Free Republic

California is moving quickly to protect undocumented immigrant students as top officials Monday outlined steps to guide school leaders, inform parents and provide mental health support to anxious students and families at elementary schools through university campuses. This deployment of reassurance and resources at public schools, where every child has a right to an education regardless of immigration status, is designed to counter President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20. Trump has repeatedly threatened to order mass deportations to address what he characterizes as the harms of illegal immigration.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has responded to the mounting criticism about how unsafe and violent New York City’s subway has gotten, saying the recent “surge” in crimes on the transit system “cannot continue.” Touting her deployment of 1,000 National Guard members to patrol the subway and the installation of cameras in every subway car, Hochul said her methods are “helping police solve crimes even faster,” according to a Friday statement from her office. “The recent surge in violent crimes in our public transit system cannot continue — and we need to tackle this crisis head-on,” the governor began....

Health providers in Canada have expressed concern in the weeks leading up to Christmas and the New Year that the country’s overburdened healthcare system could see a dangerous surge in the number of patients in emergency rooms, encouraging prospective patients to exhaust other available options before going to hospitals. The holidays approach following the publication of reports this month that wait times to see doctors in Canada, particularly specialists, are longer than even in the modern history of the country, and thousands of Canadians are dying on waitlists for life-saving medical interventions.

Democrats are finally doing something about migration. Donald Trump’s historic re-election to the White House led to a staggering number of Americans taking the left’s meltdown one step further by looking to relocate abroad this week. Since the president-elect’s comeback victory became official on Wednesday, the number of related Google searches jumped 1,514% percent, according to VisaGuide.World. Between Election Day on Tuesday and Wednesday, search traffic for “immigration”-related pages on the site grew by 338% — with would-be expats zeroing in on the easiest countries to relocate to, the site said. Other pages that saw major traffic growth were more...

Stock futures surged and Treasury yields climbed sharply after Donald Trump’s decisive election victory, as traders piled into trades that are seen as aligning with the former president and president-elect’s economic agenda. Investors scrambled to position themselves for new tariffs, tax cuts, and big shifts in energy and regulatory policy. Futures on all three major indexes advanced in premarket trading. S&P 500 futures rose over 2 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained close to 3 percent and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.3 percent. The Russell 2000—a barometer for smaller, economically sensitive companies—rallied nearly 6 percent, reflecting optimism...

The latest polling from the Senate Opportunity Fund (SOF) is all bad news for Democrats. First off, former President Trump is leading in the swing states of Nevada and Wisconsin. Secondly, the U.S. Senate races in Nevada, Wisconsin, AND Ohio appear to be slipping away from Democrats. Currently, Democrats hold all three of those U.S. Senate seats, and a month ago no one really thought the Republican challengers had much of a chance. There was some hope in the increasingly red state of Ohio, but almost none in Wisconsin and Nevada. Thanks to almost certain turnovers in Montana and West...

Silver prices soared by over 6% yesterday, breaking through the crucial $33.6 per ounce mark and sending shockwaves through global markets. The surge has put five major U.S. banks at risk of massive losses, potentially in the billions, due to their heavy short positions in the precious metal. According to data from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the open interest in silver futures contracts has reached a staggering 141,580 contracts, each representing 5,000 ounces of silver. This translates to a total of 707,900,000 ounces – nearly equivalent to a year's worth of global silver production.

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), who is also a Harris-Walz Surrogate, stated that “Some people say that, because immigrants are less likely to commit crimes, that the fact that there [are] more immigrants is one of the reasons that crime went down” in Aurora, but the influx of migrants to the state “is one of the reasons I’m so excited about Kamala Harris” because she has a plan to fix the crisis on the border. Polis said, “I have, of course, met with ICE and the FBI, both of them have field offices...

An “unsurvivable” storm surge is trailing in the wake of fast-moving Hurricane Helene as it barrels towards Florida. Damaging winds, rains, and flash floods hundreds of miles inland across much of the southeastern U.S. may also be in the mix, forecasters said Thursday. AP reports Helene is now a major hurricane — meaning an upgrade to Category 2 — as it makes towards landfall on Florida’s northwestern Big Bend coast late Thursday evening and into Friday morning. The storm is so large that areas roughly 90 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line could expect hurricane conditions. States as far inland...

Democrats are fearing a “Trump surge” with male voters, based on polls historically not accurately reflecting support for former President Donald Trump, according to a report. “Trump is winning men who have not [previously] voted,” Celinda Lake, one of two leading pollsters for President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign told the Hill. “Most pollsters are adjusting. Our firm looks at two turnout estimates now. One the average and one looking at [a] Trump surge.” She said that with polls showing battleground states balanced on a knife-edge, “I think we still have to worry about a Trump surge.”

