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On Friday President Trump released a budget blueprint for the next fiscal year that would take a chainsaw to social, environmental and education programs. Some of the sharpest cuts are directed at housing programs that are meant to serve the poor, housing insecure and unhoused. In California, millions are served by these funds and state and local governments depend on them to operate affordable housing, rental assistance, homeless service, planning and legal programs. In a letter to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, the president’s budget director, Russel Vought, laid out $163 billion in annual spending cuts coupled with “unprecedented increases”...

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Switzerland this weekend to discuss economic and trade matters, their offices announced Tuesday.“We have shared interests,” Bessent said later on Fox News’ “Ingraham Angle.” The current tariff war “isn’t sustainable,” said Bessent, “especially on the Chinese side. And, you know, 145 percent [tariffs], 125 percent, is the equivalent of an embargo. We don’t want to decouple, what we want is fair trade.”Bessent and Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts on both Saturday and Sunday, the Treasury secretary said.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., appears to no longer have the support he once had, with many liberals turning on him following a scathing report focusing on his health. New York Magazine’s Intelligencer published a lengthy piece Friday titled “All By Himself” which says how Fetterman “insists he is in good health” in the wake of a massive stroke he suffered in May 2022, “but staffers past and present say they no longer recognize the man they once knew.” Fetterman, once seen as a progressive darling, has earned fanfare from many moderates and conservatives over his pragmatism on various issues. However,...

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., appears to no longer have the support he once had, with many liberals turning on him following a scathing report focusing on his health. New York Magazine's Intelligencer published a lengthy piece Friday titled "All By Himself" which says how Fetterman "insists he is in good health" in the wake of a massive stroke he suffered in May 2022, "but staffers past and present say they no longer recognize the man they once knew." Fetterman, once seen as a progressive darling, has earned fanfare from many moderates and conservatives over his pragmatism on various issues. However,...

Pakistan shot down two Indian Air Force (IAF) jets in retaliation to an Indian missile attack, early Wednesday morning. The attacks were on cities in Punjab and Azad Kashmir, which killed at least 3 Pakistanis and injured 12 others. India claimed the attack was "focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature," and targeted “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan administered-Kashmir. But Pakistan has denied their claim, saying the horror attack which saw giant explosions, largely harmed civilians. Tensions between the neighbors have been rising steadily over the past several months and if escalated to an all-out war would spark a 'nuclear...

Key Points: The US Army's M10 Booker armored vehicle program is criticized as a prime example of a flawed requirements process. -Initially intended as a lightweight, C-130 airdroppable "light tank" to support airborne and light infantry units, successive requirement additions ("creep") resulted in a 42-ton vehicle too heavy for airdrop and even some base infrastructure, like bridges at Fort Campbell. -Despite failing its original key criteria, the airdrop requirement was dropped, and the program continued. -Critics argue the Army now fields a vehicle lacking its intended mission and unique deployability, representing bureaucratic inertia over battlefield need. -The M10 Booker has...

Ryan Matlock died of a fentanyl overdose after seeking addiction treatment. Today, his mother is urging lawmakers to get tougher on health insurance plans.

[Catholic Caucus] The ‘worst’ outcome from the conclave may be the wakeup call Catholics needNever before has it been so obvious to Catholics who have a firm understanding of the Faith that many of the cardinals do not believe what the Church teaches.John-Henry Westen’s observation on social media this weekend helps us understand how the upcoming conclave is unlike any other in Church history:From inside the pre-conclave meetings with Cardinals it is suggested the Cardinal Robert Prevost is the moderate of choice. Think about this . . . As the head of the Congregation of Bishops he presided over the...

Christopher Schurr was a Grand Rapids Police Officer who got into a fight with Patrick Lyoya in the early morning of on April 4, 2022. During the struggle, Lyoya fought Schurr for control of Officer Schurr’s Taser and was fatally shot by the Officer during the scuffle.

