Free Republic

COVID vaccines could be partly to blame for a rise in “unprecedented” excess deaths in the US and other Western countries in the three years since the pandemic took hold, a new study suggests. Analyzing mortality data from 47 Western countries, scientists from the Netherlands’ Vrije Universiteit found that excess mortality has “remained high” since 2020 — despite the widespread rollout of COVID vaccines and various containment measures. The researchers said the trend “raised serious concerns” as they urged government leaders and policymakers to “thoroughly investigate the underlying causes of persistent excess mortality,” according to the study published in BMJ...

Rex Heuermann, the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer, is now charged with two additional murders for the deaths of Sandra Costilla and Jessica Taylor, according to court records obtained by Newsweek. The charges mark now the fifth and sixth victims connected to Heuermann. District Attorney Raymond Tierney is asking for Heuermann's incarceration to remain without bail.

A 39-year-old man was arrested Monday morning for allegedly firing randomly at passing cars in Riverside County, killing a husband and father of four, authorities said. Deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department responded at 7:05 a.m. to the area of West Seventh Street and South San Jacinto Avenue to a report of a man shooting at passing vehicles, according to a sheriff’s department news release. Two people were found shot and multiple cars had been hit by gunfire; both victims were hospitalized and one died from his injuries, according to authorities. Julio Cesar Rodarte, a 39-year-old San Jacinto resident,...

A retired Nashville-area police officer alleges that a psychologist who treated [the] shoot[er] in the 2023 Covenant School massacre referred her to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center psychiatric department before the killings. The claim was made by Tuesday by retired Metro Nashville Police Department Lt. Garet Davidson. He said that shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, who took her own life on the day of the killings, was referred to the medical center for treatment after she had fantasies about violence, according to a report from the Tennessee Star.

NORTH OLMSTED, Ohio (WOIO) - The 3-year-old boy who was stabbed at the Giant Eagle Monday afternoon has died from his injuries, according to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner. He was identified as Julian Wood. The stabbing happened just after 3 p.m. in the grocery store parking lot on Lorain Road in North Olmsted. PREVIOUS STORY: 3-year-old, mother stabbed at North Olmsted Giant Eagle, police say The child’s mother, Margot Wood, 38, of North Olmsted, was also stabbed.

Israel believes more than a third of the remaining Gaza hostages are dead, a government tally showed Tuesday, as the United States sought to advance their recovery under a proposal to wind down the war with Hamas. Of about 250 people dragged into the Gaza Strip by Hamas-led Palestinian gunmen during the Oct. 7 cross-border rampage that sparked the war, scores were freed in a November truce, while others have been recovered – dead or alive – by Israeli troops. The government tally said 120 remain in captivity, 43 of whom have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli officials...

A prominent Samoan author and playright has been charged with murdering the aunt of Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman, according to multiple reports. Papalii Sia Figiel A prominent Samoan author and playright has been charged with murdering the aunt of Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman, according to multiple reports. Papalii Sia Figiel, 57, was arrested Sunday following the death in Samoa of 78-year-old Caroline Sinaviana-Gabbard, a retired former University of Hawaii professor. The victim was stabbed multiple times and beaten with a hammer, local reports said, citing police. Samoa is a country located in the South...

<p>Chad Daybell was sentenced to death Saturday for the murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children in Idaho.</p><p>The sentence was handed down after an Idaho jury unanimously agreed that imposing the death penalty would be a just resolution to the triple-murder case. The sentence marks the end of a grim investigation that began with a search for two missing children in 2019. The next year their bodies were found buried in Daybell’s eastern Idaho yard.</p>

George Washington University class-action settlement for COVID shutdown approved with more money for students, less for lawyers. Mere "overlap between a religious and political view" doesn't negate Title VII’s religious protections, 8th Circuit says.. If COVID-19 litigation were like the virus itself, George Washington University cleared its infection with a pricey therapeutic, the Mayo Clinic's infection rebounded, and Rutgers University faces an unusually virulent strain that could spread far and wide. A federal judge gave final approval to the $5.4 million class-action settlement submitted by GWU students and the private university blocks from the White House, in a tuition-refund lawsuit...

