Free Republic

Mamdani claimed that his agency would actually make government more efficient. Far-left New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the creation of a new city agency that sounds like his version of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Mamdani said Thursday that the Commission on Government Efficiency would meet with community organizers and union members in order to improve coordination with city government efforts. "This morning we are introducing COGE — the Commission on Government Efficiency," Mamdani said. "This Commission will find ways for our city to work smarter, faster, and more effectively for working people. New Yorkers deserve a...

Canada's economy posted a surprise contraction in the first quarter versus the year before, making it two straight ‌quarters of annualized decline - which some economists call a technical recession - as the country struggles with U.S. tariff uncertainty. Gross domestic product declined at an annualized rate of 0.1% in the first quarter, Statistics Canada said on Friday, compared with a downwardly revised contraction of 1% in the fourth quarter of last year. Analysts ​polled by Reuters and the Bank of Canada had predicted first-quarter growth of a robust 1.5%. On a quarterly basis, ​first-quarter GDP was unchanged against a...

🚨 BREAKING 🚨Spencer Pratt is now officially LEADING Karen Bass in the new Emerson poll.🔴 Spencer Pratt: 35% 🔵 Karen Bass: 33%The leftist meltdown will be epic if this happens. The Democrat party is imploding even in deep blue states. Original post by @TheRightMelissa on X

Tough times are happening in the Washington Nationals’ media department. According to James O’Keefe, a secret video has surfaced of Nationals Director of Community Relations, Sean Hudson, who was let go on Friday, admitting the team doesn’t use pitcher Trevor Williams in video promotions on social media due to his religious beliefs. In O’Keefe’s post on X, it features multiple transcriptions from the secret video with Hudson talking about Williams and his religious beliefs. “One of our pitchers, Trevor Williams. He’s super Christian-Catholic, all these tattoos that mean a lot,” the post reads. The post also follows up with Hudson...

Former reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt rebuffed a potential endorsement from President Donald Trump, telling NBC News on Thursday, “I don’t need anyone’s endorsement but mothers’. That’s who’s getting me elected.” Pratt, who has focused his insurgent campaign against Mayor Karen Bass on calling for better wildfire management and combating homelessness, added that he’s chosen not to comment on Trump or national politics on principle throughout his campaign. “My race is a local race. I don’t care what’s going on in the, in the national politics, in other states. I am running for a local...

In Alaska three Latvian climbers fell to their deaths... The top US general in Latin America met Cuba's military leadership... Two killed and two wounded in a Ukrainian drone... Three more killed in the latest US air attack... President Trump turning against Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina endorsing... The messaging from the White House...no 'final determination'...deal with Iran... warning of dangerous military activity tonight in the Strait of Hormuz... Bulgaria's new nationalist Prime Minister...government will limit the stays of US military aircraft... A federal judge in Miami announcing an inquiry into the... lawsuit by President Trump... judge ruling...

The FBI has reportedly arrested a man accused of threatening to kill U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Newark.🚨 BREAKING: FBI has just RAIDED and ARRESTED the man who I caught on video threatening the lives of an ICE agent and his family outside ICE Newark

We're starting to get some of the first daytime images of LC-36, giving us a much better view of the pad. For context, last night, a New Glenn rocket was conducting a static fire in preparation for its fourth mission when it exploded. Not only was the vehicle lost, but the launch pad suffered extensive damage. Now that it's day, we can see the extent to which it's damaged and what's left after the dramatic loss of the vehicle. A Closer Look At The Damage To New Glenn's Launch Pad | 8:00 TheSpaceBucket | 77.9K subscribers | 158,192 views |...

A growing number of experts are raising the alarm over billionaire Bill Gates’s extensive involvement in genetically modified mosquito projects after it emerged that the Microsoft co-founder has released hundreds of millions of bacteria-infested mosquitoes into the wild in Colombia. The revelation is drawing renewed scrutiny to Gates’s other mosquito-based biological interventions around the world, with scientists warning that the long-term consequences remain largely unknown. The concerns intensified after the government of Burkina Faso terminated the controversial Target Malaria project last year, citing biosafety risks, questionable effectiveness, and concerns over scientific sovereignty. The project had received significant funding from the...

Thousands of miles from the Persian Gulf, a sprawling network of tanker-to-tanker oil transfers off the coast of Malaysia and Singapore is helping Iran sustain its crude exports to China, even as the country navigates a tense ceasefire with the United States.Analysis of satellite imagery and maritime tracking data has identified the waters roughly 100 kilometres southeast of the Malay Peninsula as the primary hub for what analysts describe as a clandestine laundering operation for Iranian crude. Dozens of ship-to-ship transfers take place there every week, involving not only Iranian vessels but a wider cast of tankers serving the shadow...

