Free Republic

Nithya Raman is projected to become Los Angeles’ next mayor after defeating incumbent Karen Bass, NBC News projects, marking a major political shift in the nation’s second-largest city. Raman, 45, is poised to become the city’s first Indian American mayor, American Bazaar reports. Born in India, she moved to the United States as a young child and attended Harvard and MIT before becoming an urban planner. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Raman campaigned on homelessness, housing affordability and changing how City Hall operates. Her candidacy surprised many. Raman had endorsed Bass for reelection before announcing her own...

So, in the spirit of calmate, some advice to Republicans after Tuesday's midterm drubbing: calm down and reassess the not-so-distant future political terrain. In 2028, Republicans will at least retain the White House. Here's why. President Donald Trump remains president and commander-in-chief for the next two years. Democrats can yell and scream — and they will. After all, they are Democrats. But they have no choice but to deal with the man many in their party routinely refer to as a "fascist." A Democrat House has no power to prosecute, no matter the upcoming hearings over alleged corruption and self-dealing...

Wall Street Apes@WallStreetApes·8hWOW 🚨 I just verified this and these election results are real. I ran the numbers through artificial intelligence:The likelihood of these election results are 0.00001%, effectively 1 in trillionsAgain, THE LIKELIHOOD OF THE MIDTERM RESULTS NOT BEING FRAUD IS “1 IN TRILLIONS”Nov 5, 2026

Dozens of Honduran migrants departed San Pedro Sula on Election Day, marking the country's third caravan since September, with participants hoping the midterm elections would create an opportunity to enter the United States, according to Latin Times. The Trump administration has maintained its hard-line immigration policies, with U.S. Embassy officials warning migrants against making the journey and threatening visa revocations for caravan organizers. "Here in Honduras, we have nothing left," 47-year-old Jimena Morazán told Latin Times. Morazán joined the caravan with five family members. The state of Honduras is a factor for migrants seeking to leave the country. The homicide...

Darializa Avila Chevalier is an Afro-Latina who converted to Islam, is one of the leaders of CUAD, a pro-terror group that declared: “Violence is the only path forward.” Democrat Darializa Avila Chevalier celebrates her victory in New York’s US House race wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, highlighting her longstanding solidarity with the Hamas terrorist group.

When the 120th Congress convenes in January 2027, Big Business could find itself in the crosshairs. Second only to administration officials, the Trump family itself and political operatives, corporate America may sit near the top of Democrats’ ambitious oversight agenda.Signs point to an exceptionally tough two years for business leaders, whom many on the left believe cowered under pressure from the president.And the implications for corporate America are consequential. Companies that cultivated cozy White House relationships, financed presidential initiatives, secured lucrative government contracts, or benefited from lax enforcement could soon find themselves in the hot seat during contentious congressional hearings.(snip)But...

My dear beloved fellow FReepers, I need to say thank you so very very much for all your intercession and prayers, and please continue to lift my beloved husband and I up before Father God. He is doing well despite medication changes, toggling with low BP issues. Today, after noticing over the last few months that I’ve been encountering increasing amounts of nausea either in waves or prolonged strong events (I have an Medtronic ENTERRA II implant), and thinking over this same amount of time “Oh, I’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me” or “maybe I’ve a stomach bug”...

Republican Jeff Dial, a former state senator, has called Democrat Sebastian Matta to concede the Maricopa County clerk of Superior Court race, both candidates tell me Matta, a 19-year-old Arizona State University student, will lead the clerk's office in the nation's fourth-largest county

After Democrats’ historic victory, why is this how Hakeem Jeffries is responding?House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries isn’t interested in seeking impeachment charges against President Donald Trump.Speaking on MS NOW’s Morning Joe Wednesday, Jeffries laid out his priorities for his party’s newfound leadership in the House of Representatives.“The American people don’t want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive,” Jeffries said. Ahead of the election results, Jeffries similarly made clear that impeaching Trump was simply not a priority. “I’ve made clear from the very beginning that our top...

The vote to ban data centers in Trenton has passed, according to unofficial election results Tuesday, Nov. 3.With 100% of precincts reporting, the measure passed by a landslide 80% to 20%.Trenton resident Barry Blankenship, who led efforts in the city to get the ban on the ballot, said seeing the results was emotional.“Everybody’s just so happy right now that a group of citizens came together, stood up for an issue — Democrats, Republicans alike,” he said. “We stood together and we beat a city.”Looking forward, he hopes the ban will keep an 18-building Amazon Web Services data center from developing...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations will shut down operations in Florida after a federal court rejected its request to reverse its designation as a terrorist group Wednesday night. The ruling came after the State of Florida designated the Muslim civil rights group as a terrorist organization under a new Florida law that gave the state the ability to pull funding from institutions. The designation took effect Thursday, forcing CAIR and CAIR-Florida to shut down operations in the state. CAIR announced Thursday plans to appeal the decision, calling the claims baseless and saying the new law violates...

