Free Republic

The FBI conducted multiple raids across Dallas and Collin counties as part of a federal investigation into a visa fraud and money laundering scheme on Thursday, May 22, sources told WFAA. Attorney D. Robert Jones, is alleged to have collaborated with a network of individuals to unlawfully obtain U.S. visas for Pakistani nationals through fraudulent means. The operation reportedly involved the creation of shell companies to funnel illicit funds and facilitating the issuance of visas under false pretenses. The scheme is believed to have been active for several years. Sources told WFAA that federal agents, in coordination with U.S. Immigration...

While tariffs make wars more likely, embargoes make wars difficult to avoid. Senator Lindsey Graham’s Sanctioning Russia Act calls for 500% tariffs on dozens of countries and essentially amounts to an embargo.If this bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.In its insistence that Moscow be a permanent enemy of the United States, the foreign policy establishment is pushing to impose more punitive measures on Russia should they refuse to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. The Sanctioning Russia Act seeks to inflict a series of additional sanctions and...

President Donald Trump said Friday that U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel will form a “partnership,” after the Japanese steelmaker’s bid to acquire its U.S. rival had been blocked on national security grounds. U.S. Steel shares jumped more than 24%.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was fuming Thursday as Congress passed a repeal of California’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate, which relied on a special waiver from the outgoing Biden administration in December. “Make America Smoggy Again,” he announced, sarcastically. The Senate voted 51-44 to repeal the waiver, after a bipartisan majority in the House had done the same, as Breitbart News reported earlier this month. The repeal relies on the Congressional Review Act, a Bill Clinton-era law that allows Congress to repeal regulations that are not presented to it for timely approval. Newsom says the waiver is exempt from review....

The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that it has reached a deal with Boeing to avoid prosecution over two crashes of the plane maker’s 737 Max that killed 346 people. The so-called non-prosecution agreement would allow Boeing, a major military contractor and top U.S. exporter, to avoid being labeled a felon. The decision means Boeing won’t face trial as scheduled next month, as crash victims’ family members have urged for years. The Department of Justice met with crash victims’ family members last week to discuss the potential deal. In a court filing on Friday the DOJ said it “is the...

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg said during a Friday interview that Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett is an ideal role model for their party. Crockett has rapidly surged to prominence with her racially-charged tirades and inflammatory anti-Republican attacks, such as calling wheelchair-bound Texas Gov. Greg Abbott “Governor Hot Wheels.” When radio host Charlamagne Tha God requested Hogg’s thoughts on Crockett, the DNC vice chair gushed about the congresswoman, saying she delivers the “authenticity” that Americans desire. “Jasmine Crockett — I love her. She is amazing. I think that people want to see somebody who fights and calls...

Nuclear power stocks surged Friday after President Donald Trump signed executive orders to overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and speed the deployment of new reactors in the U.S. Advanced reactor companies Oklo and NuScale jumped more than 27% and 18%, respectively. Constellation Energy, the largest nuclear operator in the U.S., was up more than 2%. Cameco Corp, one of the biggest uranium miners in the world, rose more than 10%. Trump said the orders focus on small advanced reactors that are viewed by many in the industry as the future. But the president also said his administration supports building large...

In the last several years, YouTube has become an increasingly formidable competitor to streaming services and entertainment studios, providing videos from amateur and professional creators, as well as livestreaming major events and NFL games. Now its growing threat to studios is headed to the courts. The Google-owned platform recently poached Justin Connolly, president of platform distribution from Walt Disney Co. On Wednesday, Disney sued YouTube and Connolly for breach of contract, alleging that Connolly violated an employment agreement that did not expire until March 2027 at the earliest. Connolly oversaw Disney’s distribution strategy and third-party media sales for its streaming...

Explanation: Most globular star clusters roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, but globular cluster NGC 6366 lies close to the galactic plane. About 12,000 light-years away toward the constellation Ophiuchus, the cluster's starlight is dimmed and reddened by the Milky Way's interstellar dust when viewed from planet Earth. As a result, the stars of NGC 6366 look almost golden in this telescopic scene, especially when seen next to relatively bright, bluish, and nearby star 47 Ophiuchi. Compared to the hundred thousand stars or so gravitationally bound in distant NGC 6366, 47 Oph itself is a binary star system...

The House Republicans’ tax and spending package is set to infuse the Trump administration with a monumental funding hike for immigration enforcement, aiming to dramatically ramp up the scale and pace of the president’s mass deportation agenda. The bill, which the House approved on a party-line vote Thursday, would allocate more than $150 billion in additional funding over five years to Trump’s border and immigration agenda. That includes more than $51 billion to construct and upgrade border barriers and facilities and $59 billion for immigration detention and transportation. Most of the funding would be allocated to the Department of Homeland...

