Free Republic

China has quietly exempted from tariffs some semiconductors made in the United States, in an attempt to protect its leading technology companies from a bitter trade showdown with President Donald Trump.Levies on at least eight classifications of U.S.-made microchips have been dropped to zero, instead of the 125 percent retaliatory tariff rate Beijing has imposed on all other U.S. goods, Caijing, a Chinese financial media outlet, reported Friday.The article was later deleted. But two importers who spoke to The Washington Post confirmed that certain semiconductors are now exempted from tariffs. One company in Shenzhen listed the exemptions on social media...

Yes, the headlines are bleak. Yes, scientists are sounding the alarm. Yes, a growing pile of studies warn that the world is “on the brink of irreversible climate disaster,” as a recent “state of the climate” report put it. It’s easy to feel like the planet is on fire — because, well, sometimes it literally is. But even amid the floods, droughts and devastating forecasts, it’s not all doom: Innovators are reimagining how we power our lives, nature is pulling off surprising comebacks, cities are cleaning their air and nations are opening their wallets. This Earth Day, take a break...

A woman who fatally struck two children who were walking in a crosswalk to their elementary school in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in November 2023 has pleaded guilty to traffic misdemeanors with a maximum punishment of four months in jail. Olga Lugo Jiminez, 52, of Hyattsville, Maryland, was driving a van for an unlicensed school drop-off service when she hit the two children and one of their parents, according to court filings. …. In a statement, the Mbah family said they were pained by the result and felt it would send a message that negligent driving is not taken seriously,...

When war once again came to Gaza in late 2023, Palestinian photographer Fatma Hassona began documenting all aspects of life: death, displacement, destruction, children celebrating during Eid, relief as people were allowed to return to northern Gaza during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas this year. Despite the challenges she faced, the 25-year-old was planning for the future: She was engaged to be married this summer and received news last Tuesday that a documentary about her life in Gaza during the war had been accepted to Acid Cannes, which runs alongside the Cannes Film Festival in France. A day later,...

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...

Pete Buttigieg. Wes Moore. Gavin Newsom. Gretchen Whitmer. Stephen A. Smith!!!???!!??Since the November election, the ESPN commentator has been bashing Democratic leadership for losing to Donald Trump and floating himself as a potential 2028 candidate and savior for the party and the country. And Smith’s dalliance with politics isn’t one-sided. Pod Save America, Fox News, CNN, ABC News, the New Yorker and other major outlets have sought out Smith for his first takes on immigration, tariffs and other issues.President Stephen A. Smith? Has everyone gone crazy? Not completely. Many nonpartisan pundits and Democrats themselves think the party needs a leader...

Two weeks ago, the sharp-tongued comedian Bill Maher had dinner with Donald Trump. Maher emerged from the meeting thoroughly charmed. During the opening monologue on his show on Friday, he described Trump as engaged and even likable. Trump made him feel comfortable and listened to. In their conversation, which included “an amazing tour of the whole house,” Trump remained empathetic. “He didn’t get mad. He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public,” Maher recalled. “Why can’t we get the guy I met to be the public guy?” It’s unfortunate that Maher allowed himself to get played like this.In...

An internal document reviewed by The Post targets spending on humanitarian assistance, global health and international organizations such as the U.N. and NATO... The memo, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, says that cuts contained in an early proposal from the White House Office of Management and Budget for the next fiscal year would leave a total budget of $28.4 billion for all activities carried out by the State Department and USAID, a separate agency that the Trump administration has sought to dismantle. That represents a decline of $27 billion, or 48 percent, from funding levels approved by Congress...

The edict could hurl elections into tumult, though lawsuits challenging the order mean it probably won’t be implemented anytime soon.President Donald Trump’s plan to overhaul elections could hurl 2026 into turmoil by forcing states to hand-count ballots or scramble to spend millions of dollars on voting systems that aren’t yet on the market, according to election officials and voting experts.If put into effect, his recent executive order attempting to transform elections could make it impossible for some states to use voting machines, election experts said. No voting systems are commercially available that meet the standards the president put forward in...

When Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy discovered the Washington Post’s Emily Heil had contacted his advertisers and labeled him as a person with a “history of misogynistic comments,” he took matters into his own hands and called her. Portnoy posted the 11-minute confrontation in its entirety on Twitter. Heil initially lies, saying she didn’t characterize Portnoy as a misogynistic racist, before being confronted with her own words. “We have this Pizza-fest happening on Saturday, and you’re reaching out to our advertisers,” Portnoy said. “You’re basically sending an e-mail that says, to the effect, ‘Dave’s a misogynic racist. Do you want...

