Free Republic

The raccoon tested negative for rabies. Officials do not know how it got into the home.. A child was hospitalized after a raccoon attack inside the family's home... The incident happened on Monday in Cassia County after the child's mom had just returned home with the infant still in the carrier... The mother then heard a loud noise in the home and ran to the infant to find a raccoon attacking him.. “The mother found a raccoon attacking her infant. She was able to grab the animal to stop the attack,” .. The child was taken to the Cassia Regional...

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan posted eerie video footage on his X account Friday of “large drones” circling above his house just 25 miles from Washington, DC, echoing concerns from Americans about the unsettling aircraft recently spotted on the East Coast, primarily in New Jersey. Hogan, 68, said he observed “dozens of large drones in the sky” over his home in Davidsonville, Maryland, “for approximately 45 minutes” — but didn’t know himself if the aerial phenomena were “a threat to public safety or national security.”

The federal workforce is the equivalent of the Soviet Nomenklatura. The big difference between the Soviet bureaucracy and the US federal bureaucracy is that a much larger percentage of the federal workforce gets the special benefits that were reserved for top Communist Party members in the Soviet Union. The Daily Wire's invaluable reporter, Luke Rosiak, reports on the sorry state of the federal workforce and on the Department of Government Efficiency's determination to reform a broken system. 94% of feds are still working from home--the EPA had poisonous water *in its own headquarters* because it was sitting in the pipes...

A Secret Service agent fired at suspects who were attempting to open car doors near Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s home in Washington, D.C., early Tuesday morning, a spokesman said in a statement. An agent working a protective assignment in the 2900 block of Stephenson Place NW saw a sedan with multiple people who were attempting to open car doors along the street at about 1:30 a.m., Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said. That address is near where Yellen lives in the District, though Guglielmi said no Secret Service protectees were threatened during the incident. “As the sedan approached the agent,...

Gov. Kevin Stitt says Oklahoma will have a plan to deport undocumented immigrants in the custody of state prisons as soon as President-elect Donald Trump takes office. “As law and order returns to the White House, Oklahoma will lead the charge with a comprehensive plan to deport those who have committed crimes in Oklahoma while in the country illegally," Stitt said in the announcement.

Homebuilder confidence surged in November as the election of Donald Trump and a Republican sweep of the House and Senate boosted optimism about the housing market. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said its monthly confidence index rose to 46, the highest level since April. This was higher than even the most bullish forecasts and three points above the October level. The sentiment boost reflects builders’ beliefs that the incoming administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill will adopt policies to facilitate increased construction activity. “With the elections now in the rearview mirror, builders are expressing increasing confidence...

A social media post from Kamala Harris’ niece has shed some light on what the vice president’s life is looking like after losing the presidential election to Donald Trump. The new photographs, shared by Meena Harris on Saturday, show the Democratic nominee sitting cross-legged on the ground playing Connect 4 with her two great-nieces while enjoying a glass of white wine. “Back to where it all began only a few months ago. My eternal gratitude to everyone who showed up. We love her so much,” Meena Harris wrote.

DEARBORN, Mo. (KCTV) - An unknown man was shot and killed when he attempted to force his way into a rural Missouri home after he prayed to a horse and attacked a dog. The Platte County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Office says that around 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 18, emergency crews were called to the 15000 block of Masonic Dr. in Dearborn with reports of a suspicious individual. The homeowner reported a partially clothed man had arrived at their home and began to pray to a horse before he attacked their dog. When he attempted to force his way into the...

Writing about firearm issues is fraught with peril. One’s experience, ability and knowledge matter little to at least some portion of the gun-interested public. No matter what an author writes, even if it’s non-controversial, someone will attack their man—or woman—hood, and suggest they’re less intelligent than an order of packed sardines. With that in mind, are shotguns the ideal home defense weapon? Ideally, in any armed confrontation, one should employ a weapon with ease of use, exceptional accuracy, overwhelming power and significant ammunition capacity—many home invaders these days run in packs—and excellent reliability. That means, in general, a rifle or...

Three Brooklyn residents were bound and beaten up by a group of greedy goons in a violent home invasion where thieves stole watches, handbags and $20,000 in cash on Thursday, cops said. The four bullying bandits broke through a front window of a house in Bensonhurst near 20th Avenue and 78th Street then zip-tied three residents and snatched the loot around 4 a.m., according to authorities. A 34-year-old man was pistol-whipped and a 41-year-old man was punched multiple times in the face during the terrifying encounter, police said. The robbers — all wearing dark clothing — also tied up a...

