Free Republic

The largest oil shock in history caused prices to surge. Now they're so high that they may be causing "demand destruction." That would mean slower economic growth. Oil prices have started to slip — but not necessarily for reasons that suggest a return to market normalcy. The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that “demand destruction” has begun to unfold. As a result of the acute energy commodity shortages stemming from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, oil appears to have reached a point where it is now so expensive that overseas businesses and households have begun curbing investment and...

Late last June, CBS Sunday Morning host Jane Pauley acted like a schoolgirl by openly flirting with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) during an interview, gushing about him being an eligible bachelor. But on February 28, 2021, after The New York Times reported on a second former aide accusing Cuomo of sexual harassment, Pauley ignored the allegations completely. Meanwhile, inconsistencies abound in the reports from ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Sunday Today. While Pauley was ignoring Cuomo’s scandals, she did have a report about alleged sexual harassment at McDonald’s. And although, Sunday Morning wasn’t a normal newscast –...

Kristen Welker: "I want to start with President Trump because President Trump's threats to take over Cuba come as the United States has removed President Maduro from power, has invaded Iran and killed its Supreme Leader. Do you fear you could be killed or arrested by the United States?" Miguel Díaz-Canel: "That is a very interesting question. Those of us who have leadership positions in the revolution have a strong commitment to our revolution and to our heroic people. In this connection, our responsibility entails the conviction and the commitment that we are willing to give our lives for the...

Environmental groups are legally challenging a permit that Mississippi granted to xAI allowing the company to build a massive, methane gas-burning power plant in the state. The permit application had "deficiencies," like inaccurate air pollution estimates, the groups said, adding that regulators rushed what should have been a careful process. Now part of SpaceX, xAI wants to build the power plant to provide electricity for its data center in nearby Memphis, Tennessee, and another one coming in Southaven, Mississippi. Elon Musk's xAI, now owned by SpaceX, is facing a new legal challenge from environmental groups in Mississippi, where the company...

Saturday Night Live is under fire after a cast member cracked 'what's the worst that can happen?' about Trump attending a play - an unmistakable nod to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.During Friday’s 'Weekend Update,' comedian Michael Che took aim at the president’s visit earlier this week to the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, where he attended the opening-night showing of Chicago. 'President Trump attended the opening night of Chicago at the Kennedy Center and I think that's cool,' Che said during the skit. 'The president is going to the theater...I mean, what's the worst that can happen?'

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said it's "not possible" for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid and child care costs, arguing that it should be up to the states to "take care" of those programs while the federal government focuses on military spending.

The Colorado Court of Appeals has thrown out election denier Tina Peters' nine-year prison sentence, finding that the lower court violated her First Amendment right to free speech related to her allegations of election fraud. “The trial court’s comments about Peters’s belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing,” a three-judge panel wrote in a 77-page opinion. “Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud....

Oil surged 10% Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump warned of further military aggression against Iran in the next two to three weeks, dampening hopes for an imminent de-escalation in the conflict. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for May were up 10% at $110.21 a barrel as of 8:13 a.m. ET. June futures for international benchmark Brent crude rose 8% to $109.25 per barrel. Trump in his speech attributed the increase in oil prices to the “Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.” He said...

In an interview with NBC News’ Raf Sanchez, President Zelenskyy says that he hopes President Trump cares about the future of Ukraine, but “they care about the United States more.”

Peter Alexander, NBC's chief White House correspondent and co-anchor of the Saturday edition of Today, is leaving that network supposedly in order to spend more time with his family and children. Do you believe that? No? And neither does pretty much everybody else.In fact the New York Post's Page Six revealed what is likely the real reason in the Saturday headline of the story by Carlos Greer announcing Alexander's split from his network: "Peter Alexander is leaving NBC after years of being passed over for top anchor jobs: source."

For decades, Gene Shalit was a familiar and unmistakable presence on morning television. With his trademark bushy mustache, colorful bow ties, and quick wit, he became one of the most recognizable film critics in the country. Now, Shalit has reached an extraordinary milestone—celebrating his 100th birthday on March 25.

Wholesale prices rose sharply in February, providing another sign that inflation continues to percolate even aside from rising energy prices.The producer price index, a measure of pipeline costs that producers receive for their products, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.7% on the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the so-called core PPI increased 0.5%.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for increases of 0.3% for both measures.For the all-items index, prices rose faster than the 0.5% pace in January. However, the core increase was less than the 0.8% for the prior month.

Democratic senators say Republicans controlling both houses and presidency voted down multiple resolutions to fund TSA, Coast Guard and FEMA Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., deflected blame when pressed whether their party should vote to end the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown on Sunday, which has left workers without paychecks for weeks. "We saw terror attacks in West Bloomfield, Michigan, in Norfolk, Virginia. This morning, the CEOs of the nation's major airlines and cargo carriers have written a letter to Congress calling for them to end the shutdown, talking about the importance of American security in...

Republican Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) blew up at an NBC News crew that attempted to ask him a question on an apparent flip-flop in his views. Cornyn wrote an op-ed for the New York Post in which he claimed to support “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the ‘SAVE America Act’ (passed) and homeland security funding.” SNIP The Senator then placed his hand over the NBC camera lens, ending the interview.

Nonfarm payrolls were expected to increase 50,000 in February while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, according to Dow Jones consensus estimates

The Justice Department shelved an investigation into former President Joe Biden's use of an autopen, a person briefed on the matter told NBC News on Wednesday. Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin, the former “weaponization” czar, opened the probe while he was interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. It wound down recently under Jeanine Pirro, the current U.S. attorney, who is a longtime Trump ally and former Fox News host. The autopen case was never presented to a grand jury, unlike the case that Pirro's office tried to bring forward last month against six members of Congress who...

Clearly, the “Saturday Night Live” writing team had a lot of work to do on Saturday, as they opened the show with a sketch about President Trump’s early morning attack on Iran. In the Feb. 28 cold open, Trump (played by James Austin Johnson) gives a press conference about the military action. “It’s me, Donald Trump, FIFA Peace Prize winner and Nobel Peace Prize taker,” he began. “Remember that? I launched this attack after me and my board of peace…we were bored of peace. As we all know, Iran has been two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon for...

DENVER — It’s been nearly two months since Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in her car in Minneapolis. Neither President Donald Trump nor any member of his administration has been in touch with Good’s family since, they told NBC News on Thursday. “There’s a reason that we hired our own investigators — to make sure that the truth is transparent and available, to make sure that this is really taken seriously and to make sure that we know what occurred,” Brent Ganger, Good’s brother, said.

With President Donald Trump calling for regime change in Iran, the country’s leadership now faces an existential threat and is likely to respond to U.S.-Israeli airstrikes accordingly, experts said.So far, the Islamic Republic appears to be launching fewer missiles and drones in retaliation compared to its barrage in June 2025, when the U.S. joined Israel’s 12-day war on Iran to target nuclear facilities.But retired Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander, told CNN on Saturday that Iran has two options. One is to continue launching missiles at the current tempo and hunker down.“Option two: if they truly believe they’re...

Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary who has been dogged by his past friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, will resign from teaching at Harvard University by the end of the current academic year, according to reports on Wednesday...Summers previously served as president of Harvard.