Free Republic

The No. 2 official at the Homeland Security Department meddled in three high-profile immigration cases, giving special treatment to applications from wealthy and well-connected immigrants after calls from major Democrats despite the objections of career employees, the department’s inspector general concluded in a report Tuesday. Alejandro Mayorkas, who was elevated from head of the department’s legal immigration agency to be deputy secretary while the investigation was ongoing, also angered many of his colleagues by getting involved in the cases, and “created an appearance of favoritism and special access” for the wealthy immigrants, the inspector general concluded. Inspector General John Roth...

In a move that will likely make the Trump administration really happy, a major manufacturer is shifting jobs from China to the U.S. Foxconn, the company known for making iPhones and other big-name gadgets, plans to invest $10 billion in a production plant in the U.S — specifically somewhere in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana or Texas. The plant could create up to 50,000 new jobs. President Trump hinted at this deal in June while visiting Wisconsin for his "workforce development" tour. "Just backstage, we were negotiating with a major, major, incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions,"...

Foxconn (2317.TW), the world's largest contract electronics maker and a major Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier, plans to invest more than $10 billion in a display-making factory in the United States and will decide on the location of the plant next month. The Taiwan-based firm has been eyeing U.S. investments for some time and its CEO, Terry Gou, had previously said the company hoped to spend over $7 billion to set up a display-making plant in the country - which has no panel-making industry but is the No.2 market for televisions. Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, is...

The First Amendment right to protest the government ends when you use a bolt cutter to breach a security fence and enter a restricted area, a federal judge told six people he found guilty Wednesday for their actions during a chaotic protest outside last summer’s Democratic National Convention in South Philadelphia. “A fence is a fence is a fence,” Senior U.S. District Judge Michael J. Baylson told the six out-of-towners after finding each guilty of trespassing on restricted federal grounds, a misdemeanor. “As a matter of common sense,” said the judge, “when an adult sees a fence, it is clear...

It’s been six months since the city’s soda tax (or, more accurately, the sugary beverage tax) was implemented — and it’s off to a rocky start. The city is currently $20 million short of its projected $46 million goal to close out the 2017 fiscal year, and based on the most available month’s numbers, it doesn’t appear as though they will reach it. But I’m not surprised by any of this. By the time last June when Mayor Kenney pulled a fast one on City Council to strike the deal, I had already warned about the consequences in lower-income communities.

Several people in Pennsylvania were charged with allegedly stealing a total of $287,000 worth of welfare benefits in April, with some of the benefits being used to buy heroin, according to Pennsylvania’s Office of the Inspector General. The Office of the Inspector General expects to recover a total of $287,659 from the charges filed, mostly from food stamp fraud, Lehigh Valley Live reported. The alleged fraudsters stole $187,241 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program benefits, $46,494 in subsidized day care, $37,052 in government-funded benefits such as Medicaid, $11,348 in monetary assistance, and $5,523 in the Low Income Energy Assistance Program.

Franklin Pierce University now has a “Safe Space Pledge” listed on a website dedicated to “student conduct and community standards.” According to the pledge, it is a student’s “responsibility to be an ally,” noting that “a Raven (the university’s mascot) demonstrates integrity and respect for the community.”

Apparently three Philadelphia-area schools have decided they can't wait until Labor Day to start molding and shaping the young minds attached to the students who enroll there. Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr got together to offer a “Tri-College Identity, Equity, and Social Justice Summer Institute.” As Swarthmore's pr department explains in a press release: "The Tri-College Identity, Equity and Social Justice Summer Institute is designed to help students enhance both their leadership skills and their individual/group identity issues within the context of exploring issues of gender, race, sexuality, socio-economic class, spirituality, power, and privilege. To this end, intensive workshops on...

The resurrected feeling of American possibility came not from pontificating TV pundits or a radio host in a studio miles away. Optimism arrived here in Gillette, Wyo., because of what people were seeing: the unemployment lines getting shorter and their daily commutes getting longer. Tom Gorton, 41, drove through those increasingly congested streets in his Arnold Machinery truck late on a spring afternoon, under the watch of mountains covered in white from a spring snowstorm. As Gorton settled behind his desk, he was heartened to see how messy it was with orders, one year after hundreds of layoffs at two...

