Free Republic

The CEO of California’s high-speed rail authority resigned late Wednesday, saying he needs to focus on “important personal and family priorities,” according to a copy of the emailed resignation obtained by CalMatters. “This has not been an easy decision, as leading the Authority has been one of the most meaningful and rewarding chapters of my professional life,” wrote Chief Executive Ian Choudri. He will be replaced by Joe Stephenshaw, who has led the state Department of Finance since July 2022 after working as a policy analyst in the state Legislature for more than a decade, the board announced Thursday morning...

An investigation has revealed that California awarded $18.2 million in state childcare grants to a nonprofit that claimed to have over 40 locations but actually operates only one facility. An investigation by The Center Square revealed that the William Law Foundation secured the massive award through the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) General Child Care and Development Program grants. The allocation was intended to fund care for more than 1,000 children across 10 counties but the nonprofit has only its Bakersfield facility which provides care for no more than six children. Executive Director William Edwards told the Center Square...

Nine suspects allegedly tied to the Sinaloa Cartel were arrested in San Bernardino following a yearlong investigation into organized train cargo thefts targeting Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) trains, authorities announced Wednesday. During the investigation, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department identified numerous suspects and vehicles allegedly used to steal cargo from trains, resulting in millions of dollars in stolen property, according to authorities.

Hundreds of ballots were found piled in an open hallway at a Skid Row homeless shelter where more than 1,100 voters are registered, a California Post investigation found. The ballots were spotted at The Midnight Mission, a downtown LA homeless shelter offering meals and mail services, where 1,160 voters are registered. The Post authenticated a photo of the ballots and independently confirmed the scene during a visit to the shelter on October 13. The discovery comes four months after the California Post exposed 7,600 voter registrations linked to homeless shelters and service providers across Los Angeles, including facilities that don’t...

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles. The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support. Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote. The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a...

Gavin Newsom has confirmed, on undercover footage, where he believes the Democratic Party is headed, and his answer is worse than you think. According to footage from Townhall, an undercover reporter, pretending to be a young voter, asked how the party plans to move forward. She claimed the younger generation does not want the left to put another Kamala Harris at the forefront. Rather, they want the DSA, and they want it now. UNDERCOVER: GAVIN NEWSOM SAYS THE DSA IS "GOING TO BE DOMINANT" AND "MAINSTREAM" IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! "The DSA, the energy and the desire and demand for...

Washington — A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed the Justice Department's effort to force California election officials to set aside thousands of ballots that the Trump administration claims may have been cast by alleged noncitizens. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said in a 2-1 decision that it lacked jurisdiction over the appeal and granted a motion by the top elections official from Los Angeles County to dismiss the effort. The federal government, Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez said, failed to allow a federal district court "adequate opportunity" to consider its request for temporary relief....

Hundreds of ballots were found piled in an open hallway at a Skid Row homeless shelter where more than 1,100 voters are registered, a California Post investigation found. The ballots were spotted at The Midnight Mission, a downtown LA homeless shelter offering meals and mail services, where 1,160 voters are registered. The Post authenticated a photo of the ballots and independently confirmed the scene during a visit to the shelter on October 13. The discovery comes four months after the California Post exposed 7,600 voter registrations linked to homeless shelters and service providers across Los Angeles, including facilities that don’t...

The Justice Department asked an appeals court Thursday to intervene in its lawsuit seeking to temporarily block California from counting more than 20,000 mail-in ballots from voters the Trump administration says are likely not U.S. citizens. The Justice Department asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to get involved before a lower-court judge ruled in the dispute. Justice Department lawyers said the unusual maneuver was necessary because the judge assigned to the case, U.S. District Judge David Carter, had not made a decision by Thursday afternoon, as the department had requested. Carter scheduled a hearing for next week to...

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday said he told his administration to file its lawsuit to block certification of the U.S. Senate race in Alaska if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, kicking off what many fear could become a lengthy battle between the government and states over certifying an election where the president’s party is struggling. “I’m the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters as he landed for a campaign rally in Florida. The lawsuit, filed late Thursday by the Department of Justice, centers on one of the president’s long-standing complaints in the Senate race — the presence...

Residents and city officials in Azusa are frustrated over a reported uptick in crime due to passengers being forced off Metro trains at their city’s station at the end of the night. The Metro A Line continues beyond Azusa to the end of the line in Pomona, leaving residents questioning why passengers are being moved off beforehand and why trains are stopping there overnight. “We have seen an influx of homeless people being kicked off the train at a certain time and then they’re just roaming into the community, which is terrorizing our neighbors,” Lujan said residents have dealt with...

