Free Republic

The other day R. Bruce Dold, the great Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the Chicago Tribune, died. And our friend Cory Franklin wrote a beautiful column about Bruce. At the church there were many people there, people I knew, former colleagues at the Tribune who loved and respected Bruce. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were not there for Bruce alone, but that we also were mourning journalism itself. At least Chicago journalism, the Chicago newspapers. I’m not trying to redo Dr. Franklin’s great work about Bruce, but I did add an editor’s note explaining that while he...

UKHIYA, Bangladesh (AP) — In moments when she is alone, when there is a break in the beatings from her husband, the girl cries for the school that was once her place of peace in a world that has otherwise offered her none. Ever since the military in her homeland of Myanmar killed her father in 2017, forcing her to flee to neighboring Bangladesh with her mother and little sisters, the school had protected Hasina from the predators who prowl her refugee camp, home to 1.2 million members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority. One day in June, when Hasina was...

CHICAGO, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The windowless newsroom of The Phoenix, the Loyola University Chicago newspaper, hums like an old refrigerator. A coffee pot burbles in the corner as juniors Julia Pentasuglio and Ella Daugherty lean over a glowing laptop, updating a Google map. Each red pin marks a sighting of federal immigration agents near campus and the surrounding neighborhoods. Nearby, editor-in-chief Lilli Malone scrolls through reports from Rogers Park, a neighborhood along Chicago's lakefront where 80 languages mix. There were new pins from seven sightings that day alone - reports of vans barreling down side streets, masked immigration officers...

WASHINGTON (AP) — After the arrest of a man charged with placing two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties on Jan. 5, 2021, the warning from the Trump administration was clear: If you come to the nation’s capital to attack citizens and institutions of democracy, you will be held accountable. Yet Justice Department leaders who announced the arrest were silent about the violence that had taken place when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol and clashed with police one day after those bombs were discovered. It was the latest example of the...

When President Donald Trump suspended the refugee program on day one of his current administration, thousands of people around the world who had been so close to a new life in America found themselves abandoned. Many had already sold possessions or ended leases in preparation for travel. They had submitted reams of documents supporting their cases, been interviewed by U.S. officials and in many cases already had tickets to fly to America. As part of Trump’s crackdown on both legal and illegal migration, the Republican president has upended the decades-old refugee program that has served as a beacon for those...

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Pentagon, attempting to overturn new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that have led to most mainstream media outlets being banished from the building. The newspaper said the rules violate the Constitution’s freedom of speech and due process provisions, since they give Hegseth the power to determine on his own whether a reporter should be banned. Outlets such as the Times walked out of the Pentagon rather than agree to the rules as a condition for getting a press credential. During her briefing Tuesday, Pentagon...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce a proposal Wednesday to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks, according to several people familiar with the White House plans. The move would be the latest action by the Trump administration to reverse Biden-era policies that encouraged cleaner-running cars and trucks, including electric vehicles. Burning gasoline for vehicles is a major contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The Republican administration says the new rules would increase Americans’ access to the full range of gasoline vehicles...

The family of a Colombian fisherman who died in a U.S. military boat strike in September has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging the U.S. government illegally killed him. Alejandro Carranza was killed in a strike in the Caribbean on Sept. 15, according to the petition, filed on Tuesday. "From numerous news reports, we know that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza and the murder of all those on such boats," according to the petition. In the petition, Carranza's lawyer Dan...

NEW YORK (AP) — Cat Murphy, a college student, has wanted to be a journalist since she was 11. Many of her friends don’t understand why. When they engage with the news — if they do — they hear a cacophony of voices. They don’t know who to believe. Reporters are biased. They make mistakes. Besides, why would you hitch your future to a dying industry? “There is a lot of commentary — ‘Oh, good for you. Look what you’re walking into. You’re going to be screaming into the void. You’re going to be useless,’” said Murphy, a 21-year-old graduate...

