Free Republic

On Thursday, the Biden administration restored rules to protect imperiled plants and animals that had been rolled back under former President Trump. Among the changes announced, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft time-intensive plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines and alligator snapping turtles in the southeastern U.S. and spotted owls. The blanket protection regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes...

The new head of Boeing’s troubled commercial airplane unit said the planemaker faces a “pivotal moment” as it works to boost quality and address significant concerns from regulators and airline customers after a panel flew off a 737 MAX 9 jet in January. “This is a pivotal moment for us, and we have serious work ahead to build trust and improve our operations,” said Stephanie Pope, who was named president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes ... Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced he would leave by the end of the year, while the company’s long-time head of commercial airplanes, Stan...

An 18-year-old motorist is facing homicide charges for the deaths of a Washington state mother and three of the kids she was ushering around after he allegedly drove his Audi A4 more than 100 miles per hour into their minivan, prosecutors said. Chase Daniel Jones is accused of killing the 38-year-old mom Andrea Hudson as well as Boyd Buster Brown, 12, and sisters Matilda Wilcoxson, 13, and Eloise Wilcoxson, 12, when he barreled into their vehicle, pushing it into another two cars on the road, officials said. Two of Hudson’s children who were also in the minivan were hospitalized and...

War on food is spreading in U.S. through land-use restrictions, geoengineering and waves of propaganda Remember, it really is all about depopulation The World Economic Forum warned us several years ago that its ultimate goal was to destroy the middle class. How else would you explain their slogan: “You will own nothing and learn to like it“? This mantra is playing out in real time in the state of Oregon, and other states, in various forms which we will get into in this article. Small farmers are under attack in the Beaver State, which has begun shutting down family farms...

An 82-year-old woman is demanding access to a local YMCA-operated pool after being banned from the facility for speaking out against a man using the women’s locker room, according to a letter obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire. Julie Jaman, represented by the Center for American Liberty, wants an apology from the city of Port Townsend and the YMCA after she was banned from the Mountain View Pool in July 2022 when she voiced her concerns. Jaman said that the city and the YMCA violated her First Amendment rights and her right to due process and that she might sue...

Former NBA player and Hall of Fame member John Stockton has taken Washington state officials to court over COVID-19 policies that threatened to penalize doctors who went against "the mainstream Covid narrative." Stockton is joined in the lawsuit by doctors who faced sanctions from the state and names Washington Medical Commission Executive Director Kyle S. Karinen and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson as defendants. Stockton's lawyers include Rick Jaffe, Todd S. Richardson, and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "The purpose of this lawsuit is to protect the right of physicians to speak, and the right of the public to...

Well, everything is racist according to the left, so really, are you surprised? The Washington Supreme Court issued two orders on Monday endorsing "alternative pathways" for individuals to pursue a legal career, effectively eliminating the requirement of passing the bar exam. Justifying its decision, the court claimed that the traditional bar exam “blocks marginalized groups from entering the practice of law” and even went so far as to accuse the bar exam of having “racism and classism written into the test itself.” The Post Millennial:The Bar Licensure Task Force, chaired by Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis and Seattle University...

Five competitive cyclists – women in their 50s and 60s – met at the Tokul Creek trail north of Snoqualmie. At the yellow gate before riding into the deep forest, the women took a group selfie. They had no premonition that 19 miles in, a young male cougar would attack one of them, and that they’d spend 45 minutes in a battle for their lives. The first cougar, presumably the mother or a sibling, ran off. But the younger one paused … and then lunged at Keri Bergere, 60, who was biking a few paces ahead of him. “Looking to...

The bar exam will no longer be required to become a lawyer in Washington, the state Supreme Court ruled in a pair of orders Friday. The court approved alternative ways to show competency and earn a law license after appointing a task force to examine the issue in 2020. The Bar Licensure Task Force found that the traditional exam “disproportionally and unnecessarily blocks” marginalized groups from becoming practicing attorneys and is “at best minimally effective” for ensuring competency, according to a news release from the Washington Administrative Office of the Courts. Washington is the second state to not require the...

In 2022, Seattle's City Council passed an ordinance mandating a minimum earnings floor for app-based food delivery drivers in the city. The law finally went into effect in January 2024, but so far the main result has been customers deleting their delivery apps en masse, food orders plummeting, and driver pay cratering. The ordinance, part of a legislative package called "PayUp," was passed under the banner of protecting gig workers. By setting a compensation floor for app-based delivery drivers based on miles driven and amount of time worked, the ordinance operates as a (supremely complicated) minimum wage. The wage floor...

