Free Republic

Confusion and fear gripped H-1B visa holders over the weekend as a sudden US policy change forced some to choose between family commitments abroad and their careers in the United States. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a USD 100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications, part of a broader immigration crackdown, sent shockwaves through the tech and finance sectors, prompting workers from India and China to abandon travel plans and rush back to the US. At San Francisco airport, an engineer whose wife was scheduled to fly to Dubai described the impossible decision he faced. “It is a situation where we...

A member of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints has raised nearly $200,000 for a shooter who fatally gunned down four Mormons while they were worshipping at church. Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, of Burton, rammed his pickup truck into the Grand Blanc Township church on Sunday morning, before opening fire and setting it ablaze, killing four. He was then shot dead by police who were responding to the bloodbath. Now, David Butler, a Mormon, has started a GiveSendGo to help Sanford's family despite him taking the lives of his fellow churchgoers which has so far raised more than $192,000. 'Like...

A government shutdown may worsen conditions for the already struggling economy of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, hammering a region that has been affected by dramatic federal job losses under the Trump administration.With congressional leaders unable to reach an agreement on federal funding levels and health care policy changes, the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, with no clear resolution to the impasse or indication of how long it will last. Shutdowns typically involve hundreds of thousands of federal employees being furloughed or working without pay. Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget released a memo last week...

Elon Musk told his 226 million X followers to “Cancel Netflix for the health of your kids” at 7:42 AM on October 1, 2025, and he had already replied “Same” to a user’s cancellation the night before, which sparked a #CancelNetflix wave. His posts followed a clip of the animated series Dead End: Paranormal Park and renewed circulation of screenshots attributed to creator Hamish Steele after the September 10, 2025, killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Within hours, “#Cancel Netflix” trended on X, and the call drew millions of views. Netflix shares slipped about 2 percent in early trading, though...

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced Wednesday that the federal government is cancelling $8 billion in green energy funding amid the Democrat-forced government shutdown. Vought took to X on Wednesday to announce the cuts after government funding expired early Wednesday morning. “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled,” Vought wrote in a post on X, adding that more details would become available via the Department of Energy. The cuts are to projects in blue, or blue-leaning states, including: California Colorado Connecticuit Delaware Hawaii Illinois Maryland Massachusetts Minnesota...

The government officially entered a shutdown at 12:01 AM Wednesday after Democrats rejected multiple offers from Republicans to keep the lights on and pass a continuing resolution (CR). While both parties are predictably pointing the finger at one another, all signs point to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ultimately being the biggest loser of this standoff.The full story of this shutdown begins with the CR passed in March of this year which extended government funding through September 30. At the time, Schumer stated plainly his belief that “there are no winners in a government shutdown” to justify his decision to...

Meanwhile, Republicans seem very comfortable with a shutdown.The government is now in its first shutdown since 2019 — and there is little sign that either party will soon give in to the other side’s demands and turn the lights back on.There are already signs some Democrats may want to cave, however.Hours before the midnight funding deadline, Senate Republicans blocked a spending proposal from Democrats, 47-53, that would have funded the government and extended subsidies for Affordable Care Act health care plans, giving people on the Obamacare exchanges the certainty that Democrats say they need ahead of open enrollment in...

President Trump said the US no longer funds the Ukraine war. He said we now sell weapons to NATO, and NATO can do whatever it wants with them. The MSM and NATO vigorously describe this as Trump's continued support for the Ukraine war.I asked GROK AI specific questions about what kind of aid we are giving in terms of military, budgetary and humanitarian/economic support. Grok says there have been no new appropriations by Congress in 2025; any US funds being spent now (e.g., training Ukrainian troops) were from prior appropriations (Biden). There is still tens of billions in Biden era...

The "Great Replacement" theory is a conspiracy theory that envisions a scheme to replace white, Christian populations in Western nations with nonwhite immigrants. It was once confined to the fringes of the far-Right. Now, the theory seems to have taken root in the mainstream of the GOP.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI is set to release a standalone app for its Sora 2 video generation AI model that will allow users to create and share AI-generated short videos in a format resembling TikTok. Wired reports that OpenAI, the AI startup behind ChatGPT, is preparing to launch a new standalone app for its advanced video generation AI model called Sora 2. According to documents viewed by Wired, the app will feature a vertical video feed with swipe-to-scroll navigation, closely resembling TikTok. However, instead of user-generated content, the app will exclusively feature AI-generated videos. The Sora 2 app will allow users...