If the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz is a game of chicken, it sounds as though the Iranians will either swerve first – or accelerate. One way or the other, though, the blockade appears to have succeeded in bringing the regime to its crisis point. As discussions around a potential deal (really a pre-deal) continue, the IRGC has begun to demand an end to the US Navy's complete siege on Iranian ports. That message has come from the top of the food chain today, including the Nepo Babytollah's supposed attaché: Mohsen Rezaei, military advisor to Mojtaba Khamenei: If the...

Democrats and liberal media seem to be constantly taking issue with anything President Donald Trump does, regardless of the merits of his actions. But they've now truly jumped the shark with their Trump Derangement Syndrome when they're objecting to Trump cleaning up fountains and monuments around Washington, D.C. Our sister site Townhall reported on some of the interesting reaction. Here's the account that used to be the Kamala Harris Headquarters account, terming things like spending on the Reflecting Pool, Trump "vanity projects." New reporting reveals the Trump admin has used $67,000,000 of National Parks entrance fees to fund Trump's vanity...

The long-held idea that language learning is better before adulthood is up for debate... Lourdes Ortega, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University...says factors beyond age, like immersion, make a bigger difference in language learning success. “Without the opportunity to be exposed to the language, there's no learning that can happen, early or late..." The FSI [Foreign Service Institute] says languages that native English speakers would find similar to their own, such as Spanish or French, can be taught relatively quickly in about 24-30 weeks. In contrast, languages that have significant cultural differences from English, like Greek or Russian, will...

Spencer Pratt is now Karen Bass’ biggest headache. A bombshell California Post poll conducted with McLaughlin & Associates shows the reality TV star-turned-mayoral candidate has surged to a statistical tie with the incumbent mayor. And voters blame homelessness, affordability and the direction of Los Angeles as the reason for turning on Bass. Pratt now leads the field with 30.1% support, compared with 29.5% for Bass, setting up a razor-thin race heading into next week’s primary. Socialist councilwoman Nithya Raman sits in third place at 23.4%.

A top Democratic governor claimed at a meeting Wednesday that her party doesn’t “need any of the men” to win the 2028 presidential election. Democrat New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham made the boast while speaking at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting in Washington, D.C., alongside other state leaders and convention chairs. The 7-hour-long meeting allowed state leaders to present their case to the committee regarding which states should be granted an “early window” status in the 2028 presidential nominating calendar. Although a staff member admitted that Democrats are “losing their share of the electorate”...

Key PointsState lawmakers passed a tax on nonprimary residences in New York City in order to help close the city's budget gap.The so-called pied-a-terre tax will be imposed on second homes valued at $1 million or more and will take effect in two different phases. Billionaire and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin became the face of the tax after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a video in front of Griffin's penthouse apartment announcing the tax.New York City's new tax on second homes will more than double property taxes owed by many wealthy luxury apartment owners, according to tax experts.State...

Matthew Petracca, a former Republican county committeeman, was the rookie federal prosecutor who brought the highly criticized case to a federal grand jury. A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump’s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case.Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing.Petracca also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina...

Organs from genetically modified pigs are being used in trials in China and the US. A 53-year-old clinically dead man has become the first person to receive two kidneys and a whole liver from a genetically modified pig. The man’s organ function was sustained for almost five days with consent from his family, and there were no signs that the organs were being rejected in the first 24 hours, according to a study published in Med today1. Most procedures in which a pig organ is transplanted into a person — known as xenotransplantation — involve only a single organ. A...

I’ve produced many maps of the 2024 election — some at state level, others at county detail — and a few that treated the results as an artificial landscape (the “Trump archipelago,” or Mars-/Moon-like views). What those maps didn’t show was how men and women, and people with and without a college degree, voted. Reddit user crazyboyhere made four maps that split the electorate by education (college / non-college) and gender (women / men).College-educated women vs. college-educated men61% of college-educated women nationwide voted for Harris, 37% for Trump….. 51% of college-educated men nationwide voted for Harris, 47% for Trump College-educated...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is planning to hold ‘massive’ World Cup watch parties in homeless drug-addict haven MacArthur Park. She claims they will be a boost for “Latino-owned businesses hit by ICE raids.” Bass revealed the plan during a podcast appearance this week, saying MacArthur Park would serve as one of more than 100 community celebration sites during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. “We’ll have a massive watch party in MacArthur Park,” Bass said while describing her vision for the tournament.