Barstool Sports founder and small business star Dave Portnoy has faced criticism from the Washington Post for his first-of-its-kind "One Bite" pizza festival, but, despite this strategic provocation and severe weather conditions, the celebration was a success. "It couldn't have gone better. It's our Woodstock moment with the rain. 5,000 people strong. Everyone had a great time. The vibes are actually probably higher because of the controversy surrounding it. So, yeah, it went great," Portnoy said during his Sunday appearance on "Fox & Friends Weekend." The "One Bite" pizza festival was a celebration planned by Portnoy himself to round up...

After China reduced the number of American films that can be shown there as part of its retaliation to U.S. tariffs this week, President Donald Trump laughed it off. “I’ve heard of worse things,” he said. But his flippancy over China’s targeting of U.S. cultural exports — which are not only a source of income for Hollywood but also a projection of U.S. soft power — illustrates the myopia of Trump’s trade war.This week, as investors raced away from the dollar (it’s down about 8 percent since Inauguration Day) and dumped U.S. Treasury bonds (10-year yields climbed above 4.5 percent),...

Former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz sparked backlash Monday after she admitted a social media post that implied former President Joe Biden was dead “got her hopes up.”. The left-leaning firebrand has made her disdain for Biden clear, attacking his pro-Israel stance on the war in Gaza. A social media user seemingly shared her view, posting a black-and-white photo of Biden over the weekend and writing: “RIP Joe Biden 1942-2025…You were always a racist -–king monster, and will not be missed.” Lorenz shared the post on Sunday with a frowny face, adding: “This tweet got my hopes up.” Some social...

After far-left progressive and avid Bernie Sander’s supporter James Hodgkinson opened fire on Republicans preparing for a baseball game this morning, managing to wound House Majority Whip Steve Scalise who remains in critical condition, some of the most radical leftists in the media couldn’t contain their satisfaction at Republicans being targeted in an act of violence. Malcolm Harris, who writes for far-left publication The Washington Post, was one such leftist who expressed his satisfaction at today’s shooting. Malcolm most recently published an article for The Washington Post on June 9th titled “Why do millennials keep leaking government secret?”This morning, Malcolm...

Republicans who are evidently not too comfortable with President Donald Trump’s decision to announce large new global tariffs have tried plenty of hints to push him in a different direction. And one of Trump’s most vocal tariff critics on the GOP side, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, tried a relatively novel one on Wednesday. He pointed to electoral peril for the GOP. “Tariffs have also led to political decimation,” Paul told reporters. “When [William] McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50 percent of their seats in the next election. When [Sens. Reed Smoot and Willis C....

When wildfire smoke drifts into the Methow Valley, it tends to stay, settling in the folds of the Cascade foothills like a choking fog. Recent summers have brought weeks-long binges of unhealthy air to one of Washington state’s poorest counties, rivaling some of the most polluted cities in the world. Countering this intensifying threat are small nonprofit organizations such as the Methow Valley Citizens Council, which has been distributing air purifiers, maintaining a network of air quality monitors, and spreading the message about how to keep safe when the smoke rolls in. Much of that work was funded by a...

It’s the most concrete effort yet to turn President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire the Danish territory into actionable policy, despite widespread international outrage.The White House is preparing an estimate of what it would cost the federal government to control Greenland as a territory, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, the most concrete effort yet to turn President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire the Danish island into actionable policy. While Trump’s demands elicited international outrage and a rebuke from Denmark, White House officials have in recent weeks taken steps to determine the financial ramifications of Greenland becoming...

The administration’s attacks are a case study in how executive power can be abused.For a month, President Donald Trump has been picking off his enemies among America’s top law firms. They have been vulnerable in part because they didn’t stand together. But some leading firms are now fighting back aggressively in what could be one of the epic battles of Trump’s presidency.Trump’s campaign against the major law firms has tested the guardrails of the Constitution as much as any other action since Inauguration Day. Trump has declared his motive: He wants revenge against lawyers who investigated him during and after...

Lee insists he's "famously" a very good Catholic. He's a moral person — his mother raised him right. And by his internal calculation, it's OK to shoplift from Whole Foods. Why? Because of Jeff Bezos.From about 2020 to 2022, Lee, a 20-something communications professional living in the Washington, DC, area, engaged in what he describes as "grand theft auto-ing" from his local Whole Foods store. He would cheat the scale at the hot bar, pocket spices, or take home four lemons in the self-checkout aisle while only declaring two. Lee has never shoplifted from anywhere else — not Safeway, not...

Some of the biggest examples of allegedly wasteful spending held up by Musk and DOGE so far have been overblown or inaccurate. Musk’s assertion that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security benefits was so off-base that it had to be tamped down by the agency’s acting head.