In Torrance, California, a large and influential suburb of Los Angeles, the No Kings protests have shown up with frequent vengeance. From June 14, 2025, to the current election season, registered Democrats, wokesters, progressive leftists, democratic socialists, the full-blown socialists, and the racialist ethno-nationalists have shown up in large numbers to tell the world how much they hate Trump. They love setting up along the main thoroughfare of the city, standing in front of Torrance City Hall, holding up their banners, calling the president all kinds of evil. Speakers from the main liberal, left-wing, progressive, Berniecrat (you get the idea)...

Spencer Pratt lost his home in the Palisades Fire. Then he ran for mayor on one message: Karen Bass failed the Palisades. More than 200,000 voters believed him. Now the mayor’s political life is in their hands. Pratt didn’t mince words. He accused city leaders of “criminal negligence.” He said they “let us burn.” On the debate stage he called Bass “an incredible liar,” and afterward he described standing next to her as being near “a real life monster.” SNIP The new California Post survey, conducted Oct. 15-18 by McLaughlin & Associates among 400 likely voters, has the headline numbers...

A new study says Prop. 40 could lose revenue for the state. The history of wealth taxes is that they raise much less revenue than hoped as targeted taxpayers find ways to avoid them. That looks to be the case with California’s wealth tax ballot measure (Proposition 40), which a new paper by the Hoover Institution’s Joshua Rauh and Benjamin Jaros estimates will result in a net revenue loss of $38.9 billion.The SEIU United Healthcare Workers West and its friends are selling Prop. 40 as a “one-time” 5% tax on the wealth of residents with more than $1 billion in...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg intends to maintain control over the company he founded in 2004, and a new class of stock will help him do just that. On Wednesday as Meta released third-quarter earnings results, the company announced that it would issue a new share class of Class C stock. The share class, which is technically a one-for-one stock dividend of new Class C shares, will be distributed to all shareholders. It was conceived following months of extensive negotiations that grew contentious at times between Zuckerberg and board members, including DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Ambassador Robert Kimmitt, and ex–Microsoft executive...

A San Jose man made a tearful apology in court Wednesday morning moments before a judge sentenced him to prison for murdering his mother. Bradley “Brad” Dexter, 43, was sentenced by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge David Cena to a prison term of 25 years-to-life. Kathleen Dexter, 73, was found deceased inside her bedroom on June 6, 2023. During a police interrogation, her son admitted to intentionally poisoning his mother’s cups of oat milk and wine with a deadly amount of fentanyl, according to court documents. The victim’s son pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and he did not stand...

Not one lawmaker could answer ‘how does a state government provide a document to drive legally, if the person came here illegally?’ California’s long-term shift from a competitive or Republican-leaning state to a Democratic stronghold has been driven primarily by demographic change through immigration. In 2018, more than one million illegal immigrants received driver’s licenses from the California DMV, which automatically registered them to vote under the new “Motor Voter” program. Alex Padilla was California Secretary of State. Back in 2015, Padilla told the Los Angeles Times, “At the latest, for the 2018 election cycle, I expect millions of new...

Watch to learn why the project is years late and billions over budget California’s high-speed rail project promised to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco with trains traveling up to 220 mph. Eighteen years after voters approved Proposition 1A, the ambitious transportation project lacks any finished track and faces an uncertain future. Costs are now projected to reach $126 billion with land acquisition and regulatory hurdles still putting America’s largest active infrastructure endeavor in jeopardy. In this video, WSJ travels to construction sites, analyzes satellite images and reviews legal filings to explain what comes next for the multibillion-dollar project.

Feds busted Los Angeles medical fraudsters accused of stealing $2 billion Thursday, cuffing white-collar thieves for unneeded surgeries, hunting the homeless for rehabs and billing the government for phony hospice care. Department of Justice officials charged 15 defendants in all, including medical professionals, for making fraudulent claims to government and private health care programs – including $1.6 billion sham rehab case, the largest of its type ever. Federal SWAT teams sought their suspects in a series of predawn raids, targeting high-class criminals such as Dr. Hany Malek, 61, an allegedly armed-and-dangerous chiropractor accused of keeping an arsenal in his $2...

Federal authorities this week teased a “separate batch” of 17,000 potential noncitizen voters in their federal court challenge to California’s handling of alleged voter fraud.In response, Los Angeles County officials questioned the accuracy of the government’s earlier list of 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters — saying a preliminary review of a subset of those voters found evidence that nearly 40% were born in the U.S.The claims came in filings shedding new light on the unprecedented Homeland Security inquiry into California’s voter rolls just weeks before the Nov. 3 election.On Monday, Nicolas Bartell, a Homeland Security official, wrote in a sworn affidavit...