Free Republic

A group of radical pro-Palestinian activists took over a building at the University of California Berkeley on Wednesday, just hours after administrators and protesters struck a deal to end a weeks-long “encampment.” The Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley student newspaper, reported: A group of pro-Palestine protesters broke in and took over Anna Head Alumnae Hall on Wednesday afternoon. The protesters — gathering in a group of about 30 by 3:15 p.m. — hung up the Palestinian flag as well as boards reading “Free Gaza” and “Avenge Al Shifa.” [Al-Shifa is a hospital in Gaza that was taken over by terrorists,...

The US is "rushing ammunition, armoured vehicles, missiles [and] air defences" to Ukraine's front line, Anthony Blinken has said.During a trip to Ukraine, the US secretary of state announced that $2bn would be spent to speed up delivery. His comments came as Russian advances forced Ukrainian to retreat from several villages in the Kharkiv region. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has cancelled all his foreign trips to concentrate on the new incursion. Speaking in Kyiv on Wednesday, Mr Blinken said weapons would be rushed to the front lines to "protect soldier, to protect citizens". He said that the air defence systems,...

After a federal judge dismissed a landmark climate lawsuit filed by 18 California children against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the youth plaintiffs plan to amend and resubmit their allegations, their attorneys say. The children — who have lost homes in wildfires, suffered health problems from breathing polluted air, missed weeks of education due to climate change-related school closures and been forced to ration tap water due to unprecedented droughts — sued the EPA for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by allowing pollution from burning fossil fuels to continue despite knowing the harm it poses to kids. Judge Michael Fitzgerald...

Steve Moore, from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a free market think tank, says Democrats were to blame for refusing 'to mandate work for welfare.' They 'view food stamps as an economic stimulus and/or virtuous income redistribution,' he said. Meanwhile, the scheme is increasingly targeted by fraudsters. A New York Times investigation spotlighted the scammers who use illegally installed skimming machines to lift payment card data from beneficiaries who swipe their SNAP cards through the devices in stores or at ATMs. Skimming cons picked up in 2022, and that the federal government has spent at least $30 million reimbursing stolen...

What Is Happening? Another Barge Hit Another Bridge Causing a Partial Collapse in Galveston VIDEO AT LINK.................

The city Buildings Department has eliminated a quarter of its budgeted workforce since 2022 — and many of the jobs were held by inspectors who are supposed to identify issues with structures before a potential collapse. The troubling revelation surfaced Tuesday during a meeting of the City Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings — and panel Chairwoman Pierina Ana Sanchez said data shows that the DOB is falling behind in identifying problematic buildings as the number of inspectors falls. “We see the impact,’’ she said. In the first four months of this year, the DOB issued 2,225 stop-work orders —...

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday confirmed the hiring of a longtime PG&E executive to head the Department of Water and Power at an annual salary of $750,000 - a sharp increase from her predecessor. Janisse Quiñones replaces current general manager Martin Adams, who is retiring. He was paid a salary of $435,000.

The Peruvian government has officially classified transgender, nonbinary and intersex people as “mentally ill.” The controversial decision was made to ensure the country’s public health services could “guarantee full coverage of medical attention for mental health” for the trans community, the Peruvian health ministry explained, according to the Telegraph. The decree will supposedly alter the language in the Essentials Health Insurance Plan to reflect that trans and intersex people have a mental disorder, LGBTQ+ outlet Pink News reported. Despite the change, trans and other LGBTQ+ people will not be forced to undergo conversion therapies, the health ministry insisted in a...

President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday it is false that his administration is restricting consumer choice in the automobile market, but his administration recently finalized a rule that will force electric vehicles (EVs) to make up a much larger share of overall auto sales over the next decade. Biden made the remark during a Tuesday speech about his administration’s decision to significantly bolster tariffs against Chinese products including steel, semiconductor chips and EV batteries. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule in March that requires manufacturers to make EVs constitute between 35% and 56% of new cars sold in 2032,...

