Free Republic

The European Space Agency has officially terminated cooperation with Russia on a mission to put a rover on Mars, with Russia’s space chief furiously responding by banning cosmonauts on the ISS from using a Europe-made robotic arm. The ESA had previously suspended ties on the joint ExoMars mission, which had planned to use Russian rockets to put Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover on the red planet to drill for signs of life, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ESA Director-General Josef Aschbacher tweeted on Tuesday that because the war and resulting sanctions “continue to prevail”, the agency would “officially terminate” ties...

CHICAGO - The reputed mob boss known as "Joey the Clown" lived up to his nickname Tuesday, making wisecracks in court as he pleaded not guilty to conspiring in the slayings of 18 people. "Joey," whose real name is Joseph Lombardo, had spent nine months on the lam from federal agents before the hearing. Federal Judge James B. Zagel asked if he had seen a doctor lately. "I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was — what do they call it? — I was unavailable," rasped Lombardo, who appeared in an orange prison jumpsuit and leg...

CHICAGO - A reputed mob enforcer who has been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since federal prosecutors unsealed racketeering-murder charges against the alleged top echelon of the Chicago underworld was arrested Friday, the FBI announced. Frank "The German" Schweihs, 75, was captured without incident when agents swooped down on an apartment he had recently rented in Berea, Ky., a hilly area 40 miles south of Lexington. Schweihs was one of two defendants who slipped away just before federal prosecutors in April unveiled the long-sealed indictment against reputed Chicago mob boss James Marcello and 13 others in the FBI's Operation...

A Columbia College student took this photo of reputed mob boss Joseph "the Clown" Lombardo-- without knowing who he was--for a school project just over a year ago. The dapper old man on the bicycle looked pretty classy, so Columbia College student Val Carpenter pulled over and asked if she could take his photograph for her class project. "He said sure, he struck a pose--he actually posed," Carpenter, 42, said Tuesday, shortly after she realized the photo she took along Grand Avenue about a year ago was apparently reputed Chicago mob boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo. The feds wish...