Free Republic

A federal court dismissed a case Tuesday against Republican Iowa Gov. Kimberly Reynolds’ prohibition of mask mandate in school districts across the state, official documents showed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found “persuasive” the argument that “the general risks associated with COVID-19, even though COVID-19 remains an ever-present concern in society, are not enough to show ‘imminent and substantial’ harm,” court papers showed in part. The court also decided that “because Plaintiffs have only alleged the potential risk of severe illness should they contract COVID-19 at school, the risk of harm is too speculative to satisfy...

Dylann Roof, the white gunman who killed nine black people in the 2015 Charleston church massacre, is one step closer to execution after a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled he’s eligible to receive the death penalty. “His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty that a just society can impose,” a three-judge panel for the Richmond-based Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote, according to The State newspaper. Roof was convicted in 2017 of slaughtering nine parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston after planning the attack for months in an effort to start a race war in the...