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland’s message just ahead of the conclave: ‘Passion leads to Resurrection’ The cardinals may elect a new pope who continues the errors, the silence. But their failures do not excuse ours. We must cling to the faith – not sentimentality, not nostalgia.Welcome back to another episode of A Shepherd’s Voice. This week, as the cardinals of the Church gather in Rome to elect a new pope, the eyes of the world turn once again to the Vatican. For many faithful Catholics, this is not a moment of joy or confidence – but of sorrow, confusion, and fear....

I might be in the minority of car owners, but I actually enjoy changing my oil. My local big box store has bargain prices for jugs of long-lasting full-synthetic oil and carries OEM filters, so I can usually get out the door for less than $40 in materials for a DIY full-synthetic oil change. Saving money is definitely nice, but so is peace of mind. I'm forever scarred by the time my wife took her SUV to a rapid oil change place that didn't fully tighten the drain plug. Fortunately, we caught the growing oil slick in our driveway before...

The arrest of 10 individuals involved in a birth certificate forgery syndicate is about more than just corruption or criminality, says Southeast Asian politics expert Sophie Lemiere.The recent arrest of 10 individuals involved in a birth certificate forgery syndicate – linked to human trafficking and the smuggling of undocumented children – has exposed a deep and troubling flaw in Malaysia’s legal and bureaucratic framework. While authorities frame this as a case of corruption and criminality, the scandal is, in reality, a symptom of a much larger problem: a system that fails abandoned and adopted children, pushing desperate families into illegality....

It is no secret that Russia ‘recycles’ wounded soldiers, sending them back to the front line as soon as they are mobile. Commanders have made sure that getting wounded is not a ticket out of danger. But now we are seeing more extreme cases, with soldiers still on crutches or even in wheelchairs being pushed forward in assaults. What is behind this bizarre phenomenon? There may be method behind this gruesome madness, but there are competing explanations. It would be easy to dismiss this sort of claim as Ukrainian propaganda. Except that apart from the many cases captured on drone...

On Monday, authorities arrested more than 30 individuals who seized and occupied the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building at the University of Washington to protest Israel and its war against Hamas terrorists. Among those arrested was a King County public defender and several affiliates of the left-wing extremist group Antifa. All of them were booked into local jails on criminal trespassing charges, with a bail set at $1,000, according to records. It's unclear if the apprehended individuals were students and/or outside agitators. The King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office said in a statement that more than two dozen protesters have been charged with...

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WTVO) — Illinois drivers: brace yourselves. The annual gas tax increase is about to kick in on July 1st, 2025. The automatic Motor Fuel Tax increases to account for inflation. Currently, Illinois residents pay the second-highest gas tax in the country, behind California. The gas tax is now 45 cents per gallon, but on July 1st it will go up to 48.3 cents per gallon. The average car holds between 12 and 16 gallons of gas, meaning drivers should expect to spend between .24 and .32 cents extra at the pump. The Motor Fuel Tax will account for...

A district court judge, appointed by former President Joe Biden, is requiring President Donald Trump to bring roughly 12,000 refugees to the United States in a new court order issued this week. Judge Jamal Whitehead, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in 2023 by Biden, says Trump must admit thousands of refugees who had been approved for resettlement in the U.S. before he signed an executive order to halt the refugee resettlement program. “This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” Whitehead writes:...

Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation, refused to grant DOGE access to its books and told the White House that the agency would not acknowledge President Donald Trump’s appointee as chairman of the board. After a dramatic showdown in March, DOGE physically took over the building with U.S. Marshals, but control of the agency is now the subject of a lawsuit objecting to “swooping in with DOGE staff, demanding access to sensitive information systems” — an objection

The newly announced free trade deal between India and Britain is already coming under major fire just hours after it was proudly announced by both Prime Ministers. While Sir Keir Starmer and Narendra Modi lauded the post-Brexit deal as “a new era for trade and the economy”, a key element regarding tax is being condemned. Under the terms of the deal, Indians coming to Britain to work will be exempt from paying National Insurance for three years. While this deal is reciprocal, Sir Keir Starmer is under fire for granting the exemption after hiking the same tax for hard-working Brits....