Republicans lost in part because the Iran war dragged on. The vice president owns that. President Donald Trump is not apologizing for taking military action to disarm the Iranian regime. “I’m totally convinced that my decision on Iran, for the long-term good of our country and even the world, was an absolutely correct one — and it continues to be,” he told Politico on election night. So why is his vice president publicly disagreeing? “The reason we lost is the war,” JD Vance declared in a shockingly disloyal post on X, adding, “If you’d like to argue it was worth...

California high-speed rail CEO Ian Choudri resigned on Thursday, citing a need to focus on personal and family priorities, a few weeks after he was stripped of contract authority after a damning audit. Choudri’s resignation followed a rocky tenure marked by a recent Inspector General investigation into nearly $600,000 in unallowable travel expenses to “questionable locations that appear unrelated to state business,” including trips to gyms, a nightclub, an escape room, a tiki bar and a cigar lounge over a two-year period, according to an investigation released by the inspector general that oversees the agency.

The green ID book could soon be history. Ramaphosa has announced plans for a biometric population register and a new digital ID system designed to combat fraud, corruption, and weaknesses in South Africa's immigration system. But there's a catch: the rollout dates are still unclear. Will these reforms finally close the loopholes, or are they just another promise?

U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart is sounding the alarm over the potential fallout if the Lone Star State were to adopt California-style energy policies. Stewart stressed that "the absolute worst thing that could happen to the United States economy would be to have California-style energy policy implemented in Texas." During an appearance on "Big Money in the Morning," Thursday, Stewart explained how Texas adopting energy policies similar to those in California or Colorado could deal an economic blow to the state and the U.S. economy overall. "When we saw that clean sweep of Democratic elections take place...

"Time to double down." After the shellacking Capitol Hill Republicans got on Tuesday, we’re fully in President Trump’s pen and phone era. He should embrace it. He’s certainly entertaining the other possibility. When the president called in to Fox News on the night of the election, he was asked a typical Washington question: will you be able to work with the new opposition majority? Trump sounded a bipartisan note, saying that he’d be, of course, open to working with Democrats on some issues, not others – [cut] The president can obviously go down that road if he wants, but the...

About three-quarters of voters said the Iran war was a crucial factor in which candidate they supported in the 2026 midterm elections, according to an NBC exit poll. Among the 74% of voters who said the Iran war was a crucial factor, 62% voted Democrat and 35% voted Republican. ... In a CBS exit poll, most voters said the U.S. made the wrong decision to take that military action in Iran, including about a quarter of Republicans.

I am a woman in my twenties living in London, not far from Pimlico. At dinner in Wandsworth recently, over roast duck and a second bottle, a friend I have known since our all-girls schooling days explained her politics to me. She did not mention anything vaguely ideological, nor did she offer any thoughts on the big issues of the day like housing, tax, migration or the economy. She said, quite sincerely, that she just wants people to be happy. Everyone at the table nodded, and so, I confess, did I. Nobody asked what that would mean for the asylum...

Explanation: One of our Solar System's most tantalizing worlds, Enceladus is backlit by the Sun in this Cassini spacecraft image from November 1, 2009. The dramatic illumination reveals the plumes that continuously spew into space from the south pole of Saturn's 500 kilometer diameter moon. Discovered by Cassini in 2005, the icy plumes are likely connected to an ocean beneath the ice shell of Enceladus. They supply material directly to Saturn's outer, tenuous E ring and make the surface of Enceladus as reflective as snow. Across the scene, Saturn's icy rings scatter sunlight toward Cassini's cameras. Beyond the rings (lower...

Gov. Gavin Newsom will commute the death sentences of all California inmates, changing the penalty for all 548 death row inmates to life without parole.The outgoing governor announced the decision Thursday following weeks of speculation. The move comes just two months before Newsom leaves office in January.When he took office in 2019, Newsom instituted a moratorium on executions, formalizing a de facto pause that had been in place since 2006.But although that rule blocked all executions during his tenure, it still left all death sentences in place. In a letter addressed to all Californians, the governor shared his decision to...