Free Republic

The Colorado River is approaching thresholds its dams were never meant to cross. What happens next could transform how water and electricity move across the American Southwest. There isn’t a flashing gauge or a chart on the canyon wall that warns visitors when one of the most important machines in America begins to fail. There’s only an invisible number: 3,490 feet above sea level. Engineers call it “minimum power pool.” Above that elevation, Lake Powell can still push water through Glen Canyon Dam’s massive penstocks, spin its turbines, and send electricity across the Southwest with no trouble. Below it, the...

Staten Island judge on Monday temporarily blocked New York City’s rollout of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax, pausing enforcement while a lawsuit brought by a group of homeowners moves forward. Under the temporary restraining order, the city must take down the public tax roll and is barred from issuing any additional notices while the order is in effect. The next hearing is set for 2:15 p.m. August 31. The judge said from the bench that the notices caused irreparable harm because they did not explain why recipients had been flagged for the surcharge and warned that homeowners who failed to...

Sen. Rand Paul is examining Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government-issued phone and says he is taking a special interest in whether it contains evidence of “deletions.” That’s significant because Fauci’s former factotum, David Morens, is awaiting trial on charges of concealing and destroying government records, allegedly on behalf of his boss, and is facing up to 51 years in prison. Not that many people know that, since only one reporter covered his arraignment in May: The Post’s own Josh Christenson. Paul may have bigger ambitions for Fauci than the criminal referral for contempt of Congress he sent off to the DOJ...

A Christian In-N-Out worker is suing the fast food giant claiming religious discrimination after she was allegedly forced to work Sundays. Arianna Rodriguez, who was a cook at the location in Long Beach, California, for nearly five years claims she was wrongly terminated by a new manager. According to the lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, Rodriguez had been on a schedule that allowed her to attend church on Sundays without any problems for years.

Taxpayers are unknowingly paying private consultants a cut of the Medicaid money the consultants help states claim for school-based health services. Federal auditors have flagged more than $1.5 billion of those claims as improper or unsupported across four states, and the consultant was the same in every one: Boston-based Public Consulting Group (PCG). New Jersey’s audit states the firm was hired “on a contingency fee basis,” and the Government Accountability Office has found consultants building school Medicaid claims collected fees of 3 to 25 percent of the federal reimbursement. The more school-staff time coded as “Medicaid,” the bigger the check....

America's most powerful banker has made a huge bet on San Francisco by investing $200 million in Bay Area housing and opening a new headquarters there. JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon designated the region as a new corporate center for the bank this week, after pledging to fund hundreds of waterfront units in the city. Dimon praised the Golden City's booming economy and the stunning comeback it has made on public safety since the initiation of Mayor Daniel Lurie in January 2025. Speaking at the San Francisco Chase Center on Monday, Dimon said Lurie has been 'doing all the right...

They board flights from Central America bound for the United States, not to migrate but to source used cars. Operating a cross-border circuit, these drivers transport salvaged vehicles from American scrapyards to their home roads — giving junked cars a second life and fueling the local economy. Julio César Pisquiy Nimatuj was 12 when he first drove on a highway. He discovered that he enjoyed being behind the wheel. Decades later, Mr. Pisquiy, 44, is one of these migrants who drives for a living. Every driver has their own business model. Mr. Pisquiy buys the cars in advance at auctions...

White House officials are mulling an executive order that would target vaccines and autism amid a push by President Donald Trump to take more action on the issue, an administration official familiar with the deliberations told CNN. The potential order is expected to focus on the childhood vaccine schedule and autism research, though the scope and timing of the action have yet to be finalized and could still change. In recent months, Trump has pressed senior officials, including US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to prioritize greater scrutiny of vaccines — even as many of his...

When cisplatin came on the market in 1978, it revolutionized cancer care. Carboplatin, a related chemotherapy drug with fewer side effects, soon followed in 1986. Together, these two drugs have saved countless lives and are prescribed for up to 20% of cancer patients to treat ovarian, bladder, breast, lung, and other types of cancer. “They're the backbone for treatments for a lot of different types of cancer,” says Dr. Jacob Reibel, a medical oncologist at Dartmouth Cancer Center. And yet, in recent years, when some hospital pharmacists have gone to source these chemo drugs for patients, they’ve had difficulty. They’ve...

Trade team told Americans Trump's newest tariffs would kill will for talks if implementedThe Canadian government is preparing to meet some U.S. demands — including ending bans on American alcohol sales — in exchange for tariff relief as trade talks heat up ahead of the latest tariff deadline, according to sources. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened a new 50 per cent levy on hundreds of Canadian imports by Aug. 19, citing complaints about provincial booze bans, dairy import quotas and the auto tariffs. The Canadian side is willing to offer movement on those concerns, according to industry sources...