President Donald Trump signed several executive orders (EOs) on nuclear energy proliferation and an order removing political considerations from public-sector science, as conservatives claimed the latter was scandalized in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump also signed restoring "gold standard science" as the cornerstone of federal research. A senior White House official said on Friday there has been a decline in "disruptive research" and investments in biomedical research, along with "serious cases" of fraud and misconduct and the inability to reproduce scientific methods for the purpose of restoring public trust. The official also blamed policy responses to the COVID-19...

If the Trump administration succeeds in blocking Harvard from enrolling international students, the hardest-hit group would be students from China, who make up the school’s biggest share of current students from overseas.The consequences are likely to extend far beyond those select few who could gain entry to the prestigious university. The move could reshape the broader relationship between the two countries by cutting off one of the few remaining reasons that people in China still admire the United States.The flow of students from China to the United States has long been one of the most reliable ballasts in the two...

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration has continued releasing people charged with being in the country illegally to nongovernmental shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border after telling those organizations that providing migrants with temporary housing and other aid may violate a law used to prosecute smugglers. Border shelters, which have long provided lodging, meals and transportation to the nearest bus station or airport, were rattled by a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that raised “significant concerns” about potentially illegal activity and demanded detailed information in a wide-ranging investigation. FEMA suggested shelters may have committed felony offenses against bringing...

No Surrender chose to perform at another venue after a Toms River bar owner told them his city “is red and won’t stand for [Springsteen’s] bullshit” Over here on E Street, it’s pretty quiet now that a Jersey Shore bar owner questioned whether No Surrender, a Bruce Springsteen cover band, should perform at his establishment after the real Springsteen openly criticized Donald Trump. The group had booked a gig at Riv’s Toms River Hub, in Toms River, New Jersey, on May 30 (a Friday night, always a great night for Springsteen), but found out Sunday night the concert was in...

Jonathan Lemire let the laugh--or at least the chuckle--out of the bag. And in doing so, he let slip the liberal media's disdain for the Trump administration, and its knee-jerk defense of elite liberal institutions. On today's Morning Joe, Lemire couldn't stifle a chuckle [video at 0:36] as he mentioned the claim by the Trump administration explaining its decision to revoke Harvard's right to enroll foreign students: "The DOJ also accused the university of coordinating [chuckles] with the Chinese Communist Party."Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Summary Grok AI use raises privacy and conflict-of-interest concerns DOGE team allegedly pushes Grok at DHS without approval Experts warn of potential unfair advantage for Musk's xAI in federal contracts May 23 (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE team is expanding use of his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok in the U.S. federal government to analyze data, said three people familiar with the matter, potentially violating conflict-of-interest laws and putting at risk sensitive information on millions of Americans. Such use of Grok could reinforce concerns among privacy advocates and others that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team appears to be casting...

Anthropic said its latest artificial intelligence model resorted to blackmail when told it would be taken offline. In a safety test, the AI company asked Claude Opus 4 to act as an assistant to a fictional company, but then gave it access to (also fictional) emails saying that it would be replaced, and also that the engineer behind the decision was cheating on his wife. Anthropic said the model “[threatened] to reveal the affair” if the replacement went ahead. AI thinkers such as Geoff Hinton have long worried that advanced AI would manipulate humans in order to achieve its goals....

FLOTUS Melania Trump participates in the Senate Spouses Luncheon at the National Gallery of Art - May 21,2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. (7News) — Travelers who are looking to book last-minute flights for Memorial Day weekend may want to think twice about flying out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). The air passenger rights company, AirHelp, took a closer look at U.S. airports and collected data on which ones had the most and least flight disruptions in April. It may or may not come as a surprise, but DCA ranked number five for the worst airports. Here's a breakdown. Philadelphia International Airport – 20.9% of flights disrupted O’Hare International Airport – 21.1% of flights disrupted New York LaGuardia Airport...

Donald Trump says that iPhones need to be built in the US, or they'll face a 25% tariff.But it doesn't matter what Trump says: iPhones are never going to be built in the US.That's according to Patrick McGee, a journalist who just published "Apple In China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company" — a detailed look at all of the money and effort Apple spent over decades to enmesh itself in China.McGee, who has covered Apple for the Financial Times, explains why this has been enormously helpful to Apple — because it created an ecosystem that lets it make...