Free Republic

Following the horrific and incredibly destructive fires in southern California earlier this year, hundreds of residents of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood are opting to sell their homes rather than rebuild. For months now, various people have predicted that this would happen because the bureaucratic red tape in California is a nightmare to deal with, not to mention the exorbitant costs. It is absolutely awful that so many of these people find themselves in a position where they’re unable to rebuild homes they have lived in for years. This is all on the Democrat leaders of the city and the state....

The U.S. economy added jobs in May at a slower pace than in the past two months as uncertainty over the direction of trade, tax and monetary policy caused employers to pull back on hiring. The Labor Department on Friday reported that employers added 139,000 jobs in May. That figure was slightly above the estimate of economists polled by LSEG, who projected 130,000 jobs added – though it was cooler than the initial report of 177,000 jobs added in April or the 185,000 jobs gained in March. The unemployment rate was 4.2%, unchanged from the past two months and in...

A disbarred attorney is now convicted of stealing deeds from minority homeowners. "He stole our lives," said Clotilde "Wendy" Sawadogo, deed theft victim. "We were no longer happy in our house. We were feeling like strangers in our own homes." Sawadogo spoke about the building she and her husband Patrice Sawadogo owned in East Flatbush. The building on East 21st Street and another in East New York were both taken from the couple 13 years ago, and Thursday the man responsible was held accountable. "I can say I'm happy it's over, but I'm not happy that he's going back home,"...

Osceola County Sheriff Marcos R. Lopez was arrested on charges related to racketeering on Thursday morning. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suspended Lopez from his role. Christopher A. Blackmon was immediately appointed to fill Lopez's position.

Thursday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” left-wing political commentator Van Jones said President Donald Trump should “fire, investigate and prosecute” all of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees. Jones said, “Look, a couple of things. One is, you know, the power that Elon Musk still has is significant. Somebody said Trump has three and a half more years, Elon has 40. He’s a billionaire. He’s got a long-term play.” Cooper said, “I believe it was Elon Musk who said that.” Jones said, “Elon’s correct. You good at math? But the other piece of it is those DOGE employees are...

President Donald Trump is “not interested” in a call with Tesla CEO Elon Musk to resolve their feud, a senior White House official told NBC News on Friday morning. The two billionaires launched a war of words on Thursday over Musk’s continued criticism of Trump’s proposed tax bill. Trump said that Musk, who until a week ago was one of his top government advisors, had gone “crazy” and threatened to kill federal contracts with his companies, which include SpaceX. Musk, in turn, said Trump could not have been elected president without his massive financial support, and accused the Republican of...

A cargo ship carrying 3,000 cars, including 800 electric vehicles, caught fire off the coast of Alaska and continues to burn. The Coast Guard says that all 22 crew members escaped the ship and were picked up by two nearby freighters. The ship, a Liberian-registered car-carrier named "Morning Midas," was on its way to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, from Yantai, China.. ... the Coast Guard is going to let the ship burn, since trying to put out a lithium-ion fire is nearly futile. ... In 2022, the Felicity Ace, a car carrier slightly larger than Morning Midas, sank in the Atlantic...

BOSTON – A federal judge in Boston on Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump from barring US entry of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs at Harvard University. Under a two-page temporary restraining order granted to Harvard, US District Judge Allison Burroughs enjoined Trump’s proclamation from taking effect pending further litigation of the matter amid an escalating dispute between the Ivy League school and Republican president. The judge ruled that Trump’s directive prohibiting foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard for the next six months would cause “immediate and irreparable injury”...

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A Massachusetts high school student who was arrested by immigration agents on his way to volleyball practice has been released from custody after a judge granted him bond Thursday. ...“While ICE officers never intended to apprehend Gomes da Silva, he was found to be in the United States illegally and subject to removal proceedings, so officers made the arrest,” [ U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin] said in a statement.

When Thomas Fugate graduated from college last year with a degree in politics, he celebrated in a social media post about the exciting opportunities that lay beyond campus life in Texas. “Onward and upward!” he wrote, with an emoji of a rocket shooting into space. His career blastoff came quickly. A year after graduation, the 22-year-old with no apparent national security expertise is now a Department of Homeland Security official overseeing the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention, including an $18 million grant program intended to help communities combat violent extremism. The White House appointed Fugate, a former Trump campaign...

Full Title: President Ronald Reagan's Address at the Omaha Beach Memorial Cemetery Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy, France

“ The strike on Russian airfields was a tactical victory for Ukraine, but a strategic failure - at least in the eyes of the closest circle of the American leader Donald Trump. The rhetoric has changed dramatically. Kiev is no longer an ally, but a potential threat to global security. One of those who is sure that Kiev screwed up and at the same time exposed not only itself, is retired US Air Force General Blaine Holt. On the air of the Newsmax TV channel, he stressed that the attack of Ukrainian drones on airfields in Russia had affected a...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday blasted the decision by the Trump administration to sanction four of its judges. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a statement, saying they target Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia. Two of the sanctioned judges authorized the arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant which the court issued last November. The others authorized an ICC investigation into abuses by US personnel in Afghanistan. The ICC said...

Are the tariffs working? The headline from the BBC, Tariffs prompt record plunge in US imports.The details, Goods brought into the US plunged by 20% in April, recording their largest ever monthly drop in the face of a wave of tariffs unleashed by US President Donald Trump. You literally have to go down to the final two sentences to learn the bottom line of the report, Exports so far this year are up about 5% compared with 2024. The overall goods and services deficit in April was $61.6bn, down from $138.3bn in March. Wut? Exports are up? How can that...

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam abolished its long-standing two-child limit Tuesday to try and reverse declining birth rates and ease the pressures of an aging population. The National Assembly passed amendments scrapping rules that limit families to having one or two children, state media Vietnam News Agency reported Wednesday. The rules were usually stricter for Communist Party members, who could miss out on promotions or bonuses if they had a third child. Vietnamese families are having fewer children than ever before. The birth rate in 2021 was 2.11 children per woman, just over the replacement rate required for a population...

“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday in an Oval Office news conference. “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.” “And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday,”“I said, ‘President, maybe you have to keep fighting and suffering a lot, because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart, before they’re able to be pulled apart.’” Merz had come to Washington...

One reason America has become the economic superpower is that the 50 states comprise one giant free trade zone. The Europeans wanted to emulate that model with the creation of the EU, but it hasn’t worked. Here is a stunning fact from the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Sternberg: The International Monetary Fund calculates that Europe’s complex economic regulations impose the same costs as would a 44% tariff on goods traded between EU countries. For services, the costs of complying with different national rules are equivalent to a 110% tariff. By comparison, the regulatory costs associated with trading manufactured goods across...

US President Trump and Elon Musk schedule call for Friday to "broker peace."

The moment had finally come, and it was every bit as lowdown, vindictive, personal, petty, operatic, childish, consequential, messy and public as many had always expected it would be. “One thing’s for sure,” Elon Musk posted on X midway through his relentless hourslong attack on Donald Trump, “it ain’t boring!” The clash of the titans was upon us, and the gloves were off. The speed of the fallout was breathtaking. Up until about 14 seconds ago, Mr. Musk was flying on Mr. Trump’s planes, staying at his homes, socializing with his children. On Friday, Mr. Trump celebrated him with an...