Free Republic

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, announced Monday he will not seek reelection next year amid an increasingly polarized political climate.Bacon, 61, said at a news conference at Omaha’s airport that he would not seek a sixth term representing Nebraska’s second district with its so-called blue dot that includes many progressive voters around Omaha.Bacon has had to navigate an ever-thinning line between staying in his party’s and President Donald Trump’s good graces without alienating his increasingly Democratic district. He said he is proud of his bipartisan approach in the face of bitter partisanship in...

Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian lived in the United States for 47 years, married a U.S. citizen and raised their daughter. She was gardening in the yard of her New Orleans home when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers handcuffed and took her away, her family said. Kashanian arrived in 1978 on a student visa and applied for asylum, fearing retaliation for her father’s support of the U.S.-backed shah. She lost her bid, but she was allowied to remain with her husband and child if she checked in regularly with immigration officials, her husband and daughter said. She complied, once checking in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal jury on Monday awarded $500,000 to the widow and estate of a police officer who killed himself nine days after he helped defend the U.S. Capitol from a mob of rioters, including a man who scuffled with the officer during the attack. The eight-member jury ordered that man, 69-year-old chiropractor David Walls-Kaufman, to pay $380,000 in punitive damages and $60,000 in compensatory damages to Erin Smith for assaulting her husband, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They awarded an additional $60,000 to compensate Jeffrey Smith's estate for his pain...

BARCELONA (AP) — Iran is boasting that it has hypersonic missiles and says it already has begun firing the cutting-edge weapons at Israel.There is no evidence that Iran has unleashed the missiles, and experts are skeptical of the claim.But the use of these fast-moving projectiles could test Israel’s vaunted missile-defense system and alter the course of the fighting between the two bitter enemies.Here’s a closer look at these advanced weapons:What is a hypersonic missile and what makes them so feared?Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed Wednesday that it had fired what it said were hypersonic “Fattah 1” missiles toward Israel. But...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Tuesday officially asked Congress to claw back $9.4 billion in already approved spending, taking funding away from programs targeted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.It’s a process known as “rescission,” which requires President Donald Trump to get approval from Congress to return money that had previously been appropriated. Trump’s aides say the funding cuts target programs that promote liberal ideologies. The request, if it passes the House and Senate, would formally enshrine many of the spending cuts and freezes sought by DOGE. It comes at a time when Musk is extremely unhappy...

SINGAPORE (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reassured allies in the Indo-Pacific on Saturday that they will not be left alone to face increasing military and economic pressure from China, while insisting that they also contribute more to their own defense. He said Washington will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what the Pentagon sees as rapidly developing threats by Beijing, particularly in its aggressive stance toward Taiwan. China has conducted numerous exercises to test what a blockade would look like of the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own and the U.S. has pledged to defend. China’s...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) – A massive fire that destroyed a large shopping center in Warsaw last year was the result of arson ordered by Russian intelligence services, Polish officials said Sunday on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the blaze. The fire broke out May 12, 2024, in the Marywilska 44 shopping that housed some 1,400 shops and service points. Many of the vendors were from Vietnam, and it inflicted tragedy on many in Warsaw’s Vietnamese community. “We now know for certain that the massive fire on Marywilska was the result of arson commissioned by Russian services,” Prime Minister...

...Since the start of February the Trump administration has ended two federal programs that together allowed more 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S.... ....A federal judge ordered on March 31 that temporary protected statuswould stand until a legal challenge’s next stage in court and at least 350,000 Venezuelans were temporarily spared becoming illegal. Escaray, the owner of the restaurants, said nearly all of his 150 employees are Venezuelan and more than 100 are on TPS.

Americans are less likely to see Canada and the U.S. as close allies than they were two years ago, the latest indication that President Donald Trump's tariff threats and talk of taking over a neighboring ally are souring a critical economic and military relationship. The U.S. shift in viewpoint comes primarily from Democrats, though Republicans are less likely to see Canada as America’s ally now too, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. While about 7 in 10 Democrats saw Canada and the U.S. as close allies before Trump returned to office, now...

