Free Republic

HENRICO, Va. (AP) — In-person voting for this year's midterm elections began Friday, ushering in the final six weeks for Americans to decide which party they trust to lead Congress through a cost-of-living crisis, a prolonged war in Iran and other pressing issues. Election administrators say they are prepared and confident the vote will be accurate and secure. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump has continued efforts to denigrate certain voting methods and reshape how elections are run, through court challenges, a federal hunt for noncitizen voters and a pressure campaign to force election officials to share sensitive voter data. Friday was...

YARDLEY, Pa. (AP) — Mary Ryan may be a registered Republican but she has never voted for President Donald Trump, turned off by his crass style of politics and chaotic approach to governing. But the 60-year-old medical writer from the Philadelphia suburbs has consistently backed her party’s congressman, five-term Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick. Until now. This year, Ryan is so fed up with Trump and his grip on Congress that she is planning to vote in November for Fitzpatrick’s Democratic opponent in the 1st Congressional District, Bob Harvie, a twice countywide elected commissioner who is a former social studies teacher.

President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November. The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation. “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was directly warned by the president of the United Arab Emirates that Hamas was planning a major offensive just days before the militant group attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, according to an Israeli newspaper report. UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed spoke with Netanyahu 10 days before the attack and said Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza at the time, was planning an operation, the Haaretz daily said. Bin Zayed said it would lead to bloodshed and could destabilize the region and undermine the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab and...

President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday. The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain. The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS,...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers may soon be outfitted with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks intended to gain compliance from combative individuals. ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security. The devices are known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky. They have been used in recent years by some jails and police departments. DHS said Tuesday...

The Pentagon is pressing the U.S. defense industry to accelerate production of weapons to help replenish its diminished stockpile of munitions, including those depleted in the ongoing war with Iran. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Saturday that the department was actively focused on boosting munitions acquisitions to provide “the weapons our warfighters need at the pace the threat demands.” He confirmed department efforts in the last week to significantly speed the process but insisted it was part of a broader modernization effort that predated the five-month-old conflict. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg wrote to industry leaders on...

HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) — Advocates warn that tens of thousands of migrant children who came to the United States alone could lose legal representation in immigration court and increase their risk of deportation as the Trump administration allows a contract with legal services providers to expire.Friday marks the last day of a contract under which the federal government pays for legal services for children who enter the U.S. without a parent or guardian. The government contracts out those services to a network of nearly 100 legal groups across the country that provide services to roughly 20,000 children.The Trump administration did...

Comments 573 WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that he is rolling out a new screening program for “testosterone deficiency” among troops, calling it necessary to allow them to operate at their “absolute best.” The screenings will be conducted annually as part of service members’ required medical screenings for those 30 and older, he said. Troops under 30 can volunteer to be tested. In a video on social media, Hegseth said receiving testosterone replacement therapy would be voluntary. In the video, Hegseth simply refers to troops, though it appears he is talking about only testing men in...

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld an Illinois ban on semiautomatic weapons, keeping in place a law passed largely in response to a deadly Independence Day parade shooting. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturns a lower court decision that found the ban unconstitutional. The 2-1 appellate decision found that the Illinois law does not violate the Second Amendment, and its restrictions are "consistent with the principles that underpin our Nation's tradition of firearm regulation." "Whether to adopt them is thus a decision reposed in our elected representatives, and we reverse," the appeals...

Three tankers were struck by projectiles Tuesday in the Strait of Hormuz, the British military said, in the latest attacks targeting vessels moving through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. One of the tankers was traveling off the coast of Oman and caught fire, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center. Iranian state television said the liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings but did not directly claim the assault. Two other tankers were also hit, including one that was struck by a drone. It was not immediately clear where they were at the...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 10,000 people over a five-day period at the end of June, marking a major push by the agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration's mass deportations agenda. The arrest numbers, obtained from a person familiar with the information who spoke anonymously to discuss data that has not been publicly released, come after the agency shifted its approach from high-profile arrest sweeps in major American cities to quieter ways to reach President Donald Trump's deportation goals. The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue...

LONDON (AP) — Counterterrorism detectives in Scotland were investigating after five people were injured in attacks in Edinburgh that appeared to target Muslims, police said Saturday. Police Scotland said that a 36-year-old man was arrested late Friday after officers received multiple reports of attacks in the west and north of the city. The force said that five men — two of them age 22, and others ages 24, 27 and 39 — sustained a range of injuries and three needed hospital treatment. None of the injuries is considered life-threatening. The charity Muslim Engagement and Development said that several of those...

The B-52 involved in a deadly crash during a test flight at an Air Force base in California made a sharp right and then nearly completed a 180-degree turn before plunging to the ground at a rate of nearly a mile a minute, limited tracking data shows Tuesday. The B-52 was airborne for 3 minutes and 15 seconds before it crashed, according to AirNav Systems. The flight tracking that was available Tuesday shows the bomber turning to the northeast right after taking off and nearly completing a 180 degree turn before crashing on another runway, according to AirNav Systems. The...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Donald Trump last year that he was the “greatest friend Israel ever had in the White House.” Now, as Trump tries to finalize a deal to end the war with Iran, he’s unloading on Netanyahu with rhetoric that no other American leader has dared to use publicly. He claimed credit for Israel’s existence — “without me, there would be no Israel” — and cursed his judgment in interviews. He even described him as “crazy.” The tension comes as Trump criticizes recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon, which threatened to jeopardize negotiations between Washington and...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military launched airstrikes and Iran retaliated Wednesday following the crash of an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz that U.S. President Donald Trump blamed on the Islamic Republic.Iran launched attacks in Bahrain and Kuwait, which both sounded alerts and fired air defenses in response. Iran also said it targeted an air base in Jordan hosting U.S. forces, which was not immediately acknowledged either by American or Jordanian officials.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military said Tuesday that it carried out strikes on Iran following the crash of an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz that President Donald Trump blamed on the Islamic Republic.U.S. Central Command said on social media that the strikes would be "a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression." Iranian state media reported that explosions were heard on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane that Iran has effectively closed during the war, before saying that the wave of American attacks in the south has "subsided."Trump said earlier...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel then struck Iran, with which Trump has been engaged in weeks of high-stakes negotiations.The fighting has since died down, but the differences between the two leaders are likely to persist.That’s...

Despite listing the charges in the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center and without even questioning their validity, the Associated Press writes it off as a 'political weapon' on the part of the Trump administration.The AP's Collin Binkley, Alanna Durkin Richer, and Rebecca Boone came up with this remarkable summary of the indictment on Tuesday in "Southern Poverty Law Center charged with defrauding donors with payments to extremist informants."They gave an inclusive summary of the serious charges against the SPLC ...before essentially writing them off as politically motivated.

CAIRO (AP) — The standoff over the Strait of Hormuz escalated again Saturday as Iran reversed its reopening of the crucial waterway and fired on ships attempting to pass, in retaliation after the United States pressed ahead with its blockade of Iranian ports.The strait is closed until the U.S. blockade is lifted, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy said Saturday night, warning that “no vessel should make any movement from its anchorage in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, and approaching the Strait of Hormuz will be considered as cooperation with the enemy” and be targeted.New attacks on the strait,...