Free Republic

A federal judge on Monday declined to dismiss a final assault charge against New Jersey Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver that was tied to a visit she made to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement migrant detention facility last year. McIver last month appealed an earlier failed attempt to get two of the charges dismissed, which came after she was involved in a scuffle with a federal agent when she visited Delaney Hall in Newark last May. The New Jersey Democrat has attempted to argue that her actions were protected by the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause, which protects lawmakers from prosecution...

A runaway wallaby spotted in the parking lot of a New Jersey Walmart store was safely captured when he made a return trip to the store. The Lots of Love Farm said in a Facebook post that the wallaby, named Rex, was captured in the Williamstown Walmart parking lot Tuesday night. "If this just didn't become the best night ever! With the help of some really cool kids and a really cool dad. We caught Rex at the Walmart!! He is home safe and sound! Thank you everyone you're all amazing. He must really like Walmart," the post said. The...

New Jersey drivers are about to get hit with a nearly 9% hike in the state’s gas tax — leaving them once again grappling with one of the highest rates in the country. Thanks to legislation signed into law in 2024, the state — the only one in the nation to not allow self-service pumps — is raising its gas tax by 4.2 cents to 49.1 cents for gasoline and 56.1 cents for diesel Jan. 1. The jump would average out to about $27 more per year per driver, for a total cost of $320 just for the state gas...

DEVELOPING: 2 helicopters have crashed in Hammonton, New Jersey. - alertpage

Two helicopters collided in mid-air and crashed in South New Jersey, killing one person and critically injuring another, according to reports. Harrowing video circulating on social media filmed from the parking lot of a Tractor Supply Co. store in Hammonton shows a large black plume of smoke in the distance as shocked onlookers reacted to the crash. The collision happened just after noon Sunday at 100 Basin Road in Hammonton, less than three miles from Hammonton Airport, according to Atlantic County Fire and EMS radio traffic. “We got one helicopter fully involved, I’m looking for the second one, I...

As he enters the final chapter of his time in office, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy chose to mark Christmas Eve, one of the holiest and most sacred nights in the Christian faith, commemorating the anticipation of the birth of Christ, by publicly advancing his administration’s abortion agenda. Rather than acknowledging the profound spiritual significance of the evening for millions of Christians, Governor Murphy instead announced a $22 million funding commitment to “protect and grow” access to abortion through what his administration calls the Reproductive Health Access Fund, an abortion slush fund designed to funnel taxpayer dollars to abortion providers....

The family of the man who died earlier this month while in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement custody at Newark's Delaney Hall says it wants answers about how he died one day after he was taken into custody. In an exclusive interview with NBC New York, Jean Wilson Brutus' cousin says Brutus didn't have any medical concerns before being taken into custody. "We haven’t had some kind of closure surrounding his death," Evans Belony told News 4's Axel Turcios. It's something Belony says he and his family are still trying to process. "He was like a loved one, that we all...

SCRANTON, Pa. (WNEP) - Two women were killed and another was hospitalized from a machete attack in Pennsylvania. Police in Scranton said they are still investigating the machete attack at the Hotel Jermyn apartments on Tuesday night. Two women and a service dog were killed, plus a third woman was critically wounded and in the hospital. “The vast majority of this incident, the vast majority is all on video surveillance and it is horrific to watch,” Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher said. “The offender and victims were residents of the Jermyn Hotel, and the motive and reasons for his...

Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are advocating for a bill that would stop President Trump from replacing immigration judges with what the senators call “inexperienced attorneys.”The bill is led by Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and co-sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) alongside Senators Wyden and Merkley.

Twins from New Jersey were arrested and charged with threatening to torture, hang and kill Homeland Security Assisstant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin. The voice of President Donald Trump's deportation policy is just the latest to receive death threats for her role in the administration. The American citizens, Ricardo Antonio Roman-Flores and Emilio Roman-Flores, were taken into custody by DHS on Tuesday morning, are being held in Absecon, New Jersey and are facing federal charges. Social media posts allegedly published on their accounts call to 'torture' and 'kill' McLaughlin. 'Sh00t ICE on sight,' read two other separate posts DHS...

Habba’s resignation came after district and appellate court rulings which found she was unlawfully serving in the role. Alina Habba, the former personal attorney to President Trump, is stepping down from her contested position atop the federal prosecuting office in New Jersey.“As a result of the Third Circuit’s ruling, and to protect the stability and integrity of the office which I love, I have decided to step down in my role,” she said in a statement posted on X on Monday.Habba’s resignation came after district and appellate court rulings which found she was unlawfully serving in the role, a powerful...

