Free Republic

New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Commissioner Mike Flynn today unveiled design concepts to put the ‘park’ back in Park Avenue... The proposed redesign would expand the avenue’s median, add pedestrian enhancements, seating and landscaping, and explore potential bike lanes and innovative streetscape amenities. The project area sits directly above the Grand Central Terminal train shed, which is undergoing a major capital rehabilitation by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s Metro-North Railroad. As the MTA replaces and waterproofs the structure below, the City is advancing a parallel effort to transform the...

Gavin Newsom has announced that the state of California will be paying out $20 million to the company Baby2Baby in order to provide families free diapers. However, the one issue that critics have pointed out is that the co-CEO of the company, Norah Weinstein, sits on the board of Newsom's wife's California Partners Project. Newsom made the announcement for the diapers ahead of Mother's Day, this upcoming Sunday. "California is taking on the cost of raising a family head-on — delivering free school meals, making preschool free for every four-year-old, expanding after-school programs, and now making sure parents leave the...

Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced her endorsement of Karen Bass in her re-election campaign for Mayor of Los Angeles in a statement released on Monday. “Mayor Karen Bass is the leader Los Angeles needs right now,” Harris said. “She has done what so many said couldn’t be done — the first ever two-year decline in homelessness, reducing crime to levels this city hasn’t seen since the 1960s, and refusing to back down when the federal government came after our neighbors. She has my full support for re-election.”

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom did his best to insult several Southern states in a social media post Thursday. “Confederate states are rushing through rigged maps to erase Black districts off the map,” Newsom wrote above a map demonstrating the possible effects of redistricting in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina. It is strange we should have “black districts” in the first place. Newsom makes no acknowledgement of this. “If this doesn’t make you angry, it should,” Newsom continued. (An aside: Why wouldn’t a dispassionate analysis suffice? I find the constant encouragement to anger, or joy,...

A California county discovered nearly 600 uncounted and sealed mail-in ballots Monday that had been cast in the November special election regarding the state’s redistricting. Staff at the Humboldt County Office of Elections discovered the ballots inside a locked ballot drop box nearly five months after the election was certified, according to a statement from the department released Wednesday. Immediately following the discovery, staff determined that the locked box had not been tampered with and worked with the California Secretary of State to ensure proper protocol was followed, the statement said. Although both departments said the 596 ballots will not...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) presents itself as an innocuous Muslim civil rights group—a reputation it reinforces with litigation and claims of anti-Muslim bigotry. But the group finds itself under increasing scrutiny for alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas. Last November, Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated CAIR a terrorist organization. The following month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis followed suit, citing CAIR’s being listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism financing case. But as other states move to sideline CAIR, California is embracing this alleged terror front. CAIR-CA, the organization’s largest statewide affiliate, is...

FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) — Californians are facing growing uncertainty at the pump after the state’s last major oil shipment from the Strait of Hormuz arrived in Long Beach on Monday, as leaders warn the state has roughly four to six weeks of fuel supply left under normal conditions.The shipment was the last to leave the Strait of Hormuz since Iran closed it in February, forcing state officials and refinery operators to find new sources of crude while also trying to keep up with converting it into gasoline to meet consumer demand.

As the race for Los Angeles mayor heats up, one progressive voter has seen enough of Democrat failure and is switching teams for at least this election. Being trapped by zombies can do that to you. She tells the all too familiar modern story of the dangers of walking the streets in the City of Angels — you might just find yourself staring straight at some scary-looking street dwellers, and there’s nobody around to help. Now, if you happen to be heavily pregnant and looking after your toddler daughter, it’s even more frightening. Her name is Kyrstin Munson, and she’s...

Airlines for America President Chris Sununu said the collapse of Spirit Airlines underscores the consequences of the Biden administration’s decision to block a proposed merger with JetBlue, calling the failed deal a missed opportunity to stabilize the struggling carrier.

California health officials are scrambling after tuberculosis exposures were confirmed at multiple schools as cases of the world’s deadliest infectious disease continue climbing across the state. Fresno County officials confirmed a cluster at Justin Garza High School, where one active infection was found, though authorities did not specify whether the case involved a student or staff, according to ABC30. Officials emphasized no one on campus is currently contagious, but 22 out of 169 people exposed have tested positive for the infection, though they show no symptoms yet. Health officials are teaming up with the school for contact tracing and testing,...

