Free Republic

The US H-1B visa system is about to undergo a major shakeup, which could impact many Indian professionals, who account for the largest percentage of recipients annually. According to US government data, 191,000 H-1B visas were issued to Indian professionals during the fiscal year 2023. In FY 2024, that figure increased to roughly 207,000. The White House has approved a proposal from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to replace the long-standing lottery system with a wage-based selection process. Under the new framework, H-1B visas would be issued to applicants in order of the salaries offered to them, starting with...

New York: Indians working in the United States on H-1B or L-1 visas are reconsidering their long-term plans in the wake of rising uncertainties. A recent Blind poll, conducted anonymously for verified professionals, found that 45% would return to India if job loss forced them to leave the United States. Another 26% said they would move to a different country, while 29% remain undecided. Pay cuts and quality-of-life concerns top the list of worries for those contemplating a return. About 25% cited lower pay as a deterrent, 24% mentioned a dip in living standards, 13% highlighted cultural or family adjustments...

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Nov. 5 in the pair of challenges to President Donald Trump’s authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The court on Thursday morning released an updated calendar for its November argument session that reflects the addition of the tariffs dispute, which the justices added to their docket for the 2025-26 term on Sept. 9. The dispute over Trump’s tariffs is operating on a highly expedited schedule. The government will file its opening brief on Friday, just 10 days after the court announced that it had granted review; the challengers’...

Eli Lilly on Tuesday announced a $5 billion investment in a manufacturing facility in Virginia as the pharmaceutical giant looks to expand its domestic production capacity amid the threat of tariffs. The manufacturing facility is expected to generate 650 high-wage jobs and 1,800 construction jobs at the West Creek Business Park in Goochland County, Virginia. The facility will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients for cancer, autoimmune and other advanced therapies. Eli Lilly's announcement represents an expansion beyond the original plan for a $2.1 billion facility that would've created 468 jobs. Earlier this year, Eli Lilly outlined plans to spend at least...

As SCOTUSblog readers are likely aware, tariffs are taxes charged on goods bought from other countries. In February, President Donald Trump imposed dozens of new tariffs. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether he had the legal authority to do so. The stakes in the litigation are enormous. Tariffs are a crucial part of Trump’s agenda, with huge consequences in the United States and throughout the world. Indeed, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down most of the tariffs, Trump said that their invalidation “would be a total disaster for the Country” and “would literally...

House Republican leaders are moving to again head off votes trying to cancel much of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime. A procedural measure Republicans on the Rules Committee advanced Monday night would extend until March 31 a block on efforts by Democrats and several Republicans to end the national emergencies underlying Trump’s sweeping tariffs — including on Mexico, Canada, Brazil and his “liberation day” levies from April. It would also block “resolutions of inquiry,” measures that can be used by the House to compel the release of information from the executive branch. The House is set to vote Tuesday...

Democrat lawyers want to define tariffs as taxes because taxes must be approved by Congress, not Trump. Taxes are imposed upon persons earning income in the U.S. Tariffs are import duties imposed upon foreign entities. They are not taxes. The courts need to get this right. If the courts says Congress must approve tariffs, Congress will be unable to comply. Tariffs change commonly, and there are 194 countries that will pay tariffs to us. There is no chance that Congress could handle that task, nor should it. Congress’s duty is to approve a rare change of income tax, which is...

What do Theresa May and Andy Burnham have in common with Michel Barnier, François Bayrou and Emmanuel Macron? All five were admirably honest with the public about the trade-offs inherent in financing an ageing society, and all five were duly punished for their candour by the public, the press, opposition politicians or all three.The past two decades of French and British politics are a graveyard of proposals to slow the upward ratchet of spending on growing elderly populations. The same two decades of French and British fiscal balances show the results. Public disbursements to older citizens have climbed higher and...

The federal government's budget deficit reached $2 trillion for the current fiscal year as the deficit has widened by nearly $100 billion from last year. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its monthly budget update for August, which showed the deficit reached $1.989 trillion in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025. That amounts to a $92 billion increase in the deficit when compared with the first 11 months of fiscal year 2024. Overall, federal spending was up by $391 billion from a year ago, an increase of 5%, while tax receipts rose $299 billion, or 7%, in...

Pre-order sales of Apple's new iPhone 17 series have got off to a robust start in China, shattering previous records despite delays in the shipment of the iPhone Air.In the first minute after pre-orders began at 8pm Friday local time, sales on JD.com -- one of China's largest online shopping platforms -- surpassed the first-day pre-order volume of last year's iPhone 16 series, according to the e-commerce operator. The standard iPhone 17 with 256GB of storage emerged as the most popular variant, JD.com said.Those numbers excluded the iPhone Air, the company's thinnest model ever, as its release has been postponed...

