Free Republic

Independent challenger Nathan Hochman is destroying incumbent, George Soros-backed George Gascón in the race for Los Angeles County District Attorney, leading by 30 points with less than four weeks to before Election Day. A Los Angeles Times/University of California Berkeley poll of likely voters this week showed that 51% would vote for Hochman, while only 21% would choose Gascon. The percentage of undecided voters, 28%, cannot make up the gap. Gascón ousted incumbent Jackie Lacey, the first black woman to hold the job, in 2020 — thanks to the endorsements of Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Black Lives Matter...

LOS ANGELES - A group of teens robbed a 7-Eleven in Hollywood earlier this week, leaving a store employee injured. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the robbery occurred shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday at the 7-Eleven off Wilcox Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. Police said that a group of approximately eight suspects, believed to be between the ages of 16 and 20, entered the store and started grabbing and opening bags of chips. The teens were then confronted by the store clerk before they were seen on video assaulting the employee. The suspects ran from the store, with one...

It’s not your imagination: The ground beneath Southern California has been particularly unsteady as of late, with the region experiencing more moderate-sized earthquakes this year than it has in decades. What precisely is fueling the sequence of shakers is not entirely clear, and officials warn that prior seismic activity does not necessarily mean more powerful temblors are imminent. But the series of modest shakers have many wondering what is going on.“Earthquakes pop off around the state, and it’s a little bit like popcorn that they hit — sometimes they bunch up for reasons that we don’t understand,” said Susan Hough,...

Police in California say thieves surrounded Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Walker Buehler last month and stole a pricey watch off his wrist LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thieves surrounded Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Walker Buehler last month outside a horse racing track in a Los Angeles suburb and slipped an expensive watch off his wrist as he jostled through the crowd, police said Tuesday. It came weeks after another professional athlete in California was the victim of a brazen mugging. Buehler was not threatened during the theft Sept. 28 at the Santa Anita Park horse racing track in Arcadia,...

We are at the first anniversary now of one of the most grotesque episodes of ancient savagery wreaked upon the modern world: the October 7 attacks in Israel which left over 1200 innocents dead and many more wounded and/or taken hostage by the subhuman terror organization Hamas. But instead of solemn, worldwide commemoration of this ongoing nightmare, with unified sympathy and support for the Israeli victims and survivors, we are treated to the Left-wing counter-narrative of pro-Hamas, anti-Zionist protests and opinion pieces in the news media demonizing the Jewish state and drowning out the echoing cries of the Israeli dead.Over...

Prosecutors in Los Angeles are reviewing new evidence in the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez to determine whether they should be serving life sentences for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion more than 35 years ago, the city’s district attorney said Thursday. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said during a news conference that attorneys for Erik Menendez, 53, and his 56-year-old brother, Lyle Menendez, have asked a court to vacate their conviction. Gascón said there is no question the brothers committed the murders, but that his office will be reviewing new evidence and will make...

This week President Biden once again took a victory lap on crime, trumpeting preliminary FBI data on trends in 2024. “Communities across our country are safer now than when I took office,” he bragged in an official statement. Yet, with crime a central issue in this year’s election, he and the mainstream media have carefully ignored evidence that the FBI may be fudging its numbers — much like the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics massively overestimated the number of jobs created during the Biden-Harris administration Last month, new FBI data showed that reported serious violent crime (murder, rape, robbery,...

Rashee Rice's mother, Marsha Kearney, is being accused of stealing a neighbor's package that contained Chappell Roan records just hours after her son went down with an injury. The mother of the Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver was seen on a Ring doorbell camera sliding a parcel with her foot from a neighbor's door before picking it up and walking off in footage obtained by TMZ. The incident occurred last Sunday - just hours after the Chiefs defeated the Los Angeles Chargers. In the video, a woman walks by the camera wearing a 'Momma-Rice' jersey with the No. 4 on...

Climate change is exacerbating the risk of potentially dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in California — threatening to turn more of those annoying-but-harmless bites into severe illnesses, experts say. California already grapples with West Nile virus, a potentially deadly disease that was first detected in the state about two decades ago. But officials are now warning of a potential new foe: dengue, a viral infection that in the most serious cases can also lead to life-threatening complications. Until last year, all dengue cases reported in California were associated with people traveling to a country where the disease is common. But Los Angeles...

Some right-leaning voters who oppose Donald Trump are thinking of voting neither for him nor Kamala Harris. I understand how they feel. In 2016, I published an article urging Never Trump conservatives to consider casting their ballot for a third-party candidate. In the election that year, I did just that. regret writing that column. I regret casting that vote. To people like me, Trump represented a repudiation of everything that Ronald Reagan stood for. But as a conservative and former GOP staffer who had never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, I harbored reservations about Hillary Clinton. Voting for neither...