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — A Mexican drug trafficker faces the potential of decades in federal prison after the Drug Enforcement Agency arrested him for peddling fentanyl from a homeless encampment in Bellingham. Prosecutors say Rigoberto Vasquez-Martinez, 32, had a "fortified compound" inside the encampment, which included armed security around the structure where he stayed. The city of Bellingham is in the process of trying to clear the encampment behind the Walmart on Stuart Road after years of shootings, explosions, overdoses, and drug crimes. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, Vasquez-Martinez was a significant supplier of drugs in Bellingham and...

SEATTLE (KOMO) — The leader of a fraud ring that stole more than $6.8 million in pandemic benefits from nearly every major COVID-19 pandemic assistance program was sentenced to prison. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), 29-year-old Paradise Williams personally received more than $2 million in fraudulent proceeds and spent the money on luxury cars, lavish trips, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and designer goods. The DOJ said Williams was sentenced to five years in prison for wire fraud and money laundering. “Paradise Williams was relentless in her efforts to steal pandemic benefits throughout the entire duration of our national emergency,...

John Barnett, a whistleblower who had been involved in a lawsuit against Boeing, was found dead on March 9 in South Carolina, according to local officials.The 62-year-old was found dead “from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” the Charleston County Coroner’s office told The Epoch Times in a statement.The coroner didn’t release additional details surrounding Mr. Barnett’s death, and the Charleston City Police Department is investigating.Mr. Barnett, who had worked for more than 30 years at Boeing before retiring in 2017, had become a vocal critic of the company’s safety and production quality practices. At the time of...

BBC is reporting that an ex-Boeing employee known for raising concerns about the firm's production standards has been found dead in the United States — John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017 — In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company. According to BBC, Charleston County coroner said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted gunshot wound" on 9 March and police were investigating.

Chief Patrol Agent Lloyd Easterling called the decision 'unfortunate' and 'disheartening' Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says the Biden administration's border policies have 'unilaterally destroyed' the country on 'Special Report.' The school district in Spokane, Washington voted unanimously to ban U.S. Border Patrol agents from entering schools, saying that it could be traumatizing for immigrant students. The movement to bar U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) personnel from the classrooms came after members of Latinos En Spokane, an advocacy group that supports the Latino community, said that immigrants seeing Border Patrol agents in their school could be traumatizing. "They could be...

The trial is underway for a man accused in a 2021 quadruple murder in Tacoma. Maleke Pate is charged with four counts of aggravated murder in the deaths of Raymond Williams, Natasha Brincefield, Emery Iese, and Maria Nunez. The shooting victims were identified in court documents and by the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. "Nothing, honestly, is going to bring any closure because our loved ones were taken," Lauvale Iese told KOMO News. Iese lost his wife, son and brother-in-law in the October 2021 shooting. It was an emotional day of opening remarks in a Pierce County courtroom Tuesday that...

SEATTLE — The suspect accused of hitting and killing a Washington State Patrol (WSP) trooper on I-5 in Marysville early Saturday morning is a citizen of Mexico living in the United States "unlawfully," according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The 32-year-old man, with a Lynnwood address, is being held on charges related to vehicular homicide. He "entered the U.S. at an unknown date and time, without admission or parole by an immigration officer, and was first encountered by (Enforcement and Removal Operations) Seattle Oct. 28, 2013, at the South Correctional Entity, Burien, WA, following his arrest for failure...

A city council meeting in Seattle became so unruly with far-left activists that councilmembers had to take several recesses and a handful of people wound up in handcuffs. On Tuesday, hundreds of activists, many of them wearing face masks, marched outside Seattle City Hall and flooded the chamber inside, demanding that local leaders allocate more resources toward immigrant housing rather than fund "racist" police equipment. The protestors included members of far-left groups such as Stop the Sweeps Seattle and Comunidad Sin Fronteras. "We need housing now!" they chanted in unison before one ringleader, believed to be Rosario Lopez Hernandez, rattled...

TUKWILA, Wash. — The victim of a random drive-by shooting on Interstate 5 in Tukwila suffered serious injuries after a bullet struck his spinal cord. Evan Hershey was shot multiple times on southbound Interstate 5 in Tukwila on Monday, Feb. 19. According to Washington State Patrol (WSP) Trooper Rick Johnson, the victim was driving a 2015 Ford Mustang on southbound I-5 near I-405 when they were shot around 11 p.m. "We don’t know what to say, so we will do our best to share what we can," the Hershey family said. "Evan, our son, brother, and friend, needs our help."...

JBLM Army doctor was formally arraigned on Friday in what has been described as the largest sexual assault case of its type in military history. Michael Stockin said little during the brief arraignment at the Cascade Courthouse Complex as part of an Article 120 hearing. He stands accused of sexually assaulting at least four dozen men during his time as a pain management doctor at Madigan Army Hospital at JBLM. Stockin deferred entering a plea during his first court appearance Friday, which is allowed in military court. A charging sheet obtained by KOMO News claims that Stockin abused the soldiers...