Free Republic

The new “Meet the Press” host is starting off with a bang, scoring an interview with former President Trump. Kristen Welker takes the helm of the show on Sunday from former host Chuck Todd. The interview with the 2024 GOP front-runner will be taped Thursday at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. During a brief transition last week, Welker thanked Todd for his guidance into the role. “I am ready, Chuck, and I just want to say I am also so thankful and grateful to you for this moment for entrusting me with this monumental, important role,” she said.

Twitter plans to focus on video, creator and commerce partnerships to revitalize the social media company’s business beyond digital advertising, according to an investor presentation by owner Elon Musk and new Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino that was reviewed by Reuters. Yaccarino, who started as CEO on June 5, told Twitter investors on Thursday that the company is in early conversations with political and entertainment figures, payments services and news and media publishers, said a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private investor call. The presentation was Yaccarino’s first time addressing the company’s...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is recalibrating his strategy and messaging amid signs that his presidential ambitions may be faltering before his campaign even gets off the ground. DeSantis began the year with clear momentum in the nascent GOP presidential primary, topping former President Trump in head-to-head polling and drawing unparalleled interest from Republican voters and operatives eager to see a fresh face at the helm of the party. But there are signs that his momentum may be stalling: he’s faced weeks of relentless attacks from Trump and his allies, fellow Republicans have criticized him for dubbing Russia’s invasion of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A leading US rights group has called on the US Congress to overhaul the Patriot Act and other national security programs that were passed in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. "The Patriot Act vastly -- and unconstitutionally -- expanded the government's authority to pry into people's private lives with little or no evidence of wrongdoing," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a 36-page report entitled "Reclaiming Patriotism," which was published Wednesday. The USA PATRIOT Act -- which stands for the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept...

NASA needs to rethink its Mars exploration plans after 2010 given new understandings about the red planet and likely funding levels in the coming years, according to a report just out from a panel of outside experts. By adding to a reworked mix of future missions-for example, a geophysical/meteorological network as well as a sample return mission-the space agency would garner a greater scientific impact at Mars, the panel concludes. Moreover, the space agency must fortify its ability to analyze the data streaming in from Mars. That research can help flesh out a safe and scientifically productive role for humans...

San Diego -- The University of California, under fire for its pay practices, gave final approval Thursday to two proposals to overhaul the way it hands out compensation and doled out a new round of increases for managers. The university Board of Regents unanimously approved a plan that gives UC President Robert Dynes discretion to increase hundreds of executives' pay within large salary bands, ... --snip-- The regents also endorsed a plan to ban administrators from negotiating severance agreements worth more than $100,000 without the regents' approval. The board acted one month after The Chronicle reported that UC had secretly...

NEW YORK - TV Guide is slashing the circulation it guarantees advertisers by about two-thirds and relaunching itself as a large format magazine with far fewer TV listings and more emphasis on lifestyle and entertainment, the magazine announced Tuesday. The radical changes to TV Guide come as it struggles to remain relevant in an age where many TV viewers get their listings from on-screen guides provided by their cable companies or online. TV Guide also said it would cut jobs as part of the revamp, but it declined say how many. The new TV Guide, which will launch with the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat in the Senate on Tuesday predicted that President Bush's plan to revamp social security by diverting taxes into private investment accounts would fail to pass Congress. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was speaking as Bush prepared to use his State of the Union address on Wednesday to argue for his proposals and then follow up with a five-state tour to campaign for the new investment accounts. "President Bush should forget about privatizing Social Security," the Nevada Democrat said. "It will not happen. The sooner he comes to that realization, the better off we are."...

Under threat of an initiative to scrap California's traditional public pensions, legislators and others are scrambling to craft bills to repair the system instead. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed the initiative to replace public pensions, which guarantee retirement income based on salary and years of service, with 401(k)-style investment accounts. Strong interests - especially public employee unions and their allies - oppose abandoning the existing system. Now, they're under the gun to fix it. In the recent past, proposals to rein in pension costs haven't gained much traction. This year, however, the initiative threat is leading to a bumper crop...

The campaign to oust Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld continues unabated at The Weekly Standard, with the latest salvo being fired by Frederick Kagan in his article Fighting the Wrong War. Mr. Kagan attempts to make a reasoned, thoughtful counter to Rummy’s defenders, but instead discusses key issues in generalities rather than specifics, and fails to place events of the 90s and today within an accurate historical context. Kagan charges Rummy’s defenders with evasion, and an over-reliance on “deflecting all criticism from him [Rumsfeld] onto the Clinton administration.” In a sense, he is right that what has occurred in the past...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will call for a dramatic overhaul of the state's public employee pension system in his State of the State speech this afternoon, administration officials confirmed Tuesday. In a move certain to trigger a major confrontation with some of the state's most powerful labor unions, Schwarzenegger aides said the governor will sponsor a package of pension bills for introduction at a special legislative session he intends to call for Thursday. If the Legislature doesn't adopt the sweeping proposals, aides said, he'll take them to the ballot box - with several other so-called "reform" measures - in a special...

FOR years it was a symbol of the cold, grey face Russia showed to the outside world, with cramped planes, a terrible safety record and frowning stewardesses.But now the Russian airline Aeroflot insists it has changed its spots - with a little help from a British PR firm. In a makeover of ambitious proportions, the airline has spruced up its planes, service and reliability, and insists the old service-with-a-scowl is a thing of the past. The task was not an easy one. Until now, Aeroflot has had a well-deserved reputation as a Communist-era theme park with clunky planes that nobody...

SACRAMENTO – As California's convoluted budget drama winds down, a handful of health experts is quietly finalizing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's next major government shakeup: An overhaul of the health-care safety net larger than any attempted in state history. Schwarzenegger's top health deputies are preparing a plan to redesign Medi-Cal, California's $31 billion health insurance program for the poor, disabled, blind and elderly. The plan, tentatively scheduled for release next week, will likely ask the poor to pay more for their health care, allow doctors to withhold care from patients unable to pay and move beneficiaries into managed-care programs, such as...

Saudi clerics agree to revamp holy sites February 05 2004 at 02:51PM Riyadh - Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority approved government plans to restructure Islam's holiest sites on Thursday after 251 Muslims were killed in a stampede during this year's haj pilgrimage. "The council agreed on the need to develop Jamarat area to protect pilgrims," said the council of senior scholars, headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, in a religious edict carried on state television. King Fahd had issued a decree ordering the formation of a high-level committee to draft a new layout for Mecca and Mena...

By Ted Costa, Ted Costa, who drew up the original petition to recall Gray Davis, is chief executive of the anti-tax group People's Advocate. In October, the people of California voted to change the profligate deficit-spending approach of the last five years. So the voters replaced Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger, chosen largely because of the latter's promise to roll back tax spending. Yet just weeks after Schwarzenegger was sworn into office, his effort to control spending and restore fiscal responsibility is facing strong opposition. The opposition comes not from the 4 million California voters who placed him in office...