Free Republic

For an off-year election, Tuesday's contests seem to have an awful lot of consequence. We've had our eyes on several races nationwide, and it all comes down to Election Day. It feels like a long time waiting for this moment, but we're here. Of course, certain key contests are dominating the headlines. Two big races are happening in Virginia. For some reason, the latest polls show Democrat Abigail Spanberger with a lead of anywhere from seven to 15 points in her race against Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. This is happening despite abject racism against Earle-Sears and the proven success that...

The New York City mayoral race and the New Jersey’s governor’s race is one of those times when the Jewish vote actually matters and the skew of the Jewish vote looks nothing like the stereotypes. President Trump personally reached out to the Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey, urging, “I need all of my supporters in the orthodox community in Lakewood and its surrounding towns to vote in huge numbers for Jack Ciattarelli. Jack needs every single Vote in the community, including all the Yeshiva students who turned out to vote for me last year.” Conservative activists and personalities posed...

VATICAN CITY, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Jesus may have heard words of wisdom from his mother Mary, but she did not help him save the world from damnation, the Vatican said on Tuesday.In a new decree approved by Pope Leo, the Vatican's top doctrinal office instructed the world's 1.4 billion Catholics not to refer to Mary as the "co-redeemer" of the world.Jesus alone saved the world, said the new instruction, settling an internal debate that had befuddled senior Church figures for decades, and even sparked rare open disagreement among recent popes."It would not be appropriate to use the title 'co-redemptrix',"...

https://babylonbee.com/news/snap-beneficiaries-wishing-there-were-some-way-they-could-trade-their-labor-and-services-for-money-to-buy-foodU.S. — With SNAP funding temporarily blocked, beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are reportedly wishing there were some way to trade their labor and services for money to buy food."That would be really convenient," said Sarah Hartford, a divorced mother of two kids. "But I guess I'll just sit here and starve to death. There's literally no other way to make money.""If only there were some sort of social contract I could enter into where I complete certain tasks in exchange for money that I could then use to buy food," noted Antoine Davis, a 43-year-old bachelor. "If...

A little more than a week from today, the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) in Benin City, Nigeria, will open its MOWAA Institute, the first building to be finished of a planned 15-acre campus that will also include a contemporary art exhibition space (the Rainforest gallery), among other facilities. The complex is expected to be completed in 2028. In advance of the opening, Antiquity magazine has published an updated report on pre-construction archeological investigations conducted at the Institute’s building site and that of the Rainforest gallery. Running from 2022 to 2024, the MOWAA Archeological Project was a collaboration among...

British anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson was cleared on Tuesday of committing an offence under counterterrorism laws by refusing to give police his phone PIN, thanking billionaire Elon Musk who he said funded his defence. Robinson, 42, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has become a flag-bearer for some British nationalists and one of Britain's most high-profile anti-migration campaigners. Robinson, 42, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has become a flag-bearer for some British nationalists and one of Britain's most high-profile anti-migration campaigners. He was stopped by police in July 2024 as he drove through border security at the Channel Tunnel...

Thread on the ( mostly all) Blue State Elections

Reports are this is a UPS plane that caught fire upon takeoff that then crashed at the end of the runway.

https://babylonbee.com/news/new-yorks-elderly-jews-torn-between-man-who-would-kill-them-for-being-jewish-and-man-who-would-kill-them-for-being-elderly NEW YORK CITY, NY — The elderly Jewish community is reportedly at a crossroads this Election Day, torn between a man who would kill them for being Jewish and a man who would kill them for being elderly. "Mamdani wants me dead for being Jewish," said Estelle Goldberg, a rabbi's wife. "But Cuomo would shove me in a nursing home infected with COVID and refuse to admit me to the hospital." "It's a tough choice." According to sources, the elderly Jewish community is very concerned about the results of this mayoral election, but doesn't see a way out of...

What's really happening with AI and Amazon's layoffs? The common story is that automation killed 30,000 jobs -- but the reality is more complicated. In this video, I share the inside scoop on what's actually driving these cuts and what it reveals about the AI economy: Why Amazon's profits depend on AWS, not retail operations How surging GPU demand is reshaping corporate AI strategy What Wall Street misunderstands about "AI automation" narratives Where media coverage keeps missing the real AI growth signal For operators and teams, the takeaway is clear: AI isn't replacing labor yet -- it's reallocating capital, and...

