Free Republic

As climate change threatens our planet, AP climate choices reporter Caleigh Wells is explaining what readers can do. Here’s what she said: Climate change stories can be devastating — frustrating policy fights, environmental destruction, public health disasters — and my fellow AP climate reporters are great at telling them. That’s not my job. I cover “climate choices.” I tell readers how their actions impact the planet. It’s important for two reasons: First, if we’re going to tackle this big existential climate threat, we have to know how, and 2) climate news sparks dread and anxiety. And the best antidotes I’ve...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jessica Sweet spent the federal government shutdown cutting back. To make ends meet, the Social Security claims specialist drank only one coffee a day, skipped meals, cut down on groceries and deferred paying some household bills. She racked up spending on her credit card buying gas to get to work. With the longest shutdown ever coming to a close, Sweet and hundreds of thousands of other federal workers who missed paychecks will soon get some relief. But many are left feeling that their livelihoods served as political pawns in the fight between recalcitrant lawmakers in Washington and...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- President Donald Trump's immigration operation "Midway Blitz" has been underway for several weeks, and the hospitality industry, especially restaurants in Latino wards, are feeling the impact. Gerardo Auza comes from a family of restaurant owners. The 42-year-old's dream was to open his own business. It came true eight months ago, when Auza opened El Mexico De Chicago in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood. The Mexican immigrant says online reviews have been great, but none of it matters if no one shows up. "For over a month, it takes like 70% to 80%. The customers didn't show up to...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Missouri and Kansas are warning SNAP recipients about potential benefit losses if the government shutdown continues. On Monday, the Missouri Department of Social Services sent out a warning saying it will not be able to fund November SNAP benefits if the government doesn’t reopen. The department said it “encourages” people to stretch their October balance into the next month, “if possible.” Throughout the metro, thousands are preparing for the potential impact. Adolph Pratt, a Kansas City, Kansas resident who relies on SNAP benefits, said the potential loss would force difficult choices. “It’s going to make...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The world is on track to add nearly two months of dangerous superhot days each year by the end of the century, with poorer small nations hit far more often than the biggest carbon-polluting countries, a study released Thursday found. But efforts to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that started 10 years ago with the Paris climate agreement have had a significant effect. Without them Earth would be heading to an additional 114 days a year of those deadly extra hot days, the same study found. The international collection of climate scientists World Weather Attribution and the...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Nearly 2,300 Kansas City children are the latest at risk in the government shutdown. Head Start, a federally funded program, is on the chopping block in Jackson, Clay, and Platte counties. Head Start promotes school readiness via complementary early learning, health, nutrition, and family support services to low-income children from birth to age five. Eligibility is primarily based on income, but children in foster care, who are homeless, or whose families receive public assistance, qualify. Among Kansas City’s Head Start parents, 1,351 are employed, 169 are in training programs, and 168 are enrolled in school....

TYLER, Texas (AP) — Celia Monreal worries every day about the cartilage loss in her husband’s knees. Not just because it’s hard for her to see him in pain but also because she knows soon their health care costs could skyrocket. Monreal, 47, and her husband, Jorge, 57, rely on the Affordable Care Act marketplace for health coverage. If Congress doesn’t extend certain ACA tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, their fully subsidized plan will increase in cost, putting it out of reach. Without insurance, they won’t be able to afford his expected knee replacement...

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations’ food aid agency said Wednesday that severe funding cuts from its top donors are hurting its operations in six countries and warned that nearly 14 million people could be forced into emergency levels of hunger. The World Food Program, traditionally the U.N.'s most-funded agency, said in a new report that its funding this year “has never been more challenged” — largely due to slashed outlays from the U.S. under the Trump administration and other leading Western donors. It warned that that 13.7 million of its food aid recipients could be forced into emergency levels...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — We’re into day two of National Guardsmen in the city of Memphis, and already, they have boots on the ground in communities across the city. They join the hundreds of federal agents and Tennessee State Troopers who have already made their presence known in the city. “I feel like all the criminals are hiding right now, and when all of this goes away, all of those rats are coming out,” said Rosa Avina, Memphis resident. “I feel like the Hispanic community really doesn’t have a voice right now. Why? Because everybody is really scared,” said Avina. “A...

