Free Republic

LOS ANGELES — Jurors convicted a Southern California judge of second-degree murder on Tuesday for fatally shooting his wife while the couple argued and watched television at home. Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, was on trial for the 2023 death of his wife Sheryl, 65, in their Anaheim Hills home. Ferguson took the stand in his own defense, admitting to shooting his wife but saying it was an accident. Jurors reached their decision Tuesday afternoon, a day after deliberations began. After the verdict was read in court, Ferguson was given a moment to hug his son before...

ATLANTA (AP) — The pastor of a Georgia megachurch who led a nationwide 40-day “fast” boycott of Target stores over the retail chain's commitment to diversity initiatives is now calling for that effort to continue as a “full Target boycott.” The Rev. Jamal Bryant said this week that the Minneapolis-based retailer has not met all of the boycott effort's demands. Among them: Restoring its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion principles and pledging money to Black-owned banks and businesses. Target announced in January that it would phase out a handful of DEI initiatives, including a program designed to help Black...

Giorgia Meloni’s interpreter has apologized for faltering during a high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, prompting the Italian prime minister to jump in and translate her own comments about NATO and defense spending. Valentina Maiolini-Rothbacher, who was interrupted by Meloni when providing a translation at the White House meeting on Thursday, said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the mishap was the “worst thing that can happen to an interpreter, a terrible setback.” Footage of the meeting shows President Trump asking Maiolini-Rothbacher for a translation of Meloni’s response to a question from an Italian...

Dubai -- US airstrikes targeting an oil port held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed 74 people and wounded 171 others, the group said Friday, marking the single-deadliest known attack under President Donald Trump’s new campaign targeting the rebels. Assessing the toll of Trump’s campaign, which began March 15, has been incredibly difficult as the US military’s Central Command so far has not released any information on the campaign, its specific targets and how many people have been killed. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels strictly control access to areas attacked and don’t publish information on the strikes, many of which likely have...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will no longer give wire services a permanent spot in the White House press pool following The Associated Press’ victory last week in a lawsuit over its exclusion, The Post has learned. Instead, the White House is giving a second spot to “print” journalists — a term henceforth including wire reporters — who will get access to President Trump in small event spaces. ... DC US District Judge Trevor McFadden last week ordered the AP’s restoration to the press pool — after weeks of exclusion over editors’ refusal to update the AP Stylebook to refer...

U.S. egg prices increased again last month to reach a new record-high of $6.23 per dozen despite President Donald Trump’s predictions, a drop in wholesale prices and no egg farms having bird flu outbreaks.... ....The farms that had fall outbreaks have been working to resume egg production after sanitizing their barns and raising new flocks, but chickens must be about six months old before they start laying eggs. Thompson said those farms did not come back online as quickly as anticipated. The increase reported Thursday in the Consumer Price Index means consumers and businesses that rely on eggs might not...

EVERETT, Mass. (AP) — For years, the mayor of a Boston suburb dreaded Wednesdays. That was the day when a local weekly would publish shocking allegations that he was on the take, sexually harassing women or under investigation by the FBI. Friends trashed Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria on Facebook over what the Everett Leader Herald printed. His father threatened to disown him — over stories the mayor knew were lies. “They labeled me as a ‘Kickback Carlo.’ Accusations that I was settling all kinds of sexual harassment lawsuits, that I put a knife to a girl’s throat and asked for...

Nikola founder Trevor Milton announced Thursday on social media that he had been fully pardoned by President Donald Trump. "Today I was issued a full and unconditional pardon by @realdonaldtrump himself. He called me personally to tell me," Milton noted. The Associated Press reported that the White House confirmed on Friday that the president had pardoned Milton. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House on Friday but did not receive a response by publication time. "This pardon is not just about me—it’s about every American who has been railroaded by the government, and unfortunately, that’s a lot of...