McDonnell told the council the LAPD is facing a massive funding problem for the 2028 Olympic Games. He warns that without specific city funding, the department will be stretched past its limits to protect both visitors and locals. “The $1 billion budget is for all agencies involved in the Olympics, not just the LAPD, and will be restricted primarily to police officer overtime,” McDonnell said. “LA28 confirmed that they have zero police or public safety budget. And while they do have a security budget, it doesn’t cover law enforcement.” LA28 told KTLA it’s grateful for the $1 billion from Congress,...

California’s soaring cost for its dragged-out high-speed rail construction was inflated by another recent political embarrassment for the state: labor icon Cesar Chavez.

Calls are growing for California’s high-speed rail to be abandoned completely after revelations the estimated cost of completing Gavin Newsom’s fantasy train project has ballooned to a staggering $231 billion. The latest cost revisions for the project — revealed during a Senate Transportation Committee meeting — left lawmakers fuming after the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office flagged numerous concerns. State Sen. Tony Strickland, vice chair of the STC, said the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan continues to obscure true costs — and now he’s calling for the entire project to be scrapped.

California’s High-Speed Rail boondoggle is now estimated to cost taxpayers $231 billion, up from its original $33.5 billion price tag in 2008 when voters passed Proposition 1A. “Our country has never seen a fiscal disaster of this magnitude,” California Rep. Kevin Kiley said on X Monday. Voters were deceived by the original ballot summary and language in Proposition 1A from 2008, but the state’s lawmakers seem to find that fact inconvenient. And, the entire project is lacking in private, public and debt funding to complete even the most minor operating segment – nearly 20 years later. “If it is built,...

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif. - A former youth soccer coach in Los Angeles County is facing trial for the 2025 murder of a 13-year-old boy and a string of alleged sexual assaults involving two other teenagers.

Riddle of the day: When is deed theft not actually deed theft? Answer: When state Attorney General Tish James tries to have it both ways. That’s what happened Friday when the AG was asked about fellow lefty Brooklyn Councilman Chi Ossé’s arrest. Ossé was cuffed Wednesday as he tried to prevent an eviction he claimed stemmed from “deed theft.” At the time, James’ office issued a statement denying the case involved any such thing. It said the matter involved a property dispute between heirs and relatives of the home’s former co-owners. Yet on Friday, James sang a different tune. “Technically...

California has licensed at least 17,000 Commercial Drivers' Licenses to illegal aliens, and was forced to revoke them at the risk of losing their federal funding for transportation. The current candidates for governor in California think that's racist, as is requiring truck drivers to speak English and be able to read and understand road signs. Welcome to California, where people live in tents on the sidewalk, poop in the street, rot from drug abuse, and are used as an excuse to fund a multi-billion-dollar NGO complex that can't tell the government where all that money went. MODERATOR: “Should language proficiency...

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a press release announcing an investigation into gender self-identification policies in women’s prisons. The decision comes against the backdrop of mounting allegations of “rape, voyeurism, and a pervasive climate of sexual intimidation” in states where male inmates are housed according to their self-declared “gender identity.” Under the authority of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), the Justice Department will determine whether facilities in California and Maine have exposed incarcerated women to “unconstitutional risks of harm from male inmates.”Massachusetts should be the next jurisdiction on the list. Just west of Boston,...

Two years and two weeks have passed since Gov. Gavin Newsom issued his first return-to-office order, which directed state employees to begin working from government offices two days a week. Newsom upped the in-office requirement to four days last year, but subsequently postponed that mandate after facing steep push-back from state employees and labor groups. In the intervening time, unions have filed lawsuits, lawmakers have introduced legislation and state workers have continued rallying, all to push back against the governor’s mandate.

Authorities in Louisiana are searching for answers after a man shot and killed eight children, including seven of his own, and critically wounded two women, including his wife, in Shreveport, La., early Sunday, in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in more than two years. “I just don’t know what to say, my heart is just taken aback,” Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said at a news conference. “I cannot begin to imagine how such an event could occur.” The gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, was killed during a police pursuit after hijacking a car, according to police.