Homebuyers desperate for a deal might be curious to learn more about a tiny town in Arkansas where homes are selling for just over $400. In Pine Bluff, just 45 miles outside of Little Rock, a home was recently sold for $402.74 at a tax auction. The city found itself thrust into the spotlight when a documentary titled “The City Left Behind: $400 Abandoned Homes in Pine Bluff” got 1.6 million views in the past three weeks on YouTube. “There is a surplus of properties—cheap!—that are prime for restoration and redevelopment,” filmmaker Michael Schwarz told Realtor.com®. “But not enough people...

A former aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul was arrested along with her husband Tuesday morning after their Long Island home was raided by the feds earlier this year, the FBI said. Linda Sun and her husband, Christopher Hu, were arrested on Long Island, the FBI confirmed to The Post. The charges remained under seal. Sun and Hu are set to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon. Law enforcement sources say the arrest was part of a corruption probe unrelated to the governor. Sun was first hired to work in the governor’s office by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government will restart its free at-home COVID tests program in September as officials prepare the country for the upcoming respiratory virus season. Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, said Friday that this is the seventh time the Biden-Harris administration has allowed Americans to order over-the-counter tests at no charge. It's not clear when the website, COVID.gov/tests, will come back online. The website stopped accepting orders in early March. "As families start to move indoors this fall and begin spending time with their loved ones, both very...

Home prices reached a new record in May amid an ongoing housing shortage, even as high mortgage rates continued to push affordability out of reach for millions of Americans. Prices increased 5.9% nationally in May when compared with the previous year, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index showed on Tuesday, down from the 6.4% pace recorded the previous month. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.3%, according to the index. "Home prices hit a new high in May," said Lisa Sturtevant, Bright MLS chief economist. "But with affordability a growing challenge for homebuyers and more new listings coming onto the market,...

The dreams of homeownership in the United States are moving further out of reach for middle-class Americans. Affording even the down payment for a typical US home can be a burden, as home prices rise, interest rates remain high, and inventory lags demand. Now imagine what it’s like in metro Boston. A median-income household needs to put down 35.4 percent to afford the typical monthly mortgage payments in the United States, according to a June 20 analysis by Zillow. In Boston, that number soars to 61.7 percent, since the typical home value here is $701,349, according to the real estate...

A federal judge in Texas has ruled that a 156-year-old ban on at-home distilling is unconstitutional, siding with a group that advocates for legalizing the ability of people to produce spirits like whiskey and bourbon for their personal consumption. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump in Fort Worth, on Wednesday agreed with, opens new tab the Hobby Distillers Association's lawyers that the longstanding ban exceeded Congress's taxing power and ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause.

People moving to New York City should come with a dream, a good pair of walking shoes—and, depending on where they plan to live, a million-dollar salary. Six neighborhoods in the city require homebuyers to earn seven figures to even consider making an offer on a tony address, according to new research compiled by Realtor.com®. The most expensive neighborhood in the five boroughs is Nolita, where the median home costs an eye-watering $5,351,875. Any aspiring or current New Yorker who wants to live in the four-block-wide Manhattan neighborhood—which is now the center of trendy boutiques and chic restaurants—needs to earn...

Homework clubThe pandemic turned the world upside down. People stockpiled toilet paper, did yoga over Zoom, baked banana bread, bought Pelotons, went crazy for online shopping, and anyone who was even thinking about buying a pool went and got one. Pretty much all of those trends have since returned to normal, but a major one has remained: working from home.According to new data published in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Time Use Survey for 2023, ~35% of all employed persons in the US spent the average working day doing at least some of their work from home — up from...

Former Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel — who is 94 years old — wondered whether President Biden belongs in a nursing home instead of the White House following last week’s debate disaster. “I have never been more shocked and embarrassed by any presidential debate than I was last Thursday,” Rangel, who served in Congress from 1971 to 2017, said Sunday on 770 WABC radio’s “The Cats Roundtable.” “One [candidate is] a convicted felon who has no respect for the truth, for morality. The other seemed so damned confused I didn’t even know whether he knew where the hell he was at...

A group of around 40 pro-Palestinian protesters descended upon Democrat Rep. Brad Schneider’s (D-IL) north suburban Chicago area home in the early morning hours on Saturday, worrying neighbors and causing the police department to step up patrols in the neighborhood. Neighbors reported being shocked when the protesters began making noise and shouting slogans at around 3 a.m. on Saturday morning. A group of around 40 pro-Palestinian protesters descended upon Democrat Rep. Brad Schneider’s (D-IL) north suburban Chicago area home in the early morning hours on Saturday, worrying neighbors and causing the police department to step up patrols in the neighborhood....