As climate change threatens our planet, AP climate choices reporter Caleigh Wells is explaining what readers can do. Here’s what she said: Climate change stories can be devastating — frustrating policy fights, environmental destruction, public health disasters — and my fellow AP climate reporters are great at telling them. That’s not my job. I cover “climate choices.” I tell readers how their actions impact the planet. It’s important for two reasons: First, if we’re going to tackle this big existential climate threat, we have to know how, and 2) climate news sparks dread and anxiety. And the best antidotes I’ve...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jessica Sweet spent the federal government shutdown cutting back. To make ends meet, the Social Security claims specialist drank only one coffee a day, skipped meals, cut down on groceries and deferred paying some household bills. She racked up spending on her credit card buying gas to get to work. With the longest shutdown ever coming to a close, Sweet and hundreds of thousands of other federal workers who missed paychecks will soon get some relief. But many are left feeling that their livelihoods served as political pawns in the fight between recalcitrant lawmakers in Washington and...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- President Donald Trump's immigration operation "Midway Blitz" has been underway for several weeks, and the hospitality industry, especially restaurants in Latino wards, are feeling the impact. Gerardo Auza comes from a family of restaurant owners. The 42-year-old's dream was to open his own business. It came true eight months ago, when Auza opened El Mexico De Chicago in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood. The Mexican immigrant says online reviews have been great, but none of it matters if no one shows up. "For over a month, it takes like 70% to 80%. The customers didn't show up to...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Missouri and Kansas are warning SNAP recipients about potential benefit losses if the government shutdown continues. On Monday, the Missouri Department of Social Services sent out a warning saying it will not be able to fund November SNAP benefits if the government doesn’t reopen. The department said it “encourages” people to stretch their October balance into the next month, “if possible.” Throughout the metro, thousands are preparing for the potential impact. Adolph Pratt, a Kansas City, Kansas resident who relies on SNAP benefits, said the potential loss would force difficult choices. “It’s going to make...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The world is on track to add nearly two months of dangerous superhot days each year by the end of the century, with poorer small nations hit far more often than the biggest carbon-polluting countries, a study released Thursday found. But efforts to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that started 10 years ago with the Paris climate agreement have had a significant effect. Without them Earth would be heading to an additional 114 days a year of those deadly extra hot days, the same study found. The international collection of climate scientists World Weather Attribution and the...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Nearly 2,300 Kansas City children are the latest at risk in the government shutdown. Head Start, a federally funded program, is on the chopping block in Jackson, Clay, and Platte counties. Head Start promotes school readiness via complementary early learning, health, nutrition, and family support services to low-income children from birth to age five. Eligibility is primarily based on income, but children in foster care, who are homeless, or whose families receive public assistance, qualify. Among Kansas City’s Head Start parents, 1,351 are employed, 169 are in training programs, and 168 are enrolled in school....

TYLER, Texas (AP) — Celia Monreal worries every day about the cartilage loss in her husband’s knees. Not just because it’s hard for her to see him in pain but also because she knows soon their health care costs could skyrocket. Monreal, 47, and her husband, Jorge, 57, rely on the Affordable Care Act marketplace for health coverage. If Congress doesn’t extend certain ACA tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, their fully subsidized plan will increase in cost, putting it out of reach. Without insurance, they won’t be able to afford his expected knee replacement...

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations’ food aid agency said Wednesday that severe funding cuts from its top donors are hurting its operations in six countries and warned that nearly 14 million people could be forced into emergency levels of hunger. The World Food Program, traditionally the U.N.'s most-funded agency, said in a new report that its funding this year “has never been more challenged” — largely due to slashed outlays from the U.S. under the Trump administration and other leading Western donors. It warned that that 13.7 million of its food aid recipients could be forced into emergency levels...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — We’re into day two of National Guardsmen in the city of Memphis, and already, they have boots on the ground in communities across the city. They join the hundreds of federal agents and Tennessee State Troopers who have already made their presence known in the city. “I feel like all the criminals are hiding right now, and when all of this goes away, all of those rats are coming out,” said Rosa Avina, Memphis resident. “I feel like the Hispanic community really doesn’t have a voice right now. Why? Because everybody is really scared,” said Avina. “A...

As the federal government shutdown drags on into a second week, a critical animal recovery program based in Colorado has ground to a halt, delaying a reintroduction plan that could be crucial to the survival of an endangered species. Fewer than 1,000 black-footed ferrets remain on the planet, including around 280 captive-bred ones currently being housed at the National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center in Carr, Colorado. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had planned to reintroduce them at 15 sites across federal, tribal and private lands this fall, according to the conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife. Instead, the creatures are...

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) — Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family’s food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food. On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher’s little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: “No one has died” because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: “No children are dying on my watch.” That, Taher...