The world's billionaires have always been rich and powerful"but never more than now. That's particularly true in the United States, where Donald Trump was sworn in (again) as America's billionaire-in-chief in January. This time around, he's giving the billionaire class more control over the government than ever before. His right-hand man is the planet's richest person. His administration includes at least ten billionaires and billionaire spouses. And scores of billionaire execs"from Meta's Mark Zuckerberg to French luxury goods kingpin Bernard Arnault"have lined up behind Trump. The billionaire bonanza extends beyond the U.S., however. A record 3,028 people around the globe make Forbes' annual World's Billionaires list this year, 247 more than last year. It's the first time the billionaire population has crossed the 3,000 mark. Read more
An Idaho Republican has accused a GOP rival of harassment in an op-ed after he reported her farm to federal immigration authorities. In January, Ryan Spoon, vice chair of the Republican Party in Ada County, publicly called for immigration raids on State Representative Stephanie Mickelsen's farm, accusing her of employing undocumented workers. Days later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrived at Mickelsen Farms, escalating political tensions and raising concerns about the impact of immigration enforcement on Idaho's agriculture industry. "Those who speak up with concerns that challenge certain views are quickly labeled as non-conservative and targeted for harassment," Mickelsen wrote in an op-ed published in The Idaho Statesman.
A former North Dakota lawmaker was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Ray Holmberg, 81, was a Grand Forks state senator for 45 years, and received a sentence that is longer than federal sentencing guidelines. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland characterized Holmberg's conduct as "egregious and despicable" and said he didn't think the guideline sentence of more than three years was adequate. "From my perspective, this was not an isolated case and this is not a victimless crime," Hovland said. "It displays a pattern of very vile, sickening criminal behavior." Prosecutors allege Holmberg traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic 14 times between 2011 and 2021 to pay for sex with boys.
Holmberg, a Republican who held the powerful positions of Senate Appropriations Committee chair and head of Legislative Management, resigned from the Legislature in 2022.
A shooting involving a bus driver and passengers on a Miami-Dade Transit bus left two men dead early Sunday in a suburb north of Miami. "Preliminary investigation revealed the operator from the bus got into a verbal dispute and fired several rounds in the bus, striking and killing two passengers," Miami Gardens police said. The victims were airlifted to Aventura Hospital in critical condition and later pronounced dead from their wounds. In an average year, 3,038 people die and 6,358 are wounded by guns in Florida which has some of the loosest firearms laws in the US. These are wartime casualty figures. Between 7 Oct 2001 and 30 Aug 2021, the US lost a total of 2,459 military personnel in Afghanistan. The Sunshine State loses more people in one year to gun violence than the total 20 years of fighting the Taliban and HQN in Afghanistan. Read more
Musk's new mission is likely to create a lot of noise at Capitol Hill soon. A town hall attendee asked Musk whether DOGE had found any evidence of funds being transferred from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "They'll [the government] send the money overseas to one NGO [non-governmental organization], then they'll go through a bunch of them, and then I'm highly confident that a bunch of that money then comes back to the United States and lands in the pockets of the people you just mentioned," Musk replied.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday aimed at cracking down on ticket scalping and fees that drive up the costs of attending live events for consumers. The order directs the Federal Trade Commission to work with the Department of Justice to ensure that competition laws are enforced in the concert and entertainment industry " including the Better Online Ticket Sales, or BOTS, Act " and pushes state consumer protection authorities on enforcement, according to a fact sheet seen by Bloomberg News. It also seeks to "ensure price transparency at all stages of the ticket-purchase process, including the secondary ticketing market." Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be asked to ensure that ticket resellers are complying with the tax code and other laws. Read more
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has said it is "outraged" at the deaths of eight medics killed on duty in Rafah in southern Gaza. The nine-person ambulance team came under heavy fire in al-Hashashin on 23 March. Their bodies were retrieved on Sunday after access was denied for a week. One medic is still missing. Benjamin Netanyahu resumed the genocide in Gaza on 18 March after US Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) capitulated on the appalling GOP budget, ensuring US economic and military aid to Israel remained uninterrupted. The IDF has killed over 900 people, including children, with US-provided weapons and funds since re-starting the Nakba on 18 March. Read more
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing scrutiny over his handling of details of a military strike, brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions.
The Kremlin, determined to subjugate Ukraine, now seeks to oust Zelensky in favor of a more malleable leadership. But dragging out peace talks could cost it Trump's support " and with it, a brief window to strike a deal, sources tell The Moscow Times.
A North Carolina man pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement during the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. David Paul Daniel, 37, of Mint Hill, pleaded guilty to a felony offense of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers. But the 'law and order' guy pardoned him, along with the more than 1,500 other insurrectionists. Daniel is now arguing that his indictment on charges of producing and possessing child pornography is null because images were found during an investigation into his role at the riot at the Capitol.
56 YO Lexus driving Democrat "professional" apparently full of TDS and made up toxic masculinity keys a Tesla ouside his Doylestwown health club with a Swastika. Just how reckless and immature are these people? This is curable with a trip to El Salvador and it would solve it.
www.phillyburbs.com www.thegatewaypundit.com (clear surveillance photo) Read more
Automotive repossessions reportedly jumped last year to the highest level in 15 years. The last time car repossessions were at this level was in 2009, when the country was dealing with the fallout from the previous year's financial crisis, the report added. As Bloomberg notes, these numbers are another sign that Americans are having trouble staying on top of their monthly bills due to steep interest rates and higher car prices. The number of subprime borrowers who were at least 60 days late on their loans climbed to 6.56% in January, the most on record, Bloomberg added, citing Fitch Ratings. Meanwhile, purchasing a car has become more costly, with Cox data showing that the average vehicle loan rate rose by five basis points to 10.16% in February, the highest in four months, with the average monthly car payment coming to $748. Read more
America's public high schools are strange places to find displays of the alphabet. Perhaps with plummeting standardized test scores and a substantial increase in English-as-a-second-language students in sanctuary districts, high school educators feel the need to review kindergarten basics. In Fairfax County, Virginia's West Springfield High School, located just 17 miles from the White House, school administrators and teachers have decorated the history hallway this month with a special, leftist rendition of the alphabet. The display, titled "The ABCs to ME," is decorated with the school's colors: a blue background lined with an orange border. Featured in the display is a sign that reads, "A is for Abortion" with an image of a coat hanger with a positive pregnancy test. Read more
US national Faye Hall (pictured below) was released by the Taliban after having been detained in Afghanistan in Feb 2025. Hall is the fourth American released from Afghanistan since Jan 2025. Hall, two Britons, and their Afghan translator were detained earlier this year. Hall may have been detained for using a drone without authorization. In Jan 2025 Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the US. George Glezmann was freed after more than two years of detention in a deal brokered by Qatar. The US had lifted bounties on three senior Taliban figures, including the interior minister, who also heads the powerful Haqqani Network (HQN) blamed for attacks against Afghanistan's former Western-backed government. Read more
Five children have been reunited with their families and returned from Russian occupied Ukrainian territories thanks to Qatari mediation, the head of the Ukrainian President's office said. The children, aged between 11 and 16 years old, were returned from Russian-occupied Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative in coordination with the Ukrainian Ombudsman's office: www.bringkidsback.org.ua Read more
Democratic U.S. lawmakers will call on President Donald Trump's administration to restore a program that helps track thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, and to use sanctions to punish those responsible for the rights violation.
