Free Republic

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...

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Tuesday removed a hurdle to the construction of a natural-gas pipeline through Pennsylvania and New Jersey, ruling the pipeline developer could invoke the power of the federal government to take state property needed for the project. The court, in a 5-4 opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, rejected New Jersey’s challenge to the actions of the PennEast Pipeline Co., a joint venture of several energy companies that aims to build a 116-mile interstate pipeline. Joining the chief justice were two fellow conservatives, Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, and two liberals, Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia...