Free Republic

To defend and burnish Tulsi Gabbard’s image as her political star was rising, her congressional campaign hired a public-affairs firm in 2017 that tried to suppress coverage of an alleged pyramid scheme connected to her Hindu sect, according to interviews, emails and Federal Election Commission records. Gabbard, a former House member who is now President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was raised in the Science of Identity Foundation, a sect tied to a direct-marketing firm accused of running a pyramid scheme in several countries. Neither Gabbard, the sect nor the firm, QI Group, wanted the relationships scrutinized. Gabbard’s...

China’s deflating property bubble is imperiling the world’s second-largest economy with effects that could ripple for years. Home prices are dropping in many cities after a long period of increases, data from Chinese real-estate developers and official statistics show. Sales of apartments nationwide by the country’s largest developers have slumped annually for 13 consecutive months, according to industry-data provider China Real Estate Information Corp. And millions of “presold” apartments that buyers have paid for remain unfinished, leading some purchasers to threaten to withhold mortgage payments. Home buyers could refuse to pay back up to $370 billion in home loans if...