Free Republic

Jan. 12 (UPI) — U.S. wholesale prices declined to end 2023 but was up overall for the year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday. The Producer Price Index measure of wholesale inflation, seasonally adjusted, declined 0.1% for December and rose 1% for all of 2023 compared to 6.4% wholesale inflation for 2022. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the decline for December was driven by a 0.4% fall in goods prices. The unadjusted index for final demand goods fell 0.4% in December, the third consecutive decline, according to the BLS.

For the first time ever, migrant encounters along the southern border exceeded 300,000 in a single month, according to a report citing unofficial CBP sources. The report states December was the highest month in history for migrant encounters along the southwest border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, including Border Patrol agents and CBP OFO officer, encountered 302,000 migrants along the southwest border in December, according to an official source speaking with Fox News on Tuesday. The reported encounters set a new single-month record for CBP encounters and mark the first time this number has exceeded the 300,000-migrant threshold.

Border Patrol reports indicate the Biden administration will shatter the previous record for the number of migrants apprehended who illegally enter the U.S. between ports of entry in December. An unofficial Border Patrol report shows that agents apprehended approximately 232,000 migrants in the first 28 days of December. With three days to go in the month, agents could apprehend nearly 260,000 by the end of the month. Border Patrol agents nationwide apprehended approximately 232,000 migrants thus far in December, according to an unofficial Border Patrol report reviewed by Breitbart Texas. With three days to go in the month, this already...

Mayor Eric Adams is racing to raise half a million dollars for his defense fund over the next two weeks — as he gears up for legal action in connection to the FBI probe into his 2021 campaign fundraising, The Post has learned. Sources say the mayor is set on having a $500,000 reserve in place by mid-December. “The Trust has been established and it will begin formally accepting donations soon,” Adams’ campaign attorney Vito Pitta said. “We expect strong support.”

Sports betting and other games will hit Florida beginning in December at Seminole casinos, the Seminole Tribe of Florida announced Wednesday following a recent legal victory, which doubles as a delayed win for the DeSantis administration. A multibillion-dollar gambling deal between Florida and the state’s Seminole Tribe has been held up in court for over two years, but last week, the Supreme Court opened the door for it to resume over two years after the Florida legislature approved the gambling deal, which “permitted sports betting and also authorized the Tribe to add craps and roulette to its current casinos and...

Spending at retail stores fell in December by the most in a year as consumer demand cools in the face of stubbornly high inflation and rising interest rates. Retail sales, a measure of how much consumers spent on a number of everyday goods, including cars, food and gasoline, declined 1.1% in December, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by Refinitiv expected sales to fall 0.8%.

President Biden’s approval rating has reached its highest level since last December in a new poll. The Politico/Morning Consult survey, published on Wednesday, found that 46 percent of all respondents approve of the job Biden is doing as president. Eight-five percent of Democrats surveyed currently approve of the job Biden is doing, while only 10 percent of Republican respondents agree with the sentiment. Thirty-five percent of independents in the survey approve of the job Biden is doing as president.

As Russia was amassing as many as 100,000 troops along the Ukraine border in December, the White House shot down a proposal by the US military to send a “few hundred” additional special operations personnel to Ukraine to provide training on unconventional warfare over fears the move would provoke Moscow, according to a report.​ The Biden administration was hoping that a diplomatic resolution to the military standoff could be reached and was concerned that the influx of US troops in the former Soviet state would derail the effort, Politico reported on Sunday. ​​

Arguments in a case challenging the validity of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that access to abortion is a constitutional right are scheduled to take place in the nation’s highest court near the end of 2021. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Dec. 1, the court announced on Sept. 20. Justices had agreed in May to hear the case, but it hadn’t been known before when the case would be heard. Mississippi enacted a law in 2018 barring abortions after 15 weeks outside of medical emergencies or the discovery...

NEW YORK — A new analysis of blood samples from 24,000 Americans taken early last year is the latest and largest study to suggest that the new coronavirus popped up in the U.S. in December 2019 — weeks before cases were first recognized by health officials. The analysis is not definitive, and some experts remain skeptical, but federal health officials are increasingly accepting a timeline in which small numbers of COVID-19 infections may have occurred in the U.S. before the world ever became aware of a dangerous new virus erupting in China.

U.S. retail sales declined sharply in December, as holiday shoppers stayed away amid surging coronavirus infections and the aftermath of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Excluding car and gasoline sales, retail sales fell 2.1 percent in the final month of 2020, data from the Commerce Department showed Friday. The prior month’s figure was revised down to show a 1.8 percent decline from the initial estimate of 0.8 percent, which means December was a bigger decline from a lower starting point.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said Tuesday that a COVID-19 vaccine would be released “by the end of the second week of December.” During a segment on Fox News, Redfield was asked by "The Daily Briefing" host Dana Perino how government agencies would determine who received the vaccine first

In a Thursday appearance on ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci emphasized that a coronavirus vaccine will “start being implemented and deployed in December.” “GMA” host Robin Roberts asked Fauci what he has to say to people who may be “suffering through COVID fatigue.”

Orlando is closing out 2019 at about a tenth of a degree behind the hottest year on record for the city, which was 2015, according to the National Weather Service. Overall, Central Florida temperatures this year are tracking along with much of the Florida peninsula, where cities from Jacksonville to Gainesville to St. Petersburg to Miami are likely to record their hottest or second-hottest years on record. “Since 2015, we have been warmer than normal consistently,” said Derrick Weitlich, climate-program leader at the National Weather Service office in Melbourne. “The majority of sites in our area have been in the...

Rick Santorum called for immigration reform on Tuesday, saying that without newcomers from abroad the United States is going to shrink. “I think the fact that we send some of those people back and don’t give them the opportunity to participate here is wrong,” Santorum told POLITICO. (SNIP) Santorum didn’t advocate for a specific immigration policy while he spoke with POLITICO following an appearance at Books-A-Million in McLean, Va., where he signed copies of his book, “American Patriots.” Santorum, sporting his signature sweater vest, was also promoting Patriot Voices, the 501(c)4 group he launched in June to support conservative candidates.

Washington, DC — President Barack Obama held a press conference today to announce his decision which will make the month of December ‘National Muslim Appreciation Month’. “The Muslim community deserves our full acceptance and respect,” Obama told reporters. “We have disrespected these innocent and peaceful people in so many ways. We have killed millions of Muslims overseas since the September 11th attacks. They are not all bad. In fact most of them are good. So from now on, December will be a month to celebrate the Muslim people, the Sunnah and the Quran.”

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's federal Anti-Terrorist Committee said on Friday it had detained six men suspected in a bombing in the southern city of Pyatigorsk last month that killed three people and added to security fears in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. Russia is on security alert only weeks before it opens the 2014 Winter Games on February 7 in the southern Black Sea resort of Sochi, some 270 km (170 miles) west of Pyatigorsk where the car bomb went off...

‘Fast and Furious’ Linked to Immunity Deal Between U.S. and Sinaloa Cartel, Trafficking Defendant Alleges in Court PapersA Mexican drug trafficker awaiting trial in a Chicago federal court claims that the notorious Sinaloa cartel received weapons from "Operation Fast and Furious" under an alleged immunity agreement that the U.S. government made with cartel leaders, in exchange for information on rival gangs.The defendant in a trafficking case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Vicente Jesus Zambada-Niebla, also claims the immunity deal allowed the criminal cartel to "continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs" into the United...

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