[Catholic Caucus] A Letter from a Priest of Jesus Christ to the Faithful of the Diocese of Charlotte: "A house built on the sand of deceit cannot endure the buffeting winds of truth."A faithful priest who must remain anonymous has sent this letter to the faithful of the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, who are attached to the Traditional Latin Mass.He requested us to have it published here as well.Dear TLM Faithful of the Diocese of Charlotte,You may not know me, but I am well-acquainted with your diocese and the challenges you face, as I regularly speak with your priests...

Uefa is expected to avoid trying to block Israel from World Cup qualifying as the European governing body considers measures against the country’s football association. Under plans being worked out by Uefa that are expected to be voted on by its executive committee (exco) this week, the Guardian understands Israel would be banned only from competitions that Uefa directly controls. That means the Israel men’s and women’s national teams would be excluded from the Nations League and Maccabi Tel Aviv would be removed from the Europa League this season. The World Cup, however, is a Fifa competition, for which Uefa...

Two voters lacked standing and, additionally, failed to show how Blacks were weakened by maps for the North Carolina Senate, a federal judge has ruled. “Plaintiffs ignore the progress that North Carolina has made over the past 60 years and seek to use Section 2 to sort voters by race in order to squeeze one more Democratic Senate district into the map,” wrote Judge James Dever of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The ruling in Rodney D. Pierce and Moses Matthews v. The North Carolina State Board of Elections, et al. says racial gerrymandering...

On the first day of a federal government shutdown, New York City is finding out how expensive its commitment to leftist principles of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" is going to be under President Donald Trump's administration. Russ Vought, the White House Office of Management and Budget director, took to social media on Wednesday to announce the administration has frozen federal funding for two major transportation projects in the Big Apple. And even in New York City, $18 billion is a lot of money. Russ Vought (on X) @russvought Roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects have been put...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to top generals was supposed to serve as a rallying cry for military exceptionalism — but it didn’t land that way with many of the people it was targeting. Numerous defense officials — who watched senior brass scramble to Washington and then sit through a partisan speech from President Donald Trump and a return to old-school military standards by Hegseth — were left wondering why the event had occurred at all. “More like a press conference than briefing the generals,” said one defense official, who, like others, was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution....

Louisiana spends less per student than most of the country, yet its fourth graders are outperforming peers in nearly every other state. New data from the Urban Institute ranks Louisiana second in the nation for reading when adjusted for race and income, despite per-pupil spending of just $13,800 – thousands of dollars less than what some states spend. Spending data is sourced from the World Population Review. By comparison, Vermont spends $33,000 per student but ranks 46th, and Connecticut spends $25,000 yet lands at 13th. Other small, high-spending states like Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Alaska all exceed $20,000 per...

This police officer with the Leon County (Florida) Sheriff's Office is so paranoid, that he sees a guy (Robert) parked at a gas pump, with a gas pump in his hand, trying to pump some gas, and he immediately thinks it's something else in his hand. He gets scared. He pulls into the gas station, gets out of his police cruiser and draws down on the guy, shouting at him.

Keir Starmer has opened another front in his war on Reform by blaming Brexit for the Channel migrant crisis - saying the UK is being assailed by 'Farage boats'. The PM made the claim about the impact of cutting ties with the EU as he scrambled to claw back Nigel Farage's huge poll lead. But he also went into retreat after brutal barbs in his Labour conference speech, stressing the Reform leader is not a racist. The PM described Mr Farage as 'formidable' as he denied that the swipes put safety at risk. With Labour facing meltdown in the polls,...

A Washington, D.C., police sergeant is on administrative leave after authorities say he crashed a car into a federal vehicle during a traffic stop and was found with unregistered weapons. Police Sergeant Montez Clark, 27, and two others were arrested Monday night after Clark allegedly tried to flee from federal agents patrolling on behalf of President Donald Trump’s Make DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force, according to court records and a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. A DC police sergeant is accused of crashing a car into a federal vehicle during a traffic stop...

And the hate continues for Caitlin Clark. The Minnesota Lynx were recently eliminated from the WNBA postseason after the franchise suffered defeat against the Phoenix Mercury in the semifinals. Phoenix will now square off against the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA Finals. Napheesa Collier, a forward for Minnesota, sent shockwaves across the league Tuesday in her exit interview, which is part of the year-end responsibilities for the Lynx. When speaking about the WNBA itself, Collier was positive regarding its future, however, she’s not a fan of the league’s hierarchy. And she was specifically talking about commissioner Cathy Engelbert. Collier...