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For almost a decade, transit ridership has declined across Southern California despite enormous and costly efforts by top transportation officials to entice people out of their cars and onto buses and trains. The LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the region's largest carrier, lost more than 10% of its boardings from 2006 to 2015, a decline that appears to be accelerating. Despite a $9-billion investment in new light rail and subway lines, Metro now has fewer boardings than it did three decades ago, when buses were the county's only transit option. The decline suggests that Southern California policymakers are falling short...

Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will not be attending Thursday's Republican presidential debate. However, Trump's decision may be justified in light of an invitation from Fox News and Google to three carefully selected citizens, who are all prominent personalities on YouTube. These three will be allowed to address the candidates directly at the debate. Two of them appear to have been chosen by Fox and Google because of their ethnicity and religion. The first, Mark Watson, does not seem to have a dog in the fight against Trump. The second individual, Dulce Candy, is an immigrant from Mexico, a...

South Sudan's civil war began on the night of December 15, 2013, when a firefight erupted between soldiers serving in the presidential garrison in the capital city, Juba. "Between" is an important word. The battle pitted soldiers from the Dinka tribe (largest in South Sudan) against soldiers in the Nuer tribe (second largest). The government, led by president Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and the rebels, led by Riek Machar, a Nuer, agreed to their first ceasefire on December 31. Fire and combat, however, never ceased. Instead, it spread. Every ceasefire and peace declaration since has failed to hold. Poor communication...

A school bus driver caught on video striking a teenage student in the head several times was arrested Friday and booked with simple battery, the Kenner Police Department announced Saturday night (Jan. 23). According to a news release, police received several calls at 7:15 a.m. Friday about a school bus fight in the 1200 block of Veterans Boulevard in Kenner. The driver, identified by authorities as Michelle Bratton, told police the male student refused to sit in his assigned bus seat, so she approached him and told him to leave the bus, which led to an argument between them. Bratton,...

Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. From that time...

Michael Savage announced on his radio show today that he will begin raising money for the legal defense of the militia occupiers who are occupying the Malheur Wildlife Preserve in Oregon and protesting the wholesale land grab in that area by the feds.

Belgium has called for vast refugee camps holding up to 300,000 refugees to be built in Greece in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of migrants from Syria and other nations outside Europe. At an emergency summit of European leaders yesterday, Belgian migration minister Theo Francken raised the spectre of setting up 'closed facilities' in Greece to be operated by the EU. He said that the Greeks 'now need to bear the consequences' of being too weak to guard their own borders and called for Athens to face an EU 'sanction mechanism' under which the rising number of refugees...

Wednesday afternoon, Ammon Bundy and six other leaders of the group that has occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns since Jan. 2 will appear in U.S. District Court in Portland, the U.S. Marshal's Service said. Deschutes County Major Crimes Team is investigating the officer-involved fatal shooting of Robert "LaVoy" Finicum. 1:30 p.m. (PST): The courtroom is full, including the jury box, a U.S. Marshal said. About 20 still in the line won't make it inside.

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny Welcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

Passport-free travel and hassle-free business in Europe has never been in more danger. With more than 1 million people streaming into the European Union hoping for sanctuary or jobs, nations have erected fences, deployed troops and tightened border controls. “What we have worked for, for so many years, we are seeing it crumbling now in front of us,” Roberta Metsola, a leading EU lawmaker on migration, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. As draconian as they might seem, most attempts to stem the migrant flow have been within the letter, if not the spirit, of the rules governing the European...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: To Mike, who's driving around in a truck. He's from Sikeston, Missouri. It's 30 miles south of where I grew up in Cape Girardeau, and you wanted to talk about Cruz. Obviously you're a big Cruz supporter. You've got a very positive attitude about Cruz and his intellect and his ability to take the heat. Where were you going with that? CALLER: Well, my question is, obviously as Cruz is rising in the polls, Donald is taking him on more and seeing him as an enemy, wanted to combat him rightly so as any candidate would do....

