Free Republic

In an arid valley near the village of Kourtimale in southern Djibouti, a tattered chain link fence marks the boundaries of what was once Abdi Guelleh's farm. ...was once meant to be one tiny brick in one of the world's most ambitious environmental projects: Africa's Great Green Wall. ... This multi-billion dollar project was launched by the African Union in 2007. The plan: to plant a "wall" of trees spanning the entire width of Africa — 4,350 miles long and 10 miles wide — to fight desertification in the Sahel, the arid region to the south of the Sahara desert....

US District Judge Randolph Moss overturned the federal government's decision to discontinue the subsidies to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) calling it "a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. Neither the President nor Congress has the right to cancel the payment of federal money to these broadcasters merely because they don't like what they are broadcasting or they have better uses for the funds." White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson called Judge Moss' decision "a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law. NPR and PBS have no right...

NPR didn’t manage to quote a single member of the Michigan synagogue that was attacked last month by a crazed Hezbollah-supporting terrorist last month — but did manage to track down his pals 6,000 miles away in Lebanon, a new report reveals. Now even NPR’s public editor is criticizing the lefty broadcaster for the stunning oversight. Instead of focusing on the victims in the heinous attack, a March 14 “All Things Considered” segment sent an NPR reporter to the Lebanon hometown of Ayman Ghazali, 41, who just days earlier had rammed his truck into a Jewish preschool at Temple Israel...

According to the political ideology that I subscribe to (libertarian), I’m supposed to be in favor of ending government funding of NPR. And from a theoretical point of view, I agree with that position.But for me, the real world always supersedes any theory. NPR, along with its government funding, is a long standing tradition in this country, just like the national parks, the national museums, and the Post Office. So even though it goes against libertarian theory, I support a continuation of all of those things.I like to call myself a “bad” libertarian because I am always happy and willing...

Citing the First Amendment, a federal judge on Tuesday agreed to permanently block the Trump administration from implementing a presidential directive to end federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, two media entities that the White House has said are counterproductive to American priorities. The operational impact of U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss’ decision was not immediately clear — both because it will likely be appealed and because too much damage to the public-broadcasting system has already been done, both by the president and Congress. Moss ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order to cease funding...

NPR correspondent Eyder Peralta was amazed during a segment Friday by his recent trip to Venezuela following President Donald Trump's arrest of the country's president Nicolás Maduro. "It is absolutely surreal because you land at the airport and the signs are in Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese, which tells you just where this country was facing a few months ago," Peralta told host Steve Inskeep. "And then you go out on the streets and people here tell you that they feel like a weight has been lifted." He continued, "For the first time in a long time, there are street...

New documents show the crew on board the United States' newest aircraft carrier are growing increasingly frustrated by design flaws that lead to regular failures in the ship's toilet system. The USS Gerald R. Ford has been deployed for seven months since it left Norfolk in June. On board the carrier, the crew is battling a toilet system that the General Accountability Office reported in 2020 was undersized and poorly designed. The system continues to fail during deployment, forcing the crew of 4,600 sailors to live with a system that randomly breaks down during their months at sea. NPR has...

Like many people in the Twin Cities, Jess has been observing ICE officers: following them in her car and documenting their actions. Earlier this month, she was in North Minneapolis, when immigration agents told her and another observer they were impeding a federal investigation. "We followed at a distance. We never got in front of them. We never honked our horns. We never made any sort of noise. We were just keeping an eye on them," said Jess, who requested NPR only use her first name because she fears retaliation from the federal government. She says she kept tracking the...

The Washington Post Publisher and Chief Executive Will Lewis announced Saturday evening he would depart after just two years at the paper, a tenure marked by controversy and crisis.Lewis called his time "two years of transformation" in his resignation note, but it was defined by turbulence rather than a clear path, and it ended with brutal job cuts. The paper's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, will serve as acting CEO. More than a third of the newsroom was laid off Wednesday after Lewis' promises of radical innovations failed to staunch several years of annual losses in the tens of millions...

Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election for the Texas state Senate on Saturday, flipping a reliably Republican district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024. Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, easily defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist, in the Fort Worth-area district. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet had a comfortable lead of more than 14 percentage points.