Donald Trump issued a stunning threat to NATO allies for holding up his negotiations to end the Russia - Ukraine war and warned against 'wasting my time' in a blistering social media post. Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday morning to rebuke NATO allies for buying oil from Russia despite their opposition to Vladimir Putin's invasion, saying it 'greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia'. 'I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM...

Las Vegas tourism continues to decline as fresh numbers reveal that fewer visitors are traveling to Sin City. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) recently released its numbers for July visitors, noting a 12% drop from last year. There were 3,089,300 visitors this July compared to over 3.5 million last year, while occupancy on the Strip dropped 7% from 86.5% last year. The tourism decline has been attributed to a combination of factors, including the impact of tariffs, the seasonal summer slowdown, and a surge in online gaming. Most recently, the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino announced it...

Mr President, thank you. Dear leftists, you have been attacking President Trump for years. Now you are whining about tariffs. You are not happy that he doesn't want to be your private bodyguard. But it's not Trump's decision to spend money on illegal migrants instead of the army or industry. It's not Trump's fault that you restricted European industry because of your green god and because of your sick ideology. It's not his fault! It's time to be a man. It's time to take care of yourself. It's time to stop wearing dresses and be a man. Put on armour,...

President Donald Trump warned on Friday that if the Supreme Court shoots down his global tariffs than the United States will owe “trillions and trillions of dollars” to other nations. Trump joined Fox & Friends on Friday where he discussed a number of topics, including the shooting and killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. While talking up his tariff strategy, the president admitted that trillions could be added to the United States’ debt should he end up losing in the Supreme Court, which recently agreed on an expedited timeline to rule on whether Trump’s tariffs are legal. The president said...

The labor market created far fewer jobs than previously thought, according to a Labor Department report Tuesday that added to concerns both about the health of the economy and the state of data collection.

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear arguments over President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, taking up a fast-moving appeal that deals with the centerpiece of the administration’s economic agenda. In the meantime, the tariffs will remain in place while the court hears the case. Trump is pressing the justices to overturn a lower court ruling that found his administration acted unlawfully by imposing many of his import taxes, including the “Liberation Day” tariffs the White House announced in April and tariffs placed this year against China, Mexico and Canada that were designed to combat fentanyl entering the United States....

Executive order effective September 8 exempts gold bullion, graphite, tungsten, and uranium while extending reciprocal tariffs to silicone products, resin, and aluminum hydroxide.The Trump administration exempted graphite, tungsten, uranium, and gold bullion from US country-based reciprocal tariffs, while adding levies on silicone products—and extending those tariffs to resin and aluminum hydroxide.The move, set to take effect today under an executive order, formalizes the planned bullion carve-out after a recent US Customs and Border Protection ruling sowed confusion by implying certain gold bars could face import taxes.TRUMP EXEMPTS GRAPHITE, TUNGSTEN, URANIUM & GOLD FROM COUNTRY-BASED TARIFFS; SILICONE PRODUCTS TO FACE LEVIES—...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that he is “confident” that President Donald Trump’s tariff plan “will win” at the Supreme Court, but warned his agency would be forced to issue massive refunds if the high court rules against it. If the tariffs are struck down, he said, “we would have to give a refund on about half the tariffs, which would be terrible for the Treasury,” according to an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He added, however, that “if the court says it, we’d have to do it.” The Trump administration last week asked the Supreme Court for...

As I write this, the Democratic press releases are still being edited, but the collective scream soon to come is perfectly predictable. Already, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu said on BlueSky that “Republicans are messing up the economy,” based on private jobs data that came out Thursday. You can see why Democrats might make that argument. It seems the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a meager job gain in August of 22,000, with technical revisions to recent months data in the negatives by 21,000. Even without that revision, that’s a job growth rate of a tenth what...

President Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner last month because he didn’t like the monthly jobs numbers. He claimed the numbers were “rigged.” But Friday’s monthly report for August confirms that job creation has stalled amid his tariff barrage. Employers added a mere 22,000 jobs last month while the numbers were revised down for the previous two by a combined 21,000. This means only 107,000 new jobs were created in the last four months—an average of 27,000. Monthly job gains averaged 167,000 last year. Nearly all of the new jobs last month were in social assistance and healthcare...