More than a year after the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding local rules banning homeless camps on public property, Grants Pass is still a mess. The southeast Oregon city is also Exhibit A of what Christopher Rufo calls the homelessness industrial complex. Grants Pass won. In 2024, the Supreme Court struck down lower court decisions and held that laws regulating camping on public land do not violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling was a win for local control. The win was short-lived. Homeless “advocates” in late January filed a lawsuit claiming the southwest Oregon city...

The historic Torre dei Conti in Rome, Italy, partially collapsed twice on Monday during renovations, trapping at least one worker in the rubble and critically injuring another. These videos show the moment of the second collapse and its aftermath. Medieval building partially collapses in Rome | 8:53 CBS News | 6.82M subscribers | 46,740 views | November 3, 2025

Business owners across New York City are well-documented in their opposition to Democratic Socialist mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s likely win on Tuesday night, and it’s time to add Dave Portnoy to that list. The Barstool Sports owner voiced his extreme opposition to Mamdani’s potential tenure as New York City mayor in a YouTube stream on Oct. 25, revealing that he has had conversations with Barstool’s financial leaders about moving the company to neighboring New Jersey. “Honestly, I’ve given that a lot of thought — he’s definitely going to win — going to Hoboken or Jersey City or something,” Portnoy said....

Explosion and resulting fire, possibly the result of a crash involving a cargo plane with UPS Airlines, near Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky

We don’t blame them: Pull into any parking lot and it’s a sea of grayscale SUVs with the same sweeping LED eyebrows and bloated body lines.By any measure, modern cars are starting to look a little too much alike. A Honda CR-V looks like a Hyundai Tucson. A BMW X5 looks like an Alfa Romeo SUV. Maybe that’s why the next wave of car enthusiasts, Gen Z, is quietly falling for the classics instead. According to Hagerty’s 2024 “Future of Driving” survey, 60% of Gen Z respondents said they’re interested in owning a classic car. That’s nearly double the rate...

Williamsport, Pa., is known as the place 12-year-olds make their sports dreams come true at the Little League World Series. This fall, it is also serving the same purpose for a 58-year-old man. Tom Cillo, a Williamsport, Pa., native, is playing defensive line for local Division III Lycoming College and is the oldest active player on a college football roster. Cillo has long been a fixture in the community, and in his late 50s, he decided to finally chase a lifelong dream of playing college football. The Sporting News spoke with Cillo, along with his coaches and friends, to learn...

In recent weeks, automakers and other companies in the vehicle space are pulling back their investments in electric vehicles (EVs), including laying off workers in multiple states.The moves come in the wake of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which repealed incentives for consumers to buy electric cars.GM in particular is set to lay off 1,200 workers from its Detroit plant and another 550 from its Ultium Cells plant in Ohio. Meanwhile, another 850 are being temporarily laid off from the Ohio Ultium Cells plant and another 710 being temporarily let go from an Ultium factory in Tennessee. While those...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican rejects Marian titles ‘Co-Redemptrix’ and ‘Mediatrix’ in new doctrinal noteMater Populi Fidelis, approved by Pope Leo XIV, rules the expressions inappropriate and theologically 'unhelpful.'The Vatican has declared the Marian title “Co-Redemptrix” to be both inappropriate and theologically “unhelpful.” The statements came in a doctrinal note titled Mater Populi Fidelis (“Mother of the Faithful People of God”), issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) on November 4 and signed by its prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández. The document was approved by Pope Leo XIV on October 7.“When an expression requires many, repeated explanations to...

The American interest is best served by finding and backing African statesmen. That won’t be easy.Let me be blunt: since the Wehrmacht’s surrender in Tunisia in 1943, the African continent has offered the United States almost nothing of major consequence to its national interest. Our engagement since has been a costly, sentimental fog of humanitarian gestures and posturing, achieving little while ignoring the realities of power. Washington’s central failure is its refusal to see the continent as it is. There are two successful models for order that have worked over large portions of Africa. The first is the default of...

As we continue to endure a Democrat-induced government shutdown, the investigation into the fishing expedition launched by Special Counsel Jack Smith remains ongoing. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has uncovered disturbing details about how this probe, one of many, into Donald Trump and the 2020 election turned into a wholesale surveillance operation into the Republican Party and the conservative movement writ large. Look up ‘mission creep,’ and this operation, Arctic Frost, should be in the appendix. Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed today that President Trump’s government phone was handed over to Smith by the Biden administration:🚨During the Arctic Frost Investigation, we...