Free Republic

Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin will not seek a sixth term next year, confirming to WBEZ in an Illinois exclusive that he will leave office in 2027 in a long-awaited move certain to set off a massive, intraparty succession fight. “I’ve decided not to run for re-election. So a year and a half from now, I’ll be wrapping up. I plan on working full-time until that moment, but I’m not going to be waging a campaign for re-election,” Durbin said during an interview in downtown Chicago. A major reason for his decision boiled down to one thing: his age. By...

Elon Musk’s Tesla suffered a massive 71 percent drop in profits for the first quarter, but the company’s shares reacted positively on Wednesday morning after Musk pledged to decrease his time spent working with the federal government on DOGE, but not halt his involvement entirely. Musk also continued his criticism of Donald Trump’s tariffs on China during his earnings call with analysts. CNBC reports that Tesla, the electric vehicle giant, has reported a staggering 71 percent year-over-year plunge in net income, accompanied by a 20 percent drop in revenue from car sales, according to its latest quarterly earnings report. The...

Andrew Cuomo has picked up another key hard hat endorsement Tuesday in the race for New York City mayor, winning the backing of the Laborers’ International Union. The New York affiliate of the Laborers Union represents 40,000 members in New York State, which further cements the former governor’s support within the construction trades. The union backed Cuomo’s rival in the June Democratic primary, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer, in the 2021 mayor’s race. “New York City is the cultural, economic, and social engine of the world—and leading it requires vision, grit, and proven experience,” said Donato Bianco, Jr., LIUNA vice...

Four years of classes, thousands of dollars in tuition and one freshly minted diploma — all to be outdone by a chatbot. As artificial intelligence floods the workplace, nearly half of Gen Z job seekers say their degrees have already been made obsolete by the rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT — and they’re wondering why they even bothered hitting the books in the first place. It’s a waste of time and money, according to respondents to a new Indeed report, which found 49% of Gen Z job hunters think their college education has lost value in hoen defective...

https://californiaglobe.com/fr/california-reparations-bill-passed-in-assembly-judiciary-committee/

According to JD Vance, the border may not wind up as the exact front lines as they stand nowNEW DELHI, April 23. /TASS/. The United States has developed "a very explicit proposal" to resolve the Ukrainian conflict, and will withdraw from the negotiations, if Moscow and Kiev do not agree to the plan, Vice President JD Vance said. "It’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process," Bloomberg quoted him as telling reporters after finishing a tour of the Taj Mahal. "There’s going to have to be some territorial swaps,"...

A major meeting in London aimed at bringing about an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine has been downgraded after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would skip the summit, escalating a clash between Washington and Kyiv over the future of Russian-occupied territory.Rubio had been expected to take part in the discussions with Ukrainian, UK and European officials, but State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Tuesday that he would no longer attend due to “logistical issues.”London’s Foreign Office then confirmed on Wednesday that the meeting would take place at a lower level. “Official level talks will continue but...

Fifty-six percent of likely voters say it is “very important” to deport migrant criminals while just five percent say it is “not at all important,” according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. The April 15-17 poll also showed that Democratic voters mirror the lopsided eleven-to-one national result. Forty-three percent of Democrats say deportations are “very important”, versus eight percent who said it is “not at all important.” The remaining voters say the issue is “somewhat important” or “not very important,” and their voting decisions are not likely to be swayed by the issue.

Beijing instructed South Korea to halt rare material products such as transformers, EVs, aerospace and medical equipment.. Beijing has asked South Korean companies to cease exporting products containing Chinese-originated heavy rare earth metals to U.S. defense firms, warning that Seoul could face sanctions. China’s Ministry of Commerce sent official notices to at least two South Korean companies recently, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Tuesday, citing sources in the South Korean transformer industry. The outlet said the letters did not specify what type of penalties South Korean companies could face if the industry continues to export equipment to the U.S....

Former Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has lost her defamation suit retrial against the New York Times. The federal jury ruled after just two hours of deliberation on Tuesday that the New York Times was not guilty of libel when it falsely linked her to a 2011 mass shooting in an editorial it published in 2017. Per Axios: Throughout this trial and the original 2022 trial, the Times asserted that the inaccurate link made in the editorial was a mistake. It issued a formal correction of the piece, titled “America’s Lethal Politics,” two days after it was originally published on...

