Free Republic

Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. The poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, followed both the Republican National Convention where Trump on Thursday formally accepted his party's nomination and the Biden announcement on Sunday he was leaving the race and endorsing Harris. Harris, whose campaign says she has secured the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within the 3-percentage-point margin of error. Harris and Trump were tied...

MILWAUKEE - For four nights at Donald Trump's nominating convention in Milwaukee, a roster of speakers attempted to give one of the most divisive politicians in recent U.S. history a makeover, describing him as a loving and caring family man whose near-assassination at a rally on Saturday had changed him. That new version of Trump lasted barely half an hour. Then the Trump more familiar to Americans - the bombastic thrower of insults who revels in demonizing his opponents - re-emerged, trampling over the message of unity so painstakingly choreographed by the Republican National Committee this week. In a rambling...

BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, has pulled an ad that briefly featured Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old who shot and wounded former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The company said Crooks was a student at Bethel Park High School and appeared in the 2022 ad with other unpaid teens. “In 2022, we ran an ad featuring a teacher from Bethel Park High School, in which several unpaid students briefly appeared in the background, including Thomas Matthew Crooks,” the company said in a statement to Reuters Sunday, adding that the ad has been pulled.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans fear their country is spiraling out of control following an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, with worries growing that the Nov. 5 election could spark more political violence, a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Tuesday found. The two-day poll found Republican presidential candidate Trump opening a marginal lead among registered voters - 43% to 41% - over Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, an advantage that was within the poll's 3 percentage point margin of error, suggesting the attempt on Trump's life had not sparked a major shift in voter sentiment. But 80% of voters - including...

As the desperate search for a Biden replacement continues amongst Dem insiders and anxious liberals, one possible replacement shines through the dark. In a recent Reuters/Ispos poll which surveyed 1,070 U.S. adults across the country, found that in a match-up between former first lady Michelle Obama and President Trump, Obama would win in a 50-39 margin against the former president. Obama, who has previously said she will not run for president, beat out all other Biden alternatives offered in the poll

The Kremlin said that any peace plan for Ukraine proposed by a possible future U.S. administration of Donald Trump would have to reflect the reality on the ground but that Russian President Vladimir Putin remained open to talks. Reuters reported on Tuesday that two key advisers to Trump have presented him with a plan to end the war in Ukraine -- if he wins the presidential election -- that involves telling Ukraine it will only get more U.S. weapons if it enters into peace talks. "The value of any plan lies in the nuances and in taking into account the...

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus. The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first...

The NewsGuild of New York, which represents journalists at The New York Times, Reuters and Condé Nast, has now hired an outside law firm to investigate tweets from a staff member who called Zionists “butchers” and “depraved monsters” on social media.On a Wednesday call to discuss increased dues with members, representatives were instead inundated with questions about antisemitic posts by union leaders.

June 4 (Reuters) - A Texas prosecutor asked the state's highest criminal court on Tuesday to reverse a pardon granted by Governor Gregg Abbott to a former U.S. Army sergeant convicted of murder and sentenced to prison for fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester. Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza, a Democrat whose office tried the murder case, said he asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals for a special order, called a writ of mandamus, to overturn Abbott's action. Garza told a news briefing in the state capital of Austin that Abbott, a Republican, violated the separation of...

May 31 - Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution. After Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, his supporters responded with dozens of violent online posts, according to a Reuters review of comments on three Trump-aligned websites: the former president's own Truth Social platform, Patriots.Win and the Gateway Pundit. Some called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection. “Someone...

Russia will have to increase its entire missile arsenal to deter the West as Moscow is now in an open confrontation with the United States and its allies, a Russian diplomat was quoted as saying on Monday. President Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine touched off the worst breakdown in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and U.S. diplomats. Russia has ramped up weapons production and is now forecast by the United States to manufacture this year more artillery than all of NATO's 32 members combined. "We are now at the...

This article actually has nothing to do with Trump, yet that is all the public will see. Trump Media’s accounting firm charged with ‘massive fraud’BF Borgers, Trump Media & Technology Group’s independent accounting firm, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday with widespread fraud and accused of operating a “sham audit mill.”The SEC made no allegation of wrongdoing against Truth Social owner Trump Media (DJT), which is not mentioned in the charges from the regulator.The SEC accused BF Borgers of “deliberate and systemic failures,” including “fabricating” audit documentation and falsely representing to clients its work would comply...

Ukraine last week got a vital $61 billion lifeline from the United States. But it still needs a medium-term funding plan to withstand Russia’s onslaught. A multi-year funding plan would have several benefits. For a start, it would provide some insurance against U.S. political swings. It would also boost Ukrainian morale and give Western arms manufacturers greater confidence to ramp up production. Ukraine is straining every sinew to hold the line against Russia, an adversary whose $2 trillion, opens new tab economy was 11 times bigger than its own last year. How much Kyiv needs in future depends on what...

Ukrainian drones attacked Russia's third largest oil refinery on Tuesday about 1,300 km (800 miles) from the front lines, hitting a core unit which processes about 155,000 barrels of crude refining per day. -snip- Pictures from the scene indicated the drone hit the primary refining unit, CDU-7, at the Taneco refinery. The unit accounts for around a half of the plant's total annual production capacity. "A drone attack was carried out on one of the enterprises in Nizhnekamsk," Ramil Mullin, the mayor of Nizhnekamsk, said. -snip- The attack was one of several in Tatarstan, a highly industrialised region south-east of...

Three photo agencies have retracted a picture of the Princess of Wales over concerns it has been "manipulated". The image, taken by Prince William and issued by Kensington Palace for Mother's Day, showed Catherine with their three children. But, Associated Press was the first to pull the image as it "did not meet" the agency's photo standards noting an "inconsistency in the alignment of Princess Charlotte's left hand". Kensington