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Samoan police have charged a prominent playwright with the murder of retired UH professor Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s aunt. Police say Samoan playwright Papalii Sia Figiel, 57, was charged with the murder at her home. She was initially arrested on manslaughter charges, but police upgraded the charge after finding “incriminating” evidence, including a small knife and hammer. A motive is still under investigation. Media outlets report the two women were colleagues and friends, and that Gabbard was Figiel’s mentor.

The use of DNA to arrest Bryan Kohberger for the murder of four college students in Idaho reminds me that it's time to bring the death penalty back in a big way. Notwithstanding the absence of a single example, the possibility of executing the "wrong man" has been the left's main line against the death penalty for decades. It's the only argument that has ever lessened Americans' support for capital punishment. Well, guess what? Thanks to the miracle of DNA, now there's no risk! The murderer can usually be identified with greater than 99.99% accuracy. Good news, right? Nope! As...

Remains were discovered at a dump site near St. John’s in 2001The man who became known as Conception Bay John Doe after his severed head was found buried in a dump site 23 years ago has been identified by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary as a Cuban who came to Canada on a tourist visa, The Fifth Estate has learned. Temistocle Casas was identified through genetic genealogy that led investigators to his first cousin, police said. RNC Const. Greg Davis said he will never forget the moment he learned Casas's name and saw his photo for the first time. "Surreal I...

On this date in 1994, an uncooperative Charles Rodman Campbell was lashed to a board to keep him upright, and hanged by the neck until dead at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. According to this Seattle Times timeline of his life and crimes, Campbell had been getting in trouble since he was a child, to the extent that by the time he was seventeen his mother had given up on him and never wanted him back home again. His crimes began with burglary and drug use but quickly escalated into violence. True crime author Ann Rule wrote a...

MIAMI — A Florida appeals court has overturned the murder conviction for a former FBI agent linked to mobster Whitey Bulger. The 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that former agent John Connolly was improperly convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison for his role in the 1982 slaying of a gambling executive. A hit man testified that he killed World Jai-Alai President John Callahan after ex-agent Connolly tipped Bulger and others that the executive would implicate them in another death. In the court's new ruling, a panel of judges determined in a 2-1 vote that Connolly's second-degree...

There’s no way in hell they shouldn’t tell all’.. The FBI is closing the book on the agency’s “corrupt” handling of James “Whitey” Bulger — forever. The feds are refusing to make any further installments of Bulger’s case file public, saying the records are “investigative” and no longer subject to the Freedom of Information Act. “The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. Therefore, your request is being administratively closed,”...

ATF agents cut off the electricity to Bryan Malinowski's Little Rock home before executing their search warrant March 19. None of the agents wore body cameras, and they covered Malinowski's doorbell camera with tape to hide their actions. Fifty-seven seconds after kicking down the front door, Malinowski was fatally shot in the head. His wife, Maer Malinowski, was pulled out of her home wearing only bedclothes and forced into the back of a squad car, where she was held against her will for four hours in 34-degree weather, despite her frequent pleas to check on her dying husband. "If that...

Dr. Masanori Fukushima has called on the World Health Organization to lead an investigation of the harmful outcomes of the COVID shots.

Federal investigators alleged Malinowski violated federal gun laws by operating as a firearm seller without the proper licensing, a Federal Firearms License, or FFL. Arkansas Attorney Bud Cummins, who is representing the family of Bryan Malinowski who was killed by ATF agents in a raid, suggested Tuesday that the raid might have occurred to support a new gun regulation from President Joe Biden. "As bad as that story I just told is, it's even worse if it's politically motivated," Cummins said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "The gun show loophole, that's what gun control people call...

A Colorado university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal court has ruled. The Sept. 1, 2021, mandate “clearly violates the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause as interpreted by our precedents,” a majority of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit said in the May 7 decision. While the mandate was later updated, the newer version also violates the Constitution, the judges said. The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in 2021 required COVID-19 vaccination of all students and employees. It initially offered religious exemptions to anyone who checked a box, but later said...

These figures are a rough estimate of the death of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad. Africa Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the forced march.[Woman’s...