Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Dozens of House and Senate Democrats tore into President Biden Thursday for keeping in place a Trump-era immigration policy that allows the government to turn away asylum-seekers without first hearing their cases. Title 42, first implemented in March 2020 at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, allows border agents to kick migrants back across the US-Mexico frontier for public health reasons. The Biden administration has repeatedly tried to end the policy, but later backtracked as the migration crisis at the southern border exploded. “Anyone who tells you that the only way to secure our border is to punish...

TRIBUTES have poured in from across Spanish football following the tragic death of under-15s star Estrella Martin.Sporting Club de Huelva, from Andalusia, announced the death of the academy youngster. A club statement said Martin had passed away in her home town of Ayamonte, in southern Spain, on Wednesday. Martin played for the club's academy, as well as the Andalusia regional under-15s team. Sporting Huelva's La Liga F game against Sevilla, scheduled for today, has been postponed. The club have also suspended academy training this week. Club president Manuela Huelva paid tribute to Martin on Twitter, writing: "There are no words...

The direct payments have been sent out automatically based on Californians’ 2020 tax information. Now, as they prepare to file their 2022 taxes, some inflation relief recipients will need to report the payments as income, according to the the Franchise Tax Board (FTB). The first important thing to note, the FTB says, is that there’s a difference here between state taxes and federal taxes. As far as California state taxes are concerned, the Middle Class Tax Refund (MCTR) is not taxable income, a FTB spokesperson told Nexstar. That means you don’t need to claim your inflation relief payment — no...

Southwest Airlines (LUV) reported a loss for the fourth quarter, as the company took an $800 million pretax hit to earnings due to the computer system failure that led to the airline’s holiday travel meltdown. "Due to the operational disruptions in late December, which resulted in more than 16,700 flight cancellations, we incurred a fourth quarter pre-tax negative impact of approximately $800 million (or approximately $620 million on an after-tax basis), which resulted in a fourth quarter 2022 net loss,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in a statement. Overall for the quarter, Southwest lost $220 million resulting in an adjusted...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory predicts that an asteroid is expected to make a close flyby of the earth Thursday evening. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Earth is set for a very close shave with a small asteroid Thursday just five days after it was discovered by an amateur astronomer in Crimea, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL said it expected the asteroid, designated as 2023 BU to streak past 2,200 miles above the southern tip of South America just before 7:30 p.m. EST. The encounter will be one of the closest approaches by a near-Earth object...

A group of M1 Abrams tanks sit in a holding area after being offloaded from the freighter ship “Resolve” at the port of Antwerp April 24. Photo by Staff Sgt. Warren W. Wright Jr., 21st TSC Public Affairs As the U.S. government is now preparing to send dozens of M1 Abrams tanks to the Ukrainian military, much attention has been given to concerns about how their complex electronic components and especially their gas turbine propulsion systems could make them particularly difficult to operate and maintain. Though it’s not yet clear what specific variant of the Abrams Ukraine’s military is set...

Renters living in the New York metro area have the highest rent-to-income ratio in the country at nearly 69 percent, according to a new report from Moody’s Analytics. Figures show that for the first time in over 20 years, the entire United States is rent-burdened, as the average American rent-to-income ratio reached 30 percent. The ratio reflects what percentage of a household’s income is spent on rent. That total is up 1.5 percent from last year’s estimation. New York was followed by Miami, Fla.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Los Angeles, Calif.; and Palm Beach, Fla., respectively. Northern New Jersey; Boston, Mass.;...

Rep. Matt Gaetz Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan are demanding answers from the FBI about how one of its top counterintelligence investigators was in league with a Russian national sanctioned by the U.S. government. The Justice Department announced on Monday the arrest of Charles McGonigal, a former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in New York. Prosecutors allege that McGonigal and a former Russian diplomat worked on behalf of Russian oil oligarch Oleg Deripaska to investigate a competitor.

Women have been sharing TikTok videos of themselves doing their makeup from their labor-delivery room hospital beds Some mothers appear to be getting their makeup done before the birth of their children, and the decision has stirred lots of discussion on social media. On TikTok, entering the term "birthing makeup," "labor makeup" and "delivery makeup" yields dozens of viral videos that show women applying full faces of makeup from their hospital beds while they wait for their children to enter the world. Reality TV star and media personality Heidi Montag, 36, went a step above and hired a professional makeup...