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is releasing hundreds of inmates from state prison, including convicted murderers, in his last days in office.

After successfully holding strong in the face of a Democrat-led government shutdown over Obamacare, a cabal of House Republicans is now waiving the white flag on the issue.On Thursday, nearly three dozen Democrats and Republicans introduced a proposal to extend taxpayer-funded Obamacare subsidies. As Federalist Senior Contributor Christopher Jacobs has regularly reported in these pages, these Biden-era subsidies — which are set to expire at the end of this year — have been a complete and total disaster. Spearheaded by Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Jen Kiggins, R-Va., the measure “would extend and reduce the tax credits in a two-step...

State Senator Lea Webb, who represents Tompkins, Cortland, and much of Broome County, is facing foreclosure on her Binghamton-area home, according to recent court documents. The Ithaca Voice reports attorneys for PHH Mortgage Corporation, a New Jersey-based lender, filed a civil suit against Webb in federal district court on October 22 over missed mortgage payments. Court filings indicate that as of June 2025, Webb was in default for $7,760, roughly equivalent to three months of payments. Webb purchased the four-bedroom home in Johnson City last December for $380,000, according to county records. The property is listed on Broome County tax...

Justice Elena Kagan emerged as an unexpected critic of New Jersey’s position Tuesday as the Supreme Court weighed whether a faith-based crisis pregnancy center may challenge a state subpoena in federal court. Her pointed questioning suggested she may join the court’s conservatives in siding with First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which argues that New Jersey’s investigation threatens its First Amendment rights. Why It Matters The case stems from a subpoena issued by Democratic Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s consumer-protection division, seeking information from First Choice—including a list of its donors—as part of a probe into whether the center misled women about...

WASHINGTON — Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas got a lawyer for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office to admit Tuesday it mounted a “fishing expedition” against a pro-life organization without receiving specific complaints about the group. Thomas drilled down on the investigation of First Choice Women’s Resource Centers during oral arguments in a case challenging a subpoena the organization received from AG Matthew Platkin’s office. “You had no basis to think that they were deceiving any of their contributors?” Thomas asked Chief Counsel Sundeep Iyer. “We certainly had complaints about crisis pregnancy centers,” Iyer deflected before admitting none specifically...

A federal appeals court said on Monday that Alina Habba had been serving unlawfully as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, dealing a blow to the Trump administration and most likely setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court. In its ruling, the three-judge panel, based in Philadelphia, affirmed an earlier ruling by a Federal District Court judge, shooting down each of the government’s arguments for why Ms. Habba could continue to serve. In their opinion, the judges wrote that the Trump administration appeared to have become frustrated by the legal and political barriers that have prevented its preferred U.S....

The Campbell’s Co. said Wednesday it has fired an executive who was recorded making racist comments and mocking the company’s products and customers. Martin Bally, a vice president in Campbell’s information security department, was named in a lawsuit filed last week by Robert Garza, a former Campbell’s employee who said he was fired Jan. 30 after he reported Bally’s comments to a supervisor. The lawsuit was filed in Michigan, where both Garza and Bally live. Campbell’s is based in Camden, New Jersey. In the lawsuit, Garza claimed he met with Bally in November 2024 to discuss his salary. During the...

Campbell Soup Company is facing an employment discrimination and retaliation lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court after a former security analyst alleged he was fired for reporting inappropriate conduct by a senior executive. The complaint, Garza v. Campbell Soup Company, case number 25-018465-CD, was filed on November 20, 2025, by the Runyan Law Group on behalf of plaintiff Robert Garza. The defendants are Campbell Soup Company and supervisor J.D. Aupperle. The claims—centered on a secretly recorded tirade in which a senior vice president allegedly mocked the company’s products, its customers, and Indian employees—challenge the credibility of Campbell’s public values and...

MONROE, Mich. – A Campbell’s employee is suing the company because he said he was wrongfully terminated after he complained about an upper-level executive’s explosive tirade on the product and its customers. “He has no filter,” said Robert Garza, of Monroe, about his former supervisor at Campbell Soup Company and current Vice President Martin Bally. “He thinks he’s a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company and he can do whatever he wants because he’s an executive.” Garza said he recorded an hour-long rant by the top Campbell Soup Company executive because he said he trusted his “instinct that something...