Free Republic

Jason Collier, a special education teacher in Virginia, often needs to wait until payday to fill up the gas tank of his car — and in the meantime hopes he doesn’t run out. “Money is tight when you’re a teacher,” Collier, 46, said. Now he’s afraid that the U.S. Department of Education will soon garnish up to 15% of his wages because he’s behind on his student debt payments. Collier said he hasn’t been able to meet his monthly bill for years, while juggling the expenses of raising two children and medical expenses from a cancer diagnosis. If his paycheck...

Even before President Trump was re-elected, the Heritage Foundation, best known for Project 2025, set out to destroy pro-Palestinian activism in the United States.In late April, the Heritage Foundation dispatched a team to Israel to meet with power players in Israeli politics, including the country’s foreign and defense secretaries and the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee.The conservative Washington-based think tank is best known for spearheading Project 2025, a proposed blueprint for President Trump’s second term that called for reshaping the federal government and an extreme expansion of presidential power.Now the Heritage contingent was in Israel, in part, to discuss another contentious...

Countries around the world are actively seeking alternatives to the US dollar for international trade and reserves. This trend has dramatically increased in 2025 as numerous countries are adopting different approaches to wean themselves off the American currency, reflecting a vital change in the world’s financial system since World War II.….. …… of writing, major economies from Asia, Africa, South America, and even some parts of Europe are following their own footsteps in leaving the dollar hegemony behind. This movement is fundamentally altering global trade patterns and also putting into question the international monetary arrangement which has been around for...

Space junk in Earth's orbit may increase because of the effects of the same heat-trapping gases that are polluting the air and warming the planet, according to a recent study. What's happening? A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers determined that, with Earth's warming, space debris could accumulate enough to reduce the low Earth orbit area available for satellites by between a third and 82% by the year 2100, as the Associated Press detailed. The reason for this, per the study published in Nature Sustainability in March, is that climatic changes high above ground could reduce the effectiveness...

In the run-up to the vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., knew her party had a problem — and its name was John Fetterman. Fetterman, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, was open to confirming President Donald Trump’s embattled pick, according to two people familiar with his thinking. Murray wanted to speak with her colleague one-on-one. So she reached out to set up a time. But Fetterman refused, as the two people familiar with the episode told NBC News. “He figured that she wanted to yell at him about it,” one person familiar with the...

A core group of top US officials — including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State and interim national security adviser Marco Rubio, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles — had been closely monitoring the escalating conflict between India and Pakistan when on Friday morning, the US received alarming intelligence, Trump administration officials told CNN. While they declined to describe the nature of the information, citing its sensitivity, they said it was critical in persuading the three officials that the US should increase its involvement. Vance himself would call Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The vice president briefed...

Pinching pennies and landing a crew of astronauts on the Moon before a geopolitical rivalry aren't two endeavors that go hand-in-hand. The Trump administration released NASA's proposed 2026 discretionary budget last week. The federal space agency would see a $6 billion cut if implemented as written, roughly a 24% decrease compared to 2025. However, the White House is confusingly still committed to beating China to the lunar surface despite shuttering all the projects working towards that goal. The proposed 2026 budget has a 10% increase for human space exploration, but the $7 billion allocated won't be used for the significant...

In 2020, one hitherto unknown report accurately predicted what was to follow Biden’s election. It also laid out a plan to preserve democracy in an uncertain future. Weeks before the 2020 election, a secret 87-page document outlined in matter-of-fact language the threat posed by Donald Trump’s still-to-come campaign of election denial. The private paper — the existence of which has not been reported before — forecast with chilling confidence the likelihood of violence during the presidential handover and proposed a far-reaching set of political reforms to thwart Trumpism in the future. Americans remember that dark winter well. But the impetus...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved. Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred. As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers...

Oil producing countries are bracing for a bumpy ride this year, with a precipitous drop in prices to the lowest levels in four years seen as the initial, alarming sign of looming turmoil. A price drop benefits any country seeking to cut its fuel bill. But in oil producing nations, lower prices can feed economic troubles, and sometimes political unrest, as governments slash spending. Analysts who had already been predicting lower oil prices because of softening demand amid increased global production said the possibility of a tariff trade war and the overall climate of uncertainty could well deepen producers’ woes....

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “kowtowing” to President Donald Trump had been disappointing. Host Jake Tapper said, “Is Secretary Rubio able to do the two main jobs there?” Warner said, “I don’t know how anybody could do these two big jobs, and they’re frankly very different. One is actually trying to diplomatically work with friends and adversaries around the world. And unfortunately, the number of adversaries has gone up dramatically as Trump’s approach has been so awful to our allies. The other are our national security adviser...