As the federal government shutdown drags on into a second week, a critical animal recovery program based in Colorado has ground to a halt, delaying a reintroduction plan that could be crucial to the survival of an endangered species. Fewer than 1,000 black-footed ferrets remain on the planet, including around 280 captive-bred ones currently being housed at the National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center in Carr, Colorado. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had planned to reintroduce them at 15 sites across federal, tribal and private lands this fall, according to the conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife. Instead, the creatures are...

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) — Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family’s food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food. On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher’s little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: “No one has died” because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: “No children are dying on my watch.” That, Taher...

What on earth???? Here is an excerpt from an MSN story on the Georgia Senate race, referring to "former President Donald Trump". Is this the result of AI? Adding to the race’s complexity, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, halting a series of attack ads by a pro-Ossoff super PAC, citing misleading claims about Collins’ voting record, further escalating tensions in this high-stakes contest. Ossoff has leveraged robust fundraising to bolster his campaign, while Collins has emphasized his alignment with former President Donald Trump to galvanize GOP voters. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) lags behind Ossoff in the poll, with...

Legacy media have spent years perpetuating some of the biggest hoaxes in modern history — and it appears the American public is continuing to notice.On Thursday, Gallup released the results of its annual survey of Americans’ confidence in media. The poll’s baseline finding is that trust in the country’s “Democracy dies in darkness!” crowd is at the lowest point ever recorded.According to the survey, just 28 percent of Americans expressed having a “‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.” That figure, Gallup noted, “is down from 31%...

In 2007, eight years after becoming Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez revoked the license of the country’s oldest private television station. Eight months into his second term, President Donald Trump suggested revoking the licenses of U.S. television stations he believes are overly critical of him. Since he returned to office in January, Trump’s remaking of the federal government into an instrument of his personal will has drawn comparisons to elected strongmen in other countries who used the levers of government to consolidate power, punish their enemies and stifle dissent. But those familiar with other countries where that has happened, including Hungary...

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has waged an aggressive campaign against the media unlike any in modern U.S. history, making moves similar to those of authoritarian leaders that he has often praised. On Wednesday, Trump cheered ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show after the comedian made remarks about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk that criticized the president’s MAGA movement: “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. It was the latest in a string of attacks...

PROVO, Utah (Reuters) -The trade school student suspected of assassinating right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah university was due in court on Tuesday to face formal charges, appearing by video feed from jail for his first public appearance since the shooting. The killing, captured in graphic video clips that went viral on the internet, sparked denunciations of political violence across the ideological spectrum but also unleashed a wave of partisan blame-casting and concerns that Kirk's murder might beget more bloodshed. Authorities have offered no possible motive for the killing, though Kirk's wife and other supporters were quick to...

When Shahnaz went into labour, her husband Abdul called a taxi to take them to the only medical facility accessible to them. "She was in a lot pain," he says. A 20-minute drive away, the clinic was in Shesh Pol village in Afghanistan's north-eastern Badakhshan province. It was where their two older children were born. Abdul sat next to Shahnaz comforting her as they drove over gravel tracks to reach help. "But when we reached the clinic, we saw that it was closed. I didn't know it had shut down," he said, his face crumpling with agony. The clinic in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, once a casino owner and always a man in search of his next deal, is fond of a poker analogy when sizing up partners and adversaries. … Seven months into his second term, he has accumulated presidential power that he has used against universities, media companies, law firms, and individuals he dislikes. A man who ran for president as an angry victim of a weaponized “deep state” is, in some ways, supercharging government power and training it on his opponents. And the supporters who responded to his complaints about overzealous Democrats aren’t recoiling. They’re...

KABUL, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The shrinking of funding for Afghanistan, led by U.S. aid cuts, was hampering the response on Monday to a powerful earthquake in the east, with dozens of clinics closed and a helicopter out of use, humanitarian officials said. The magnitude 6 tremor hit overnight, levelling villages, killing at least 800 people and injuring more than 2,800 in remote mountainside areas. "The actual delivery of response has been badly hit by the funding cuts this year, but also the number of people we have on the ground is much less than we would have had six...

...The cartoon was created by Adam Zyglis, and is titled 'Swept Away.' In the image, a man in a MAGA hat holds a 'HELP' sign, and is illustrated drowning in the flood waters. ...The cartoon is accompanied by a speech bubble, which reads, 'Gov't is the problem, not the solution.' ...