Illinois bureaucrats are here to protect your kids... from you. People can’t get out of Illinois fast enough. Only two other states lost more residents between 2023–24, and the state has actually lost population for 10 years in a row. The tax burden, weather, heavy regulation, and crime levels all contribute to its residents seeking an exit. So, taking this mass exodus into account, you’d think the state would try to appeal to the families that remain. Well, think again. The Cubs (and maybe even the White Sox) are more likely to win another World Series before Illinois considers the...

Yes, the headlines are bleak. Yes, scientists are sounding the alarm. Yes, a growing pile of studies warn that the world is “on the brink of irreversible climate disaster,” as a recent “state of the climate” report put it. It’s easy to feel like the planet is on fire — because, well, sometimes it literally is. But even amid the floods, droughts and devastating forecasts, it’s not all doom: Innovators are reimagining how we power our lives, nature is pulling off surprising comebacks, cities are cleaning their air and nations are opening their wallets. This Earth Day, take a break...

She can finally have some pride in her job! Former President Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has landed a new gig out of the White House as a grand marshal of NYC Pride Parade. Jean-Pierre, who became the first openly gay spokesperson to hold press briefings for a US president, will be among those to head the Big Apple’s famed annual parade in June, CBS reported. “It goes back to that trail-blazing career that she’s had in politics and representing the community at the highest microphone that exists,” NYC Pride spokesperson Chris Piedmont said of Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre, 50 —...

Indiana’s state treasurer repeatedly stood against big banks canceling accounts and releasing customer data of Christians and conservatives for viewpoint discrimination. A pending must-pass bill in Indiana’s Republican-run legislature would strip some of Treasurer Daniel Elliott’s powers and could give them to those same banks.... Elliott has been a key partner of a nationwide coalition of conservative financial elected officials, the State Financial Officers Foundation. As part of that coalition, he and some 25 other Republican state financial officers have fought financial discrimination against Christians and conservatives, ESG, and DEI.... In a 2024 Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) press conference, Elliott...

Here’s another example of the White House vetting crisis to further illustrate the lack of vetting in this new Trump admin, as the admin continues to be infiltrated and subverted by a KOCH COUP. Around April 11th, it was reported that William Ruger @WillRuger was selected to be the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration in the new Trump admin. Prior to joining the Trump administration, Ruger served as vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute from 2014 to 2019 and as vice president for foreign policy at Stand Together from 2019 to 2022....

Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, was convicted for the 2023 killing of his wife Sheryl, 65, in their Anaheim Hills home.. A Southern California judge was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of his wife during an argument. Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, was on trial for the 2023 killing of his wife Sheryl, 65, in their Anaheim Hills home. Ferguson took the stand in his defense and admitted to shooting his wife but claimed it was an accident. Jurors reached their decision Tuesday afternoon after deliberating since the day before. He was also found guilty...

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the deported El Salvadoran at the center of the Trump administration’s immigration battle with the courts, was stopped by police in an SUV owned by a man who was himself deported after pleading guilty to smuggling illegal aliens in 2020, according to court and Homeland Security Department intelligence documents reviewed by Just the News. These new details follow Just the News reporting last week that Abrego Garcia was flagged in 2022 by the Biden administration as a "suspect alien" who was possibly involved in “human smuggling/trafficking” after a traffic stop in Tennessee raised the suspicions of a...

During an interview with Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul on Tuesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) responded to safety concerns around allowing biological men in women’s sports in light of the Payton McNabb incident and the state’s lawsuit over the Trump administration’s push to keep biological men out of women’s sports by saying that “I’ll leave you and your viewers and other people to discuss what happened in one video.” Host Amy Hockert asked, “What do you think about people like Riley Gaines…girls and women who we’ve seen, sometimes videos are circulated of a volleyball player who has a ball...

Homelessness keeps rising, homeless taxes keep rising and the money disappears. In Los Angeles County, spring is in the air and so are higher taxes. Beyond the usual punishing ritual of April 15, county residents also now face some of the highest sales taxes in the country. Sales taxes in the area have shot up from 9.75% to as high as 11.25% to fund still more services for the ‘homeless’. The permanent sales tax increase is supposed to raise $1 billion a year to replace the stolen billions spent by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Families will pay even...

DIEGO — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s trip Tuesday to this scenic family-friendly coastal tourist destination was all business and at times quite unpleasant, considering the noxious fumes he was there to discuss. Zeldin visited this border city on Earth Day to try to put an end to a decades-long environmental catastrophe: Billions of gallons of sewage and industrial chemicals from Mexico have flowed into the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, closing local beaches and sickening U.S. Navy SEALs who train in the water on nearby beaches.