful jewelry designer who criss-crossed Europe for 10 years was actually a Russian spy who infiltrated NATO by charming and seducing commanders. She was known as Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera but her real name was Olga Kolobova, and she was a spy working on behalf of Russia’s GRU foreign intelligence service, according to the investigative site Bellingcat, which used photo-matching software to out her. Rivera took up residence in Rome, Malta and Paris before making Naples, Italy, her home base. She owned a jewelry boutique and talked her way into the city’s international party scene, including soirees and balls...

Ben Affleck tried to sell his sprawling Greek Revival “imitation” plantation — the site of his elaborate wedding to Jennifer Lopez Saturday — three years after revelations surfaced that one of his ancestors was a slave-owning Georgia sheriff. In 2015, the Hollywood actor tried to suppress details about Benjamin Cole, a relative on his mother’s side who owned several slaves in Chatham County, near his 87-acre Hampton Island property. Affleck purchased the property in 2003, according to reports. The revelations about Cole were made on PBS’s “Finding Your Roots” hosted by Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Affleck put...

A day after a career criminal was arrested in the fatal shooting of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant at the lavish Beverly Hills home she shared with her husband Clarence, a 90-year-old music producer inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, her family issued a statement that read in part, “Now, let justice be served.” But in Los Angeles, where left-wing lawmakers and activists have pushed a litany of progressive reforms that help violent criminals spend less-time behind bars, justice is not only fleeting — it’s twisted, critics say.

Cher might want to turn back time after getting roasted on Twitter Friday night when she said she was watching the Derek Chauvin murder trial and wondering if she could have helped George Floyd had she been in Minneapolis at the time. “Was talking With Mom & She Said ‘I Watched Trial Of Policeman Who Killed George Floyd,& Cried,'” Cher tweeted. “I Said ‘Mom,I Know This Is Gonna Sound CRAZY,But.. I Kept Thinking …..Maybe If I’d Been There,…I Could’ve Helped.” The 74-year-old singer took heat from many sides, accusing her of being a “white savior” and making the death of...

Scientists are preparing for a potential close encounter of the viral kind. Researchers say that when humans return from a planned visit to Mars in the 2030s, they’ll have to quarantine because rock samples from the Red Planet could be as dangerous as Ebola — even if the likelihood they are is low. Rockets returning from Mars will have to undergo a chemical cleaning involving intense heat as well.

Kim Jong Un is rumored to be dead, according to a Hong Kong broadcast network, while a Japanese magazine is reporting that North Korea’s rocket man is in a “vegetative state” after he underwent heart surgery earlier this month.

What if the biggest mystery surrounding Col. Moammar Gadhafi had nothing to do with his long, brutal reign as the world's most eccentric and violent leader turned pariah? And what if a long-lost letter from a Catholic cardinal who knew Gadhafi's true identity was evidence that could have solved the mystery? To many Libyan people, the biggest question mark about Gadhafi does not involve his repressive and dictatorial rule, delusional statements or brazen lies. Behind closed doors, for years, they've wondered if he is Jewish. Last week the issue came out in the open, as NBC's Richard Engel reported from...