Marketplace plans from the Affordable Care Act no longer feel very affordable to many people, because Congress did not extend a package of enhanced subsidies that expired at the end of 2025. Last week, the House did pass legislation to extend the expired subsidies, and negotiations have moved to the Senate. Without a deal, an estimated 4.8 million will go without coverage this year. But even without a health plan, people will still need medical care. Many, like the Sorys, have been thinking through their plan B to maintain their health. The Sorys both lost jobs in November, within days...

Why does the famed leftist radio bastion have all its broadcasters speak in that insufferable whisper? Here is the somewhat disturbing answer. It is a common occurrence for a regular person to be flipping through radio channels, eventually to come across the style of radio presentation known as “NPR voice” — a soft-spoken, breathy, quietly pompous mode of vocal performance suggestive of an intimate conversation among a small circle of elites. The question immediately arises: Who could possibly find this manner of presentation appealing, and why? The answer lies in understanding NPR as the distilled essence of sociological, ideological, and...

Leaders of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private agency that has steered federal funding to PBS, NPR and hundreds of public television and radio stations across the country, voted Monday to dissolve the organization that was created in 1967. CPB had been winding down since Congress acted last summer to defund its operations at the encouragement of President Donald Trump. Its board of directors chose Monday to shutter CPB completely instead of keeping it in existence as a shell. “CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving,...

The Trump administration is freezing child care funding to the state of Minnesota in response to a viral video that purports to expose extensive fraud by federally funded day care centers. Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old self-described "independent YouTube journalist," posted the 42-minute video on X and YouTube the day after Christmas. In it, he and an older man — identified only as "David" — visit various seemingly empty day care centers, bombarding Somali employees with questions and accusing them of not providing services to any children despite receiving public funds. The pair claim to have exposed over $110 million in...

A strong majority of Americans say they're worried about the climate. So why do they hear so little about it in the news? …The problem has become even more acute at a time when the US president is openly hostile to the scientific consensus on climate change. Donald Trump and his allies have pushed misleading narratives about the trade-offs of green energy, drawing reporters into covering false controversies instead of facts and making the job of reporting harder. "The Trump administration is playing reporters like a fiddle on the issue of trade-offs" by bringing up red herrings and sending reporters...

During President Trump's first term, the economy was a relative strength of his. During the 2024 presidential campaign, his promises to lower prices in a country grappling with post-COVID inflation propelled him back into office. But toward the end of his first year in office this term, just 36% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. It's his worst mark in the six years that Marist has been asking the question. The only time in that span that Americans had a similarly negative view of a president's handling of the economy...

Jonathan Franklin, a current University adjunct professor & former NPR correspondent who built his career on issues of race, culture, & justice, was recorded making openly racist remarks during an undercover date with James O’Keefe. Franklin, scheduled to teach a Georgetown course on interviewing & sourcing, labeled Black conservatives such as Candace Owens, Lawrence Jones, & Clarence Thomas as “coons,” & mocked his colleagues, saying he “works with stupid white people.” During the confrontation, Franklin attempted to assault an OMG cameraman before fleeing. Georgetown University records confirm Franklin is currently teaching students how to “interview sources effectively,” even as he...

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — With the remains of one hostage still in Gaza, the first phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas is nearly complete, after a two-month process plagued by delays and finger-pointing. Now, the key players — including Israel, the Palestinian militant Hamas group, the United States and a diverse list of international parties — are to move to a far more complicated second phase that could reshape the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan — which was approved by the U.N. Security Council — lays out an ambitious vision for...

A federal judge ruled against one of the Trump administration’s efforts to defund NPR.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) had slashed a $36 million contract with NPR after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at cutting funding to the news outlet. After a judge’s ruling, the CPB is renewing the contract after a judge ruled in NPR’s favor, according to the network.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed Monday to fulfill a $36 million, multi-year contract with NPR that it had yanked after pressure from the Trump White House.The arrangement resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the corporation of...

Countries are gathering in Brazil at the COP30 summit to take stock of climate change. As in past summits, the negotiations are starting on the back foot: countries already aren't meeting their goals to cut heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels. The world has barely budged in its efforts to combat climate change compared to one year ago, according to a new report from the United Nations. If countries stay on that track, the planet will warm by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, compared to the pre-industrial temperatures of the mid-1800s. That's slightly better than...