House Republicans are planning to include several of President Trump’s campaign promises in the first draft of the bill, which they hope to release soon.It was easy to miss, but last weekend President Trump floated a fundamental rewrite of the American tax code. In a social media post, and again in remarks to reporters, Mr. Trump suggested the United States could stop taxing income under $200,000 and instead rely on revenue from his extensive tariffs. “It’ll take a little while before we do that, but we’re going to be cutting taxes, and it’s possible we’ll do a complete tax cut,”...

ive years after the worldwide hyperfocus on COVID-19 began, some are concerned about the next pandemic — whether it could be caused by influenza, bird flu or another pathogen. Too easily overlooked are non-influenza, non-COVID viruses and bacteria that are burgeoning and spreading unchecked — both in the U.S. and around the world. While they may not cause the next pandemic, they do cause a lot of illness and death. One such bacteria is Streptococcus Group A, an old enemy that colonizes the throat and tonsils of close to 20% of U.S. children, according to Dr. Joshua Osowicki, team leader...

President Donald Trump's approval rating has dropped to 40 percent, lower than all other presidents at this point in their terms, new polling released by Pew Research Center on Wednesday shows. Americans want Trump to govern less by executive order, listen to the courts, and don't like tariffs. Trump is losing ground with people on the fence. From February to April, his approval rating fell from 88 percent to 75 percent among people who supported him in the 2024 election but "not strongly," and from 44 percent to 31 percent among nonvoters. Of course, partisans will be partisans, and Trump...

So far, American consumers have been shielded from much of the impact. But as the world of international shipping adjusts to his policies, the president is facing a potential reckoning. With the US-China trade war starting to gum up container traffic between the world’s two biggest economies, freight companies are warning of plunging bookings and a surge in “blank sailings” – where ports are skipped or voyages are called off altogether. Earlier this week, America’s most powerful retail executives trooped into the White House to deliver a blunt prognosis: tariffs on Chinese goods risked causing “empty shelves” in two weeks...

China just raised the stakes in its standoff with Washington. Despite President Trump's recent attempts to dial down the rhetoric and hint at possible tariff relief, Beijing isn't budging. A spokesperson from China's Commerce Ministry flatly rejected any notion of progress, calling U.S. claims of renewed dialogue groundless. The message: if the U.S. wants to talk, it needs to first undo the damagestarting with a full rollback of unilateral tariffs, now as high as 145%. China also made it clear that future talks hinge on more than just kind words; Washington needs to get serious about core issues like sanctions...

-Uncertainty about U.S. policymaking has led to a flight out of the U.S. dollar and Treasurys, with the dollar index weakening more than 9% so far this year, and analysts see more declines. -The drop in the greenback has led other currencies to appreciate against it, especially safe havens such as the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc as well as the euro. -Currency devaluation is likely to be more of an active consideration across emerging markets, particularly in Asia, said Nick Rees, head of macro research at Monex Europe. -“Emerging markets face high inflation, debt, and capital flight risks, making...

Four men accused of murder were executed by gunfire last Friday in crowded sports stadiums across Afghanistan. The Taliban leader defended these public killings as necessary under sharia law. That night, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem announced that the Trump administration would revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for Afghans who evacuated to the United States after their country fell to the Taliban in 2021. This sets the stage for more than 9,000 people to be deported, beginning May 20. A DHS spokeswoman says Noem made this decision based on a “review of the conditions in Afghanistan.” To claim...

ETFs tracking the U.S. dollar are gaining investor attention as the greenback faces increased pressure amid increasing global trade tensions and indications of a weakening U.S. economy. As sentiment turns bearish at a record pace, ETFs such as Invesco DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund UUP -0.90% are becoming crucial tools for investors trying to deal with the volatility. The most popular dollar ETF is UUP, which provides exposure to the greenback versus a basket of currencies including the euro, yen, and pound. It’s constructed to profit when the dollar rises — but has underperformed in recent days as bearishness...

President Donald Trump knows his hike in tariffs for China's goods to 145 percent will up the ante in a trade war, but Beijing also holds a strong hand with its control of the materials critical for the United States defense industry. China first responded on April 3 to Trump's initial salvo of 54 percent levies on its exports by placing export restrictions on rare earth elements, which are key for the fighter aircraft that will form the backbone of the U.S. Air Force's next-generation fleet. Following a deal with Boeing, Trump has touted the F-47 as the successor to...