Free Republic

According to the NBC News Exit Poll of those who have voted thus far, half or fewer of Democratic primary voters today say they would be satisfied with the outcome if their favored candidate doesn't end up as the eventual nominee. Taking a look first at Hillary Clinton's voters across the five states voting today, about half say they would be satisfied if Bernie Sanders were the eventual nominee, while about as many would be dissatisfied. For their part, Sanders' voters are similarly divided about the prospect of a Clinton nomination. About half of Sanders' voters today say they would...

WILDWOOD - A city man was charged this week with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Juan Nieves-Barrios, 26, a restaurant dishwasher was charged with aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. Police said Nieves-Barrios is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. Nieves-Barrio was lodged Tuesday at the Cape May County jail on $175,000 bail set by state Superior Court Judge John C. Porto.

The AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. federation of labor unions, will launch digital attack ads targeting Republican front-runner Donald Trump next week as part of a multi-pronged effort to derail the New York billionaire's bid for the White House and dampen union workers' enthusiasm for him. Officials at the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group of 56 unions representing 12.5 million workers, told Reuters the ads will depict Trump as anti-union, and will appear on Facebook and Twitter. "Donald Trump has tapped into the very real and understandable anger of working people. But while he says he's with America's working people, when you...

From Hurricane Katrina to Superstorm Sandy, to last year's devastating heat wave in India, the question never ceases to arise: Did global warming cause this? That question has long made scientists squirm. They know the atmosphere is a complicated place. But now, says a new report from the National Academy of Sciences exploring the attribution of extreme events to climate change, scientists can be at least a little bit less conservative about this. The new report argues, careful studies can be conducted that suggest that the probability of a given event occurring was increased because of the current state of...

House Speaker Paul Ryan's political operation is sending a cease-and-desist letter on Thursday to a group that is trying to draft him as a Republican presidential candidate, urging it to halt its activities and warning of legal risk. With establishment Republicans desperately searching for a way to stop Donald Trump's march toward the party's 2016 presidential nomination, Ryan's name has been mentioned often as an alternative. But he has said he does not want to run for president this year and has disavowed the Committee to Draft Speaker Ryan group. Dividing the party, Trump has racked up primary wins and...

The dozen failed ObamaCare cooperatives have not repaid any of the $1.2 billion in federal loans they received and still owe more than $1 billion in additional liabilities, according to recent financial statements cited Thursday at a congressional hearing. "We shouldn't hold our breath on repayment," Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said in his opening statement at the hearing. "In some states, these losses will be absorbed by other insurance companies - which means, by the policyholders of other insurance companies who have to pay increased … premiums," he said. "In other states,...

TEHRAN - The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran conducted a second successive day of missile tests on Wednesday, firing two rockets that it said hit targets over 850 miles away and were capable of reaching Israel. The tests appeared clearly aimed at sending a message to the Israelis as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was visiting. Tehran says that it has a right to pursue defensive weapons systems and that, since it has given up any semblance of a nuclear program, it cannot in any event be working on a nuclear capability. Iranian commanders seemed to go out...

What will the Republican presidential candidates do in their next faceoff on Thursday, drop their pants? In the most recent GOP debate, the race to the White House hit an impressive new low when billionaire wheeler dealer Donald Trump defended his manhood by insisting there is nothing small about his private parts. "I guarantee you, there's no problem," Trump said. "I guarantee you." So, rest easy, America, one national crisis has been averted. The subject of The Donald's junk came up in response to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's taunt equating Trump's allegedly small fingers with another undersized digit. Rubio has...

This year the Ides of March brings presidential voting to Illinois - a state whose primary often falls so late that it's irrelevant to the nomination process. In 2016, though, Illinois can have impact. Our custom is to offer primary election endorsements to candidates of both major parties. But the 2016 race confronts Illinois voters with uncommon dangers, because so many candidates are playing with fire. The Tribune cannot endorse Trump. While he still holds a lead in delegates, the party is deeply divided. The Tribune today endorses Marco Rubio for the Republican presidential nomination. This being a free country,...

U.S. aircraft have begun targeting Islamic State's chemical weapons sites near Mosul in Iraq in an initial round of air strikes aimed at diminishing the militant group's ability to use mustard agent, CNN reported on Wednesday.

The Republican National Committee filed two lawsuits on Wednesday seeking to obtain emails related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's tenure as U.S. secretary of state. The RNC said it filed the lawsuits after the State Department failed to respond in a timely manner to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in December. It sought the information to ensure the public has information to decide if Clinton is "fit to serve" as president, the RNC said in a statement. The first lawsuit seeks emails, BlackBerry Messenger or text messages between then-Secretary of State Clinton and several key senior aides,...

It's now obvious that the only alternative to Trump is Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. To appreciate how extraordinary and disturbing this situation really is, we must take a historical trip back to a simpler, more innocent time, aka last year. Back then, Nate Silver's justly respected website FiveThirtyEight.com was practically certain of two things: The two candidates in the very crowded Republican presidential field who had no shot at the nomination were Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. They had no real chance, the site argued, because Trump and Cruz were each in their own way far too radical candidates...

... Here are some of our observations of exit poll results from primary states voting tonight. Two different races are shaping up in the Michigan and Mississippi Republican primaries according to preliminary exit poll results. In Mississippi, nearly all voters are evangelicals and mainline Republicans, with a high number of strong conservatives. In Michigan, by contrast, far fewer are in either of those groups, and there are notably more political independents voting.

The White House's first black first lady will depart next year. Two commentators consider Michelle Obama's legacy as she prepares to leave office. Peter Slevin, author of Michelle Obama: A Life We are not likely to see another American first lady do the hula hoop on the White House lawn, practice kickboxing on an official video, dance in public to Uptown Funk or feed kale chips to comedians dressed in drag on late-night television. Alicia Garza, co-founder, Black Lives Matter Many have observed that Michelle Obama exemplified "black girl magic". She is a Harvard-trained lawyer with the middle name LaVaughn,...

Proclaiming Hillary Clinton "the best change maker I have ever known," former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday told a crowd at an Evanston synagogue his wife was the most experienced and best-qualified candidate to serve as the nation's next commander in chief. "You might say, 'Why have they been so mean to her since she left the secretary of state's office,'" he said of Republicans. "You have to understand this is their method of operation. They're scared to have to run against her, because they know if she becomes the president, she'd be the grown-up in every room and she'll...

An American tourist was stabbed to death and at least nine other people were wounded by a Palestinian armed with a knife on a popular boardwalk in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, authorities said, while U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was in a meeting a few kilometers away. The attack took place in the popular Jaffa port area, which is a favorite spot among tourists. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said four of the wounded had severe injuries. "A terrorist, an illegal resident who came from somewhere in the Palestinian territories, came here to Jaffa and embarked on a run...

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards test-fired several ballistic missiles on Tuesday, state television said, challenging a UN resolution and drawing a threat of a diplomatic response from the United States. Two months ago, Washington imposed sanctions against businesses and individuals linked to Iran's missile program over a test of the medium-range Emad missile carried out in October 2015. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Boner said Washington would review the incident and, if it is confirmed, raise it in the U.N. Security Council and press for an "appropriate response".

Climate change could see a new risk slithering into Canada: snakes. New research has found that rising temperatures could drive several deadly species northward to new areas, bringing them across the U.S. border with Canada. By 2050, some snakes could make their way as far north as Alberta, Quebec and southern Ontario. Researchers at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute used climate models to predict the ranges of more than 75 poisonous snake species across the Americas. For this study, researchers looked at different scenarios for each of the snake species - one in which the world cut down its...

Chevy's 102 Volt sales may have led the Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in February, and bring its national total to 5,611 units. Up slightly from January's 94 sales, this was also the plug-in hybrid Volt's best-ever February in Canada, easily surpassing the 38 sold a year ago. With the refreshed Volt and a deeper field of battery-electric vehicle competitors, there's a risk the company could face its first year-over-year sales decline this year - though with only two months gone, it may be far too early to predict doom and gloom for the world's most popular electric car.

HOUSTON - Wendy Ramirez wants to be a doctor. She lives with her parents on a cul-de-sac in Houston. If a Republican wins the presidential election, she will very possibly have to go to work cleaning houses with her mother. Ramirez, 24, arrived in the U.S. from Mexico at age 8. She is a "DREAMer": one of the unauthorized immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as a child. Bypassing congressional conservatives, Obama issued a unilateral order that protected from deportation DREAMers who were in high school or had graduated. He also gave them renewable two-year work permits and the ability...