An Upper East Side kosher restaurant was targeted by vandals early Wednesday. Rothschild TLV on Lexington Avenue had its front window smashed overnight — leaving a gaping hole, images posted on X show. The upscale eatery is inspired by Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, according to the restaurant’s website. The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for information from The Post.

On Wednesday, the country hit a sad milestone: Inflation under President Biden hit 20 percent. The dollar’s value has plummeted under his watch. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also confirmed that the consumer price index is resurgent and growing faster than average wages. Combined with weak GDP growth, this data shows the U.S. economy is reentering stagflation. Historic inflation is causing declining living standards and a cost-of-living crisis. Under Biden’s presidency, grocery prices have increased by nearly one-third and gas has risen by 50 percent. It feels like every daily convenience — from a turkey sandwich to some handyman help...

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....

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.4 percent in March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment. Advertisement The index for shelter rose in April, as did the index for gasoline. Combined, these two indexes contributed over seventy percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items. The energy index rose 1.1 percent over the month. The food index was unchanged in April. The food at home...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has turned to climate change to explain how the state went from a $100 billion surplus two years ago to a $28 billion deficit, which would have been even higher prior to drastic actions last month. As CalMatters noted, deficit estimates ranged from $38 billion to $73 billion: That prompted Newsom and the Legislature to take “early action” last month to reduce the deficit by more than $17 billion ahead of the regular budget process. Their plan included some program cuts, but mostly relied on new revenue, internal borrowing and funding delays and shifts for...

Actor John Leguizamo wants Latinos to stop blaming President Joe Biden for the economy, telling them to instead blame record-high consumer prices on COVID and Trump. In a Salon interview last week, John Leguizamo was reacting to recent polling figures showing former President Donald Trump gaining ground among Latino voters. “Because Latinos, they’re blaming him [Biden] for the economy, which they shouldn’t be because COVID was the culprit and Trump not handling COVID was the culprit in damaging our economy,” he said. “But our economy is doing great. It’s just inflation that’s messing up everybody’s paycheck. So I understand that.”

Could a second Biden term be more injurious to the economy than his first term? It seems unimaginable given the first three years gave us 20% inflation, a $2,000 loss in average real incomes for the middle class, 6 million added illegal immigrants, a war on American energy that has caused gas prices to rise by more than 40% to $3.64 a gallon, the collapse of our many major cities, another $6 trillion added to the national debt, the unaffordability of new homes, and the chaos on college campuses. So what's the encore to that abysmal performance? What will Bidenomics...

Restaurant chain Red Lobster could file for bankruptcy protection as early as next week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. People familiar with the matter told the Journal that the company, overwhelmed with hundreds of millions in debt, plans to file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in Orlando before Memorial Day. Bloomberg previously reported in April that the restaurant company was considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

On Tuesday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted that President Joe Biden’s tariffs won’t cause any meaningful price increases for typical families and responded to a question on her criticism of the Trump tariffs as “taxes on consumers” by stating that Biden’s tariffs are different because they’re “are a targeted group of strategic sectors where we have developed a real overdependence on China.” Yellen said that with the Biden tariff regime, “I don’t think that anything will occur here that would be noticeable to the typical American family. Mainly, these tariff increases serve to protect firms and workers that...

CLAIM: President Joe Biden claimed during an interview with Yahoo Finance that inflation was nine percent when he took office in January 2021. VERDICT: FALSE. A report from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate was at 1.4 percent in January 2021, when Biden came into office.

President Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign and affiliated groups announced a $90 million fundraising haul for March on Saturday. The total — which includes funds from the campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and affiliated joint fundraising committees — out-paces former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee’s (RNC’s) $65.6 million raised in the same month. Biden’s fundraising apparatus now has more than double the amount of cash on hand as Trump’s, at $192 million compared to $93.1 million, according to a press release. “ The money we are raising is historic, and it’s going to the critical work of...