For the first time ever, scientists have used artificial intelligence to design complete viral genomes that were physically synthesized and turned into 16 new functional viruses capable of replicating. The work was published in Science, one of the world’s most prominent scientific journals. Disturbingly, the study’s senior author, Brian L. Hie, who conceived, designed, and supervised the research disclosed funding from the Gates Foundation. This was not a computer simulation. Researchers generated hundreds of AI-designed viral genomes, physically manufactured the DNA, assembled the genomes, introduced them into susceptible E. coli, and recovered 16 functional bacteriophages that successfully propagated. The viruses...

Both nonfarm payroll employment (-23,000) and the unemployment rate (4.1 percent) changed little in July, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment declined in local government education and retail trade. Employment continued to trend up in health care. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note.

Criminal networks are selling Americans’ white-collar jobs via the huge and complex H-1B visa program, says Anthony D’Esposito, the Inspector General at the Department of Labor. “This is not just fraud: This is a criminal enterprise that stretches far beyond the borders of America,” D’Esposito told Breitbart News during an interview in his D.C. office. He explained: Without revealing too much of an investigation, I think that when complete, one of the things that will probably make the American people most angry… and will probably lead to the biggest change from lawmakers — they will probably bring oversight to this...

We all intuitively know that prices are rising faster than the Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicates. We feel the pain every time we go to the grocery store or gas station. But just how much is price inflation impacting us here on Main Street? I started pondering this question the other day when I ran across a graph tracking the price of a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup since 1895. You’ll notice an interesting phenomenon. The cost of a can of soup remained relatively stable until around 1973, when it suddenly started to climb more rapidly. And what happened in...

At least 17 people were killed in a heavy Russian missile strike on Kiev and its surroundings, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Wednesday, exposing Ukraine's current inability to intercept ballistic missiles. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired 28 ballistic missiles of various types overnight. Not a single projectile was intercepted. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the shortage of air-defence weapons.....

The FCC removed a key constraint on broadcasters’ ability to consolidate stations, voting to repeal an ownership cap put in place to try to limit power of any one media company. The FCC’s 2-1 vote Thursday was to repeal a restriction that limits companies from owning stations reaching more than 39% of TV households. But it faces a potential court challenge, amid warnings that only Congress has the authority to remove the restriction. FCC chairman Brendan Carr said that the move was long overdue given the dramatic changes to the competitive landscape, warning that inaction risked seeing local stations “going...

Congress is under growing pressure to rescue Social Security before automatic benefit cuts begin, but one of the nation’s largest advocacy groups says lawmakers shouldn’t rush the process. AARP is urging Congress to reject a fast-track proposal that would accelerate Social Security reform, warning that changes affecting millions of retirees deserve full public debate rather than an expedited legislative process. AARP Pushes Back Against the Promise Act AARP sent a letter to lawmakers opposing the bipartisan Promise Act, arguing that while Congress must act to preserve Social Security’s long-term finances, the proposed timeline risks limiting transparency and public input. The...

BMW owners are tearing into the luxury automaker after it pushed an ad for the new “Spider-Man” movie onto dashboard screens in cars they had already paid tens of thousands of dollars to own.The full-screen animation — delivered through BMW’s main Control Display — triggered an immediate backlash from drivers who accused the German automaker of treating privately owned vehicles like rented advertising space. “Paying 50-100k for a car, yet still getting ADs,” one furious Reddit user wrote. “Next we need adblocker for cars.” BMW should stop with this s–t,” another said. The anger was fueled by BMW’s prior pledge...

Flock cameras are in thousands of communities across the country and often hide in plain sight. A Flock camera is an automated license plate reader, or ALPR, made by the public-safety technology company Flock Safety. The cameras are commonly installed along roads, at intersections, near neighborhood entrances, and around businesses or other private properties.

While Germany's debt spiral is accelerating ever faster, Argentine President Javier Milei is steering his country in the opposite direction. Germany's statists will soon be left looking foolish once it becomes obvious that the German model has failed. Only contrast reveals one's own mistakes. Javier Milei is the antithesis of Germany's political class, and the comparison could hardly be starker. While Germany continues to expand the state, Argentina is slashing subsidies and radically reducing the size of its public bureaucracy. While Berlin piles up enormous amounts of public debt, Buenos Aires is posting a primary budget surplus. Friedrich Merz believes...