Free Republic

A growing push in the US to curtail OPT and tax or restrict foreign student work is rattling Indian students. Policy shifts, surprise site visits and H-1B fee changes are shrinking the post-study path in the US. When students finish degrees in the US, they often rely on Optional Practical Training (OPT) to transition from F1 student visas to H1-B work visas and build a career in the US. That safety net is now increasingly under threat. Senator Tom Cotton’s OPT Fair Tax Act was already spelling trouble. Now, Senator Chuck Grassley and others are urging DHS (Department of Homeland...

Now that the curtain’s getting pulled back more and more on the January 6th setup… and yes, the infamous “Pipe Bomb” hoax that aged about as well as gas-station sushi, the bombshells are coming in fast and furious style. Most of us already knew J6 was less “insurrection” and much more “fedsurrection,” and that the pipe bomb story was a political fairytale. So, while a lot of people are done with bombshells and ready for indictments, it’s still worth connecting the dots. Because, let’s face it, if there’s one person who wants justice more than anyone, it’s President Trump… the...

... The elevation of environmentalism to the level of doctrine, the pseudo-pagan deification of the earth and the implication that those who do not believe in the environmental movement are heretics who need to undergo a conversion “that transforms both personal and communal lifestyles” which he equated to a conversion to Christianity and the claim that failure to participate in made it impossible for anyone to call themselves “disciples of Jesus Christ” were radical positions, but the real radicalism lay in the infrastructure of leftist political organizing. Pope Leo’s attacks on ‘climate blasphemy’ were accompanied by a meeting with “environmental...

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Wednesday compared efforts to draw congressional districts along racial lines to the way disabled people were granted easier access to buildings after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law. “The idea in Section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act] is that we are responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system, right?” Jackson said, as she questioned a lawyer representing Louisiana voters who argued that the court-ordered creation of a second majority-black district...

Crypto industry observers were baffled Wednesday afternoon when an on-chain transaction showed that Paxos, the issuer behind the PayPal-branded PYUSD stablecoin, minted $300 trillion worth of the tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. A little over 20 minutes later, all 300 trillion PYUSD tokens were "burned," or effectively destroyed, by sending them to an inaccessible network address. For context, $300 trillion is more than 2.5 times larger than the entire world’s GDP, which is approximately $117 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund. There is also only $2.4 trillion in physical U.S. dollars in circulation, per TradingEconomics. It cost just $2.66...

Comedian Kathy Griffin wasn’t afraid to say something that might get her in “trouble” while sharing her opinions about President Donald Trump and his on-and-off billionaire friend Elon Musk. “People are calling this protest the No Kings Day, because Trump thinks he’s a f---ing king,” the two-time Emmy award winner said on Tuesday’s episode of her YouTube show, Talk Your Head Off with Kathy Griffin. "And you know he’s not. He’s barely a president," she added. Griffin was referring to the “No Kings” demonstrations—an anti-Trump protest—scheduled to take place across the country on Saturday, Oct. 18. In June, “No Kings”...

The famously elusive special counsel is defending himself and attacking the Trump Department of Justice in public as various investigations into Smith's misconduct heat up. Jack Smith talks to Andrew Weissmann in LondonCongressional Republicans, as promised, are zoning in on Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team of thugs for their tactics in bringing two criminal indictments against Donald Trump right before the presidential election. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Jordan (R-Ohio), who has been investigating the special counsel’s office since 2023, asked Smith this week to sit for a deposition to explain his role and respond to numerous allegations...

(NEXSTAR) – States are warning SNAP recipients that their eligibility for food assistance could change as a November deadline to comply with the One Big Beautiful Bill approaches. The mega-bill, which passed into law over the summer, overhauls the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), which provides food assistance to more than 42 million. The changes are expected to squeeze some people out of the program as federal spending on the program is cut by an estimated $186 billion over the next decade...New work requirements and fewer exceptionsA big change to the program has to...

Antifa rioters continue to plague American cities, but who pays for them? Seamus Bruner, VP of Research for the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), is just back from a White House panel last week where independent journalists who have covered Antifa’s activities explained their findings for several Cabinet secretaries and President Donald Trump himself, a surprise attendee. GAI’s crack team of researchers has already uncovered more than $100 million of taxpayer money fed into the protest industrial complex. Bruner shared GAI’s research with the president and the cabinet secretaries tracing the money that enables the rioting by Antifa and its allied...

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Moscow on Wednesday that the United States and its allies would "impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression" if the war in Ukraine does not come to an end. "If we must take this step, the U.S. War Department stands ready to do our part in ways that only the United States can do," Hegseth said at a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group of Kyiv's allies at NATO headquarters. Hegseth did not elaborate. His comments came as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is considering a request by Ukraine for long-range Tomahawk...