A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court. Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed. “We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As congressional lawmakers scramble to respond to President Donald Trump’s slashing of the federal government, one group is already taking a front and center role: military veterans. From layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon purge of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have been acutely affected by Trump’s actions. And with the Republican president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the burden will only grow on veterans, who make up roughly 30% of the federal workforce and often tap government benefits they earned with their military service. “At a moment...

BREMEN, Maine (AP) — Commercial fishermen and seafood processors looking to switch to new, lower-carbon emission systems say the federal funding they relied on for this work is either frozen or unavailable due to significant budget cuts promoted by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. The changes are designed to replace old diesel-burning engines and outdated at-sea cooling systems and are touted by environmentalists as a way to reduce seafood’s carbon footprint. Decarbonization of the fishing fleet has been a target of environmental activists in recent years. That is far less than agriculture, but still a significant piece of...

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...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met the leaders of Britain and France on Monday during his first official overseas trip, seeking support from two of Ottawa’s oldest allies as U.S. President Donald Trump targets Canada’s sovereignty and economy. Canadians have criticized the leaders of the two countries that founded Canada for their muted response to Trump’s attacks. The president has imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum and repeatedly commented on turning Canada into the 51st state. Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron did not take journalists’ questions, and a joint news conference was not scheduled with British Prime Minister...

The U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for moving Palestinians uprooted from the Gaza Strip under President Donald Trump’s proposed postwar plan, American and Israeli officials told The Associated Press. The contacts with Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland reflect the determination by the U.S. and Israel to press ahead with a plan that has been widely condemned and raised serious legal and moral issues. Because all three places are poor, and in some cases wracked by violence, the proposal...

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sparred with an Associated Press reporter Tuesday over ... an "insulting" question "trying to test [her] knowledge of economics." AP's Josh Boak asked about President Donald Trump's address at the Business Roundtable (BRT) quarterly meeting that was set to occur after the White House press briefing. He claimed that despite Trump previously touting tax cuts during his last BRT meeting in 2024, the president is now pushing "tax hikes" through tariffs. Leavitt objected to this line of questioning, interrupting him, saying, "Not true." "I’m curious why he is prioritizing that over tax cuts," Boak...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Giving a new meaning to the phrase mad scientists, angry researchers, doctors, their patients and supporters ventured out of labs, hospitals and offices Friday to fight against what they call a blitz on life-saving science by the Trump administration. In the nation’s capital, a couple thousand gathered at the Stand Up for Science rally. Organizers said similar rallies were planned in more than 30 U.S. cities. Politicians, scientists, musicians, doctors and their patients made the case that firings, budget and grant cuts in health, climate, science and other research government agencies in the Trump administration’s first 47...

The Associated Press is currently suing the Trump White House and claiming they're a "global, independent, non-partisan news organization."Their latest attempt to prove support among the Ukrainian people for President Vladimir Zelenskyy over President Donald Trump was so laughably lame as to induce widespread mockery. In the wake of the contentious White House meeting between Zelensky and Trump, AP put together a video that was intended to show general support among Ukrainians for the stances taken by their president.The problem for AP in making their case for Zelensky was that they used only two, count 'em, TWO Ukrainian interviewees. They...

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...

Frankly, given the Associated Press' track record the past two months, they deserve to be barred from the White House press pool. They're absurdly partisan, biased, and -- frankly -- downright stupid...For transgender students involved in a very special project at a culinary school in Pakistan, there is more to a class than just learning the art of cooking. Neha Malik used to dance at parties and weddings for a living and was, occasionally, a sex worker. Since January, she has been enrolled in a new course for the trans community at the Culinary & Hotel Institute of Pakistan. The...

Order a Coke to wash down some hummus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank these days and chances are the waiter will shake his head disapprovingly — or worse, mutter “shame, shame” in Arabic — before suggesting the popular local alternative: a can of Chat Cola. Chat Cola — its red tin and sweeping white script bearing remarkable resemblance to the iconic American soft drink’s logo — has seen its products explode in popularity across the occupied West Bank in the past year as Palestinian consumers, angry at America’s steadfast support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, protest...