So it was clear to her how bad things had gotten two years ago, when young coal miners she'd sold brand new trucks to just a day or two earlier started bringing them back. At the time, it seemed like a new coal company was declaring bankruptcy every week and the laid-off miners weren't able to make the payments. But now, for the first time in roughly seven years, a brand new coal mine is opening in Somerset County - the Acosta deep mine, just three miles from Maurer's dealership. "We're hopeful - it means we're going to have things...

SOMERSET, Pa. - Coal has never been a dirty word around these parts. But even veteran miners can't remember holding a ribbon-cutting and a lavish grand opening for what amounts to a hole in the ground. That changes today. In a highly unusual move, Corsa Coal of Canonsburg, Pa., will fete its new Acosta Deep Mine, located 11 miles north of Somerset, with so much pomp and circumstance that even President Donald Trump was invited. "It's in the spotlight all right," says Corsa Senior Vice President Joseph Gallo, who's overseeing the mine's opening. "I don't quite understand it, but it...

A man who police say trapped and killed three co-workers inside a closed northeast Pennsylvania grocery store overnight Thursday left an online trail behind that includes praise for the 1999 Columbine High School shooters and expressions of deep frustration about the world around him.

An armed man pulled over after riding a dirt bike in North Philadelphia was shot and killed by a police officer during a confrontation Thursday evening, officials said, with surveillance video showing the officer shot the man while he was running away. "It was a very violent encounter," Police Commissioner Richard Ross said. The explosive scene evolved around 6:40 p.m. on the 4100 block of Whitaker Avenue near the southern edge of the Feltonville neighborhood when an officer transporting people to the Special Victims Unit saw the dirt bike rider driving erratically and stopped to tell the man to stop,...

SHENANGO TOWNSHIP (KDKA) — The proposed sale of the former New Castle Youth Development Center has raised alarms in Shenango Township, Lawrence County. Little is known about the highest bidder, HIRA Educational Services, and that’s the problem. Townspeople are suspicious. “I would hope the governor would say this is all null and void. We’re going to open this up to bidding again,” said Shirley Sallmen, a resident and critic of the state’s bidding process. Now, three state lawmakers – Sen. Elder Vogel, Rep. Chris Sainato and Rep. Aaron Bernstine – are asking the same. They have sent a letter to...

You could still see his mouth and his chin, but only the right side of his face from the nose up. The rest of the photo and the document on which it was printed -- except for the man's first and last name and a broken series of numbers -- was charred or burnt away. Investigators searching the area in Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, found this telltale piece of evidence. It was the tourist visa that let Ziad Jarrah enter the United States from Germany. On the face of it, Jarrah was a...

Barred from placing a billboard on his property, one Windsor Township property owner decided to warn others of the township's "dictatorial" ways. A truck displaying a sign that reads "Caution Entering Dictatorial Windsor Township" first appeared Saturday parked in a lot at the corner of East Prospect and Cape Horn roads. A dictatorship is a form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a single person, known as a dictator. The truck is owned by J&K Salvage, which offers customers the ability to rent out its trucks as a form of mobile advertising. This particular truck was rented...

Just hours before his trial was set to begin, a desperate Bill Cosby sought an eleventh hour plea deal, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal. According to insiders, the disgraced comic begged for a deal that would include no admission of guilt. Meanwhile, prosecutors want the 79-year-old to face the music. A source inside the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office said D.A. Kevin Steele demanded “significant” jail time, a large fine and community service. “Bill Cosby wants Steele to agree to a deal in which an announcement would be made basically saying that the prosecution couldn’t prove its case and that the...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A Pittsburgh forensic pathologist says the investigation into the JFK assassination is far from over. On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was murdered in broad daylight in Dallas, Texas. The Warren Commission concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot the president from the 6th floor of the Texas Book Depository. For years, many have doubted those conclusions and believed it was a greater conspiracy. One of the most outspoken critics of the Warren Report is nationally-acclaimed forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht.

A shelter in place is in effect for Doylestown Township, Bucks County residents after a prisoner escaped Sunday night.

In response to misconceptions and some outrage on social media, Lower Merion police said Friday they were not involved in detaining a Honduran man outside his Haverford apartment last month. ---SNIP--- ICE agents said they were going to call Lower Merion police to break open one of the car’s windows since her husband wouldn’t get out. “They were using Lower Merion police as a threat tactic,” she said. “It was a very traumatic time for me. … They were putting a lot of resources into detaining someone who was trying to adjust his status and who had no criminal record,...