A summer uptick in COVID-19 cases has Americans wondering how long the new surge will last. The United States is experiencing another surge in COVID-19 cases as the summer comes to an end. COVID-19 infections are increasing in 27 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Traces of the disease are becoming more common in wastewater, with the CDC’s wastewater surveillance system now reporting “very high” levels of COVID-19.

Blades are carving up the Big Apple. Stabbings and slashings across the city this year spiked 6% to 3,582 incidents through Aug. 11, up from 3,370 during the same period time last year, according to NYPD data requested by The Post. So far this year, 60 people have died by the blade — an 11% surge from the 54 in 2023. “There’s no reason for so much crime to go on,” Alton Scott, a veteran MTA conductor who needed 34 stitches to close a gruesome neck wound after being slashed in March, told The Post. In May, 17-year-old Sarah Rivera...

A surge in COVID-19 infections has swept the country this summer, upending travel plans and bringing fevers, coughs and general malaise. It shows no immediate sign of slowing. While most of the country and the federal government has put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, the virus is mutating and new variants emerging. Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) no longer tracks individual infection numbers, experts think it could be the biggest summer wave yet. So far, the variants haven’t been proven to cause a more serious illness, and vaccines remain effective, but there’s no certainty...

You could say that the U.S. is more than flirting with yet another Covid-19 surge. Chances are that a surge has already been occurring for at least a month—since early June. And the “FLiRT” variants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have been front-and-center of this surge. Now, the U.S. still doesn’t have a comprehensive surveillance system that can catch surges before they happen or soon after they start happening even though it’s been over four and a half years since the the SARS-CoV-2 first surged in the U.S. Plus, nowadays, you don’t see the public health...

As Americans' political focus turns towards this fall's elections, the winner of the presidential race will be confronted with a national debt that's on pace to reach a record-setting level in the next four years, as well as looming deadlines that may force their hand on fiscal policy. A recent update to the federal government's long-term budget outlook by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that budget deficits are projected to widen from about $1.9 trillion this year to more than $2 trillion annually starting in 2030, before nearing $2.9 trillion in 2034. In that period, the debt held...

A summer COVID surge is underway in the U.S., warns the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — so should you be concerned? As of June 25, 2024, the CDC estimated that COVID-19 infections are "growing or likely growing" in 44 states and territories, according to a news alert on its website. Despite the rise in cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain low, the data shows. Given that the pandemic was declared officially over as of May 5, 2023, public health officials don’t collect the same amount of COVID data as they once did.

(NEXSTAR) – Warning signs that could signal a rise in COVID infections are appearing in parts of the U.S. Wastewater testing, which can help detect the spread of a COVID in a community, has shown a significant uptick of the virus in several states. Testing sites in Montana and Florida are reporting “very high” levels of COVID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Levels are “high” in wastewater across Alaska, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland and New Mexico. Emergency room visits related to COVID-19 are also on the rise, the CDC says, spiking 12.6% in one week. The biggest...

Singapore is experiencing a new wave of COVID-19, with authorities recording over 25,900 cases from May 5 to 11. Health Minister Ong Ye Kung advised the public to wear masks again on Saturday. “We are at the beginning part of the wave where it is steadily rising,” Kung stated. “So, I would say the wave should peak in the next two to four weeks, which means between mid- and end of June,” he told The Straits Times. The Ministry of Health (MOH) reported that the number of COVID-19 cases increased significantly, from 13,700 the previous week to 25,900 in the...

Credit card delinquencies are on the rise, as research from the New York Federal Reserve shows nearly a fifth of borrowers are “maxed-out.” According the new report, issued by the bank’s Center for Microeconomic Data, household debt rose by 1.1 percent, or $184 billion, in the first quarter of the year, bringing the total to $17.69 trillion. “In the first quarter of 2024, credit card and auto loan transition rates into serious delinquency continued to rise across all age groups,” Joelle Scally, regional economic principal within the household and public policy research division at the bank, said in a statement....

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis believes Democrats don't stand a chance in the Sunshine State going forward. This comes as reports indicate registered GOP voters now outpace Democrats by nearly 900,000. "You're talking about a million plus voter registration shift," DeSantis told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, claiming older numbers indicated Republicans were behind their Democratic adversaries by nearly 300,000 registered voters in 2018. "Part of that, I think, is a response locally where people are more likely to switch from Democrat to Republican in Florida, nonparty to Republican than vice-versa. That's been an important component of it, but I do think...