A children’s charity for which the Duchess of Sussex was a global ambassador has denied allegations of racism and sexism. Meghan, 44, became involved with World Vision in 2016, the year she met Prince Harry. She went on trips, including to Rwanda and India, to see its work. A photograph of Meghan hugging a child during the visit to Rwanda became famous, and the charity praised her as a “true humanitarian” who would bring “vast energy” to her royal work, following the announcement of her engagement. The Charity Commission is assessing a complaint that the international charity’s British arm is...

A former Massachusetts shelter director-turned-whistleblower is calling the sentencing of yet another illegal alien for raping a child at a taxpayer-funded shelter further evidence of a "total government failure" in the sanctuary state. Haitian illegal alien Cory Alvarez, 27, was found guilty of aggravated rape of a child at a migrant shelter in Rockland, Massachusetts, and sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison, according to NBC 10 Boston. Alvarez was arrested by Rockland police in 2024 on suspicion of sexual assault on a 15-year-old female victim. Both Alvarez and the victim were living at a state-run shelter at a...

NATIONAL LIQUEUR DAY On October 16th, we raise a glass to National Liqueur Day, a time to celebrate one of the most diverse and flavorful categories of spirits. From velvety cream liqueurs to aromatic herbal concoctions, this day honors the creativity and history behind these delightful drinks. #NationalLiqueurDay So, what exactly is a liqueur? The word itself comes from the Latin liquifacere, meaning "to liquefy." In essence, a liqueur is an alcoholic beverage that starts with a distilled spirit (like vodka, rum, or whiskey) that is then flavored with ingredients such as fruit, cream, herbs, spices, flowers, or nuts. Sugar...

The United States Agriculture Department informed states including New Mexico that it will not pay for food stamps in November if the ongoing government shutdown continues, the state’s Health Care Authority secretary said Wednesday. The order could mean the state’s 450,000 recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program won’t receive nearly $90 million in benefits next month, HCA Secretary Kari Armijo told lawmakers on the Legislative Finance Committee during a meeting Wednesday morning in Santa Fe. In addition, Armijo said the USDA informed states it may revoke the authorization of the state’s roughly 1,700 SNAP retailers, “so folks with SNAP...

A naked Florida man terrorized a neighborhood in a late-night rampage, breaking into multiple homes and destroying property — with on-edge neighbors saying he’s lucky he wasn’t shot dead. The bare-naked burglar, identified by police as 23-year-old Joshua Garrison, was caught on security camera lurking through backyards in Pinellas Park outside of St. Petersburg last week, touching himself sexually and causing significant damage. “I was asleep, and the doorbell rang, and I answered the door,” neighbor David Dale told WFLA. “Opened the door and there was a guy standing there, and he was stark naked.”

GOLOVIN, Alaska – A historic storm blasted western Alaska Friday and Saturday with hurricane-force winds, over 50-foot seas and coastal flooding not seen in decades, leaving homes flooded, roads washed away and power out to a wide area. What used to be Typhoon Merbok morphed into a powerful northern Pacific storm as it raced nearly due north and pushed through the Aleutian Islands Friday and into the Bering Sea Saturday, bringing a dangerous storm surge inundating coastal villages and towns under several feet of water for hours.

An alleged Chicago gang leader living in the United States illegally and accused of soliciting the murder of a high-ranking U.S. Border Patrol commander has been indicted by a federal grand jury. Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, is charged with a single count of murder for hire over an alleged bounty placed on U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino, the commander at large. The indictment states that Martinez, a Mexican citizen, "knowingly used a facility of interstate commerce, namely, an Apple Model 16 cellular telephone... and Snapchat, with intent that a murder be committed." He was arrested this week and remains...

(Trigger warning: extensive and unfortunately necessary descriptions of Islamic toilet practices.) How many Islamic toilets is a Muslim terrorist entitled to? At least two. That’s the ruling by a U.S. federal judge in the long running saga of a UK Muslim terror imam locked up in a Colorado prison who called for murdering non-Muslims and wants those same non-Muslims to tend to the ‘purity’ of his nether regions so he can properly pray to ‘Allah’. And so begins the most disgusting article I ever had to write: in both the moral sense of how far backward we bent to cater...

The provisions placed by the Democrats are utterly absurd. The headlines discuss the issue of health care without mentioning the endless demands they’ve made that in no way benefit America or the American people. Half of our elected representatives are refusing to reopen the government unless the GOP agrees to send $5 billion in taxpayer funds to foreign nations. What will these foreign nations do with our $5 billion in aid so crucial that the US government cannot effectively operate without it? Naturally, the majority of the package ($1.8 billion) will be funneled through USAID into NGOs that line politicians’...

NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. The nation’s leadership called the new rules “common sense” to help regulate a “very disruptive” press. News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release. Many...