A female gang member spent less than four years incarcerated for a double murder due to Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón’s policies. She has now been charged with another killing just months after her release. In 2019, East Coast Crips member Shanice Dyer shot dead expectant father Alfredo Carrera and his rocket scientist friend Jose Flores, who had just got a job at NASA. Dyer, 22, was charged alongside two others last week with the murder of Joshua Streeter, 21, in Pomona, California. He was shot in the back at a swap meet and die.

Kevin Hart’s chain of vegan restaurants in California abruptly closed all four of its locations Tuesday, Eater Los Angeles reported. Hart House promoted a vegan lifestyle that Hart adopted in 2020 while also attempting to provide meals for under $8, according to Eater Los Angeles. Hart House CEO Andy Hooper sent the outlet a written statement confirming the closures. “The response to the product has been incredible, and we thank our committed team, our customers, and our community partners for helping make the change we all craved, and for their unwavering support of Hart House,” the statement reportedly read. Hart...

Good morning. It is Wednesday, Sept. 18. Here’s what’s happening in Opinion.Over the weekend Donald Trump was the apparent target of a second assassination attempt as he played golf at his West Palm Beach, Fla., club. Who knows what might have happened had the Secret Service not spotted the suspected gunman hanging out at the edge of the course before he could take a shot or even get a line of sight.Unsurprisingly, Trump and his allies immediately put the blame for the incident on Democrats since they will not stop talking about what might happen if a self-proclaimed wannabe dictator...

About 50 juveniles ransacked a 7-Eleven in Los Angeles on Friday night, the LAPD confirmed. The department said officers received a call around 7:25 p.m. that about 50 kids biked to the 7-Eleven located on the border of Beverly Hills at 8500 W Olympic Blvd. and stole items from the store. The underage suspects fled the scene on their bikes before officers arrived. An Instagram account named Street People of Beverly Hills posted videos that show the crowd of minors biking into the parking lot, running inside and escaping with their hands and pockets full of snacks and other items....

A bill signed into law this week by California Governor Gavin Newsom may signal the beginning of the end of a decades-long dispute between the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and the heirs of a Jewish collector over the rightful ownership of a work sold under duress during the Nazi regime. In 1939, Lilly Cassirer Neubauer was forced to sell an 1897 oil by Camille Pissarro to a Nazi art appraiser in order to flee Germany before the impending war. According to court documents, the Pissarro, titled Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain, fetched only $360 (modern USD). The...

Fugitive on run for 16 years wanted in 19 murders, inspired film 'The Departed' LOS ANGELES — James "Whitey" Bulger, a notorious Boston gangster on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list for his alleged role in 19 murders, has been captured near Los Angeles after living on the run for 16 years, authorities said Wednesday. The FBI tweeted his capture along with his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, early Wednesday morning. Santa Monica Police Sgt. Rudy Flores said the agency informed him of the arrest. Bulger, 81, was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang when he fled in January 1995 after...

First son Hunter Biden appeared cheerful and upbeat Friday as he strolled into an upscale Malibu restaurant one day after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in a Los Angeles courtroom. Hunter, flanked by Secret Service agents, was spotted grinning ear to ear as he fumbled with his cellphone while heading to Moonshadows Malibu for lunch. The restaurant boasts “award-winning ocean view dining” and invites patrons to “Indulge in a dining experience that will scintillate all your senses.” https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/hunter-biden-makes-way-moonshadows-89095792_7ea670.jpg?resize=816,1024&quality=75&strip=all Hunter, sporting a baseball cap emblazoned with Hawaii’s flag and several bracelets below his rolled-up sleeves spent about two hours inside...

California lawmakers and former top cops say Kamala Harris’s new campaign ads presenting her as ‘tough’ on drug trafficking don’t match with her record as a prosecutor – when she advocated not charging dealers until their third arrest. Harris proposed a policy in 2005 when she was San Francisco District Attorney to only prosecute drug dealers the third time they were caught selling narcotics, DailyMail.com has learned. The plan sparked a scandal and was only halted when the city’s police chief Heather Fong pushed back to prevent it. So when the Harris presidential campaign released an ad on August 7...

Hundreds of homes in the coastal Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Palos Verdes have lost power due to a slow landslide that has resulted in several houses being deemed unsafe for occupancy. NBC Los Angeles reported: Power was shut off to an additional 105 homes Monday night due to accelerating landslides in a Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood. The latest round of shutoffs occurred at 7 p.m. Monday in the Seaview area of the Los Angeles County seaside community overlooking the Pacific. On Sunday, power was shut off in 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend area. Those residents also remain under...

Six Shake Shacks are closing in Democrat-run California. The company explained the locations are “not projected to provide acceptable returns in the foreseeable future.” Five of those six California closings are in Democrat-run Los Angeles. Shake Shack is also closing one location in Ohio and two in Texas. The Post adds that this is “the first time the chain will close restaurants for purposes that were not construction-related,” according to a Shake Shack spokesperson who spoke with Restaurant Business, a trade publication that first reported on the closings. All the closings will be complete by September 25. This is what...