A Florida teacher resigned this week after she was caught engaging in sexually explicit video chats with her prison inmate boyfriend during school hours while in her office, according to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.

Is Atlanta a good place to live? Recent rankings certainly say so. In September 2022, Money magazine rated Atlanta the best place to live in the U.S., based on its strong labor market and job growth. The National Association of Realtors calls it the top housing market to watch in 2023, noting that Atlanta's housing prices are lower than those in comparable cities and that it has a rapidly growing population. But this is only part of the story. My new book, "Red Hot City: Housing, Race, and Exclusion in Twenty-First Century Atlanta," takes a deep dive into the last...

by Becca LondonAt the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, several Biden nominees for Federal judicial positions appeared before Judiciary Committee members for questions. But one group of questions in particular is causing shock and even anger among the public as the video starts to go viral. The questions were posed by Lousiana Senator John Kennedy (R) to state Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, who was nominated by Biden for the lifetime position of U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Washington. The "answers" were non-existent. Kennedy began by asking Judge Bjelkengren, about Article V of the US Constitution. Bjelkengren responded, "Article V...

Just over a quarter of Americans in a new poll believe House GOP leaders are focusing on the country’s most important issues, and Republicans, in particular, report dissatisfaction with the heads of their party. According to a new CNN poll, just 27 percent of Americans think House Republicans are prioritizing issues appropriately. The remaining 73 percent of Americans think the GOP leaders haven’t paid enough attention to the nation’s top problems. Almost half of the respondents who identified as Republicans and Republican-leaning independents — 42 percent — disapprove of their party’s congressional leadership, while just 22 percent on the Democrat...

DETROIT LIONS' JESSIE LEMONIER, FORMER LINEBACKER DEAD AT 25!Jessie Lemonier -- a former outside linebacker for the Detroit Lions -- has passed away, the team announced Thursday morning. He was only 25 years old.Details surrounding Lemonier's death are not yet known.The Lions broke the sad news with a statement, saying they're "shocked and saddened" by Lemonier's death."Jessie was a model teammate and wonderful young man who is gone far too soon," the team said on social media."Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time."Many paid their respects to the late Lions player in the...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday said that President Joe Biden’s latest aid package to Ukraine is “overdue.” “Well, I was happy to learn yesterday and this morning that, indeed, both the White House and their counterparts in Germany are finally moving forward with these overdue steps,” McConnell said in a floor speech in the United States Senate. “I have consistently called on the Biden Administration to be more proactive and to lead by example in delivering lethal aid like long-range weapons with greater urgency,” he added. “Germany has announced it will supply Ukraine with an initial 14...

Assemblyman Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, has introduced legislation that would prohibit homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools, daycare centers, parks, and libraries. Assembly Bill 257 is one of the first measures proposed by Hoover, who was elected last November in a tight race with then-incumbent Assemblyman Ken Cooley. “This bill is all about keeping our public spaces safe for the most vulnerable people in our community, which is our kids,” said Hoover on Tuesday. “It’s critical that we make sure all our kids feel safe walking to school.” Hoover said that near his home in Folsom, he’s found needles and...

Not so long ago, teachers were responsible for educating kids about specific subject matters (math, English, history). Parents were responsible in all other ways for raising those same children. Only if a parent were genuinely abusive was a teacher obligated to interfere in that relationship, and that meant contacting Child Protective Services. Today, though, gender-crazed teachers have concluded that they have greater rights in children than parents do. Thanks mostly to Libs of TikTok, we’ve spent the last two years seeing teachers boasting about how they hide a child’s gender “transition” from parents, and we’ve seen parents raging on the...

Please pray with me that his PET scan on Tuesday shows tumor reduction so that he can be surgically intervened with. Please God. Bless us with your wisdom and grace. May God bless everyone who prays with me a thousandfold and the rest.... just bless them too for we are weak and insignificant creatures. May Ukraine find peace. It breaks my heart too.

South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman says that the Republicans are working on a legislative plan to shrink the size of government. "We have got to present the American people a plan," Norman said on Wednesday's edition of the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "Financial security is national security, and we're not on a course where we can can maintain that trajectory. It has got to be changed, and people realize that." While Rep. Norman was one of the 20 Republicans who voted against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during the election for that position earlier this month, he...