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...

STANSTEAD, Quebec (AP) — For more than 100 years, people in Stanstead, Quebec have been able to walk into Derby Line, Vermont to enter the border-straddling Haskell Free Library and Opera House – no passport required. But municipal and library officials said on Friday that U.S. authorities have unilaterally decided to end the century-old unwritten agreement. Coming at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries, the decision is prompting an outpouring of emotion in communities on both sides of the border, which in places has been marked simply by flower pots. Inside the library celebrated as a symbol...

CAIRO (AP) — When the first explosions in Gaza this week started around 1:30 a.m., a visiting British doctor went to the balcony of a hospital in Khan Younis and watched the streaks of missiles light up the night before pounding the city. A Palestinian surgeon next to him gasped, “Oh no. Oh no.” After two months of ceasefire, the horror of Israeli bombardment was back. The veteran surgeon told the visiting doctor, Sakib Rokadiya, they’d better head to the emergency ward. Torn bodies soon streamed in, carried by ambulances, donkey carts or in the arms of terrified relatives. What...

Soon after Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, acquired The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, he assured its editors and reporters — myself included — that he would give us the freedom to do our jobs and “follow the story” without interference from him. At a 2016 Washington Post tech forum with Marty Baron, who was then executive editor, Bezos quoted a phrase he had heard from the legendary Watergate reporter Bob Woodward: “Democracy dies in darkness.” It was a perfect motto to advertise the mission of one of America’s most storied and respected news organizations — a...

NEW YORK — (AP) — Scrambling to replace their health insurance and to find new work, some laid-off federal workers are running into another unexpected unpleasantry: Relatives cheering their firing. The country's bitterly tribal politics are spilling into text chains, social media posts and heated conversations as Americans absorb the reality of the government's cost-cutting measures. Expecting sympathy, some axed workers are finding family and friends who instead are steadfast in their support of what they see as a bloated government's waste

Marc Rosenberg, founder and CEO of The Edge Desk in Deerfield, Illinois is getting ready to introduce a fancy ergonomic chair designed to reduce customers’ back pain and boost their productivity. He figures the most expensive one will sell for more than $1,000. But he can’t settle on a price, and he is reluctantly reducing the shipment he’s bringing to the United States from China. There’s a reason for his caution: President Donald Trump’s ever-changing, on-again, off-again tariff war with America’s three biggest trading partners – Mexico, Canada and China. The latest reversal came Thursday. Two days after imposing 25%...

Blocking reporters from covering news events at the Oval Office. Ousting journalists from their working spaces in the Pentagon. Investigating public media companies that are often the targets of conservative attacks. In the three weeks since he returned to the White House, President Donald Trump and his administration have moved beyond his usual anti-news media rhetoric to take a variety of actions that have limited some outlets’ access while hitting others with lawsuits and directives that critics say are naked attempts to bend news coverage to his will. “I don’t know if Trump himself has a ‘game plan’ per se,...

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump is demanding the immediate release of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, saying that if they are not freed before he is sworn into office there will be “HELL TO PAY.”“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth...

Donald Trump loved to use tariffs on foreign goods during his first presidency. But their impact was barely noticeable in the overall economy, even if their aftershocks were clear in specific industries. The data show they never fully delivered on his promised factory jobs. Nor did they provoke the avalanche of inflation that critics feared. This time, though, his tariff threats might be different. The president-elect is talking about going much bigger — on a potential scale that creates more uncertainty about whether he'll do what he says and what the consequences could be. “There's going to be a lot...

The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election. Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported. Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned businesses that still...

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper with a woman’s first name in recent days as the Republican presidential nominee focuses his closing message on a hypermasculine appeal to men. On a Friday morning post on Trump’s social media site Truth Social, the former president referred to one of the most prominent openly gay journalists in the U.S. as “Allison Cooper.” […] In referring to Cooper with a woman’s name, Trump appeared to turn to a stereotype heterosexual people have long deployed against gay men. Such rhetoric evokes the trope of gay men as effeminate...