Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — During the first Trump administration, the biggest concern for many journalists was labels. Would they, or their news outlet, be called “fake news” or an “enemy of the people” by a president and his supporters? They now face a more assertive President Donald Trump. In two months, a blitz of action by the nation’s new administration — Trump, chapter two — has journalists on their heels. Lawsuits. A newly aggressive Federal Communications Commission. An effort to control the press corps that covers the president, prompting legal action by The Associated Press. A gutted Voice of America....

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Migrants from Afghanistan, Russia, Iran and China deported from the United States and dropped into limbo in Panama hopped door-to-door at embassies and consulates this week in a desperate attempt to seek asylum in any country that would accept them. The focus of international humanitarian concern just weeks before, the deportees now say they’re increasingly worried that with little legal and humanitarian assistance and no clear pathway forward offered by authorities, they may be forgotten. “After this, we don’t know what we’ll do,” said 29-year-old Hayatullah Omagh, who fled Afghanistan in 2022 after the Taliban takeover....

A crown over a soccer ball. An eyeball that “looked cool.” Flowers. Those are some of the everyday tattoos that defense lawyers say helped lead to the sudden weekend deportation of roughly 200 Venezuelan men who are accused of being members of the ruthless gang Tren de Aragua. Tattoos are signals of membership in some Latin American gangs, with the facial tattoos of the El Salvadoran group MS-13 perhaps the best known. Experts, though, say tattoos are not central to Tren de Aragua. They also note that tattoos, hugely popular all over the world, are often nothing more than body...

In two congressional districts and vastly different political environments, two Republicans in the U.S. House were met with far different reactions at public meetings they held late last week. Against the suggestion of their leader, House Speaker Mike Johnson, to refrain from holding public meetings with constituents, second-term Reps. Chuck Edwards and Harriet Hageman went ahead with their evening sessions. In Asheville, North Carolina, chants of opposition greeted Edwards on Thursday as opponents hooted at almost every answer he gave and chanted outside. In Evanston, Wyoming, at the southwestern corner of a sparsely populated and heavily Republican state, it was...

Greenland’s likely new prime minister on Wednesday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to take control of the island, saying Greenlanders must be allowed to decide their own future as it moves toward independence from Denmark. Jens-Frederik Nielsen’s Demokraatit, a pro-business party that favors a slow path to independence, won a surprise victory in Tuesday’s parliamentary election, outpacing the two left-leaning parties that formed the last government. With most Greenlanders opposing Trump’s overtures, the campaign focused more on issues like healthcare and education than on geopolitics. But on Wednesday Nielsen was quick to push back against Trump, who last week...

The White House yanked a reporter at a left-leaning news outlet from the rotation of journalists given special access to President Trump, making good on its pledge to rip control away from the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA). HuffPost’s White House correspondent S.V. Date had been slated to serve as the daily print pool reporter Wednesday, but the Trump administration booted him in the wee hours of the night and replaced him with an Axios reporter. The administration also kicked Reuters out of the spot it enjoyed as a wire service. In the past, Reuters, the Associated Press and Bloomberg...

Climate change is accelerating the melting of the world’s mountain glaciers, according to a massive new study that found them shrinking more than twice as fast as in the early 2000s. The study drew on an international effort that included 233 estimates of changes in glacier weight. The world’s glaciers have lost more than 7 trillion tons of ice since 2000, according to the study. “The thing that people should be aware of and perhaps worried about is that yes, the glaciers are indeed retreating and disappearing as we said they would. The rate of that loss seems to be...

WASHINGTON (AP) — His group spent nearly $1 million on ads opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s health agencies. He’s delivering speeches urging the president to stand with longstanding foreign allies and lobbying members of Congress while aides write letters and opinion columns. This weekend, he posted an article he penned more than a decade ago on the limits of presidential power after Trump claimed that, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Mike Pence is emerging as one of the last Republicans in Washington willing to publicly criticize the new...

A journalist with The Associated Press thought she had a big scoop. Little did she know she would have to be scooped off the ground after being obliterated in a fact-check by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.FAA staff fired over the weekend included personnel that worked radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, among others. Hundreds were fired, just weeks after a fatal mid-air collision in DC killed 67. One employee said they were harassed on Facebook by @DOGE… — Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) February 17, 2025 More fake news from the @AP 1. DOGE doesn’t even have a Facebook page...

The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump has ordered renamed the Gulf of America.The reporter tried to enter the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away, AP executives said. The highly unusual ban, which Trump administration officials had threatened earlier Tuesday unless the AP changed the style on the Gulf, could have constitutional free-speech implications.Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of The Associated Press, called the administration’s...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A letter submitted to the U.S. Senate that states it was sent by physicians in support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services includes the names of doctors who have had their licenses revoked, suspended or faced other discipline, The Associated Press has found. The letter was meant to lend credibility to Kennedy’s nomination, which has faced strenuous opposition from medical experts due to his two decades of anti-vaccine activism. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor who boasts on his official website of an effort he created...

Oil and gas companies would be liable for damages caused by climate change -related disasters in California under legislation introduced Monday by two Democratic lawmakers. The proposal claims that the oil industry intentionally deceived the public about the risks of fossil fuels on climate change that now have intensified storms and wildfires and caused billions of dollars in damage in California. Such disasters have also driven the state insurance market to a crisis where companies are raising rates, limiting coverage or pulling out completely from regions susceptible to wildfires and other natural disasters, supporters of the bill said. Under state...

WASHINGTON — (AP) — The Senate advanced the nomination of Pete Hegseth as President Donald Trump's defense secretary Thursday on a largely party-line vote, despite grave objections from Democrats and stirring unease among Republicans over his behavior and qualifications to lead the U.S. military. Two Republicans, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, broke ranks with Trump and his allies who have mounted an extensive public campaign to push Hegseth toward confirmation. The former combat veteran and Fox News host faces allegations of excessive drinking and aggressive actions toward women, which he has denied. The vote...

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s second inaugural address featured similar themes to his first: a sweeping indictment of the country he inherits and grand promises to fix its problems. Eight years ago, Trump described “American carnage” and promised to end it immediately. On Monday, he declared that the country’s “decline” will end immediately, ushering in “the golden age of America.” Trump added a long list of policies that sounded more like a State of the Union speech than an Inauguration Day speech. But the broad themes were fundamentally Trumpian, setting himself up as a national savior

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for interior secretary told a Senate panel Thursday the U.S. can leverage development of fossil fuels and other energy sources to promote world peace and voiced concerns about the reliability of renewable power sources promoted under the Biden administration. Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum described Trump’s aspiration to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” as a way to counter demand for fossil fuels from autocratic nations — Russia, Iran and Venezuela — that have fewer environmental safeguards. Burgum also said the U.S. needs to make more “baseload” electricity from coal and other sources as it seeks to...

The Associated Press’s in-house public relations flunky for President Joe Biden, Josh Boak, is following the dragged out trend of leftist media figures treating Americans like they’re just too impatient to understand the true genius of Bidenomics. Boak’s January 15 propaganda piece disguised as news, “How Biden’s domestic policy record stacks up against public perception,” was laced with a hodgepodge of excuses and celebratory ramblings about Biden’s economic policies, which he mourned were hampered by a disgruntled voter base. “President Joe Biden ends his term with a gulf between his policy record and his public reputation,” he wrote. He implied...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — U.S. flags at President-elect Donald Trump ‘s private Mar-a-Lago club are back to flying at full height. Flags are supposed to fly at half-staff through the end of January out of respect for former President Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29. A large flag on Trump’s property in Palm Beach was initially lowered to half-staff according to protocol but has since been raised in the days after Carter was buried Thursday in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

In the days after the presidential election, Sadie Perez began carrying pepper spray with her around campus. Her mom also ordered her and her sister a self-defense kit that included keychain spikes, a hidden knife key and a personal alarm. It’s a response to an emboldened fringe of right-wing “manosphere” influencers who have seized on Republican Donald Trump ’s presidential win to justify and amplify misogynistic derision and threats online. Many have appropriated a 1960s abortion rights rallying cry, declaring “Your body, my choice” at women online and on college campuses. For many women, the words represent a worrying harbinger...

This article is an embarrassment for the AP which insists on running angry blog posts as wire articles. It’s an embarrassment for those throwing a tantrum against every group because they lost an election.AP: Feeling betrayed by increased minority support for Trump, black women say they’re stepping backSo basically everyone now sucks except for black women. Even by the standards of identity politics, this is pathetically divisive. And also seemingly pointless.If all Americans suck except black women, and they’re not getting involved in lefty activism, what is even the point?Oh right, the point is a vocal tantrum accompanied by fake...

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons, a move that follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russian territory with American-supplied longer-range missiles. The new doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles early Tuesday at a military facility in Russia's Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, adding that air defenses shot down five of them and damaged one...