Hoarse and on the verge of losing his voice, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Wednesday mocked Donald Trump's plans to skip a Thursday night debate here, saying it proves again that he's unfit to be the party's nominee. "He thinks he's not being treated fairly. Really? Donald Trump's not being treated fairly by the press? He consumes all the press! He's a Stradivarius violinist from the Vienna Symphony" who plays the press, Bush said in response to a voter's question.

The European Commission mishandled government bail-outs in the wake of the financial crisis, imposing harsher conditions on member states as contagion spread across the continent, the EU's Court of Auditors has found. In the first major assessment of the Commission's role in "Troika" of international creditors, the ECA said Brussels was unprepared for Europe's spiralling debt crisis as it failed to spot dangerous deficit levels in member states. The spending watchdog looked at five bail-outs from 2009 to 2011. Auditors found the Commission escalated its austerity demands as the financial crisis spread to the single currency's periphery.

As we continue to commemorate the feast of the Lord's Baptism we are going to begin posting in parts the story and reflections of one of our authors' conversion to Orthodoxy, Ryan Hunter, a student at New York University. * * * "In His unbounded love, God became what we are that He might make us what He is." --St. Irenaeus (d. 202) I am in love. The object of my affection, or rather, my devotion, is not a person per se, though it is very much alive. It has been alive for 2,000 years, persisting through seemingly insurmountable...

The veracity of China’s economic data has been increasingly questioned as the slowing pace of the country’s growth has startled the world. And a new investigation into the official who oversees the numbers is unlikely to inspire confidence. The Communist Party’s anticorruption commission announced late Tuesday that it was looking into the head of the country’s statistics agency over what it called “serious violations.” It is unclear whether the investigation into the agency’s head, Wang Baoan, who became the director of the National Bureau of Statistics of China last April, is related to his current role or to his previous...

An admitted crack dealer accused of shooting a Jefferson Parish deputy during a federal drug raid Tuesday (Jan. 26) told investigators he thought he was being robbed when he fired his gun several times at police through his bedroom door, according to court records. Jarvis Hardy, 26, was booked Wednesday (Jan. 27) on federal charges of attempted murder and attempted murder of a federal officer, related to the shooting of deputy Stephen Arnold, a federal criminal complaint says. Arnold, a federally deputized member of a local Drug Enforcement Agency Task Force, was leading the entry team into Hardy's house in...

Growing up, Bernie Sanders followed the path of many young American Jews. He went to Hebrew school, was bar mitzvahed and traveled to Israel to work on a kibbutz. But as an adult, Sanders drifted away from Jewish customs. And as his bid for the White House gains momentum, he has the chance to make history. Not just as the first Jewish president — but as one of the few modern presidents to present himself as not religious. "I am not actively involved with organized religion," Sanders said in a recent interview. Sanders said he believes in God, though not...

The head of China’s statistics bureau is being investigated for corruption, the country’s watchdog said on Tuesday. “Wang Baoan is suspected of severe disciplinary violations, he is currently under investigation,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a one-line statement on its website, using a phrase that is usually used to refer to corruption. The announcement came just hours after Wang appeared at a media briefing in Beijing on China’s economy in 2015. Last week the National Bureau of Statistics released data that showed China’s economy grew at the slowest pace in 25 years. Wang reiterated on Tuesday that...

Donald Trump faced a tough crowd last night in Iowa City, leaving the stage early after constant boos, whistles, and even tomatoes thrown by protesters. The tomatoes were thrown after the billionaire Republican front-runner called Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders a communist, according to Daily Iowan reporter Brent Griffiths.

The Ted Cruz campaign is a data-driven one, according to a National Review profile. So his top advisers point to the books and scholarly articles of political scientists as tools that have guided the campaign's thinking during its 2016 presidential run. And one of those influencers happens to be James Campbell, UB Distinguished Professor of Political Science. "I have been told by a few reporters that the Cruz campaign said my research had been very influential in devising their election strategy," says Campbell. "I was unaware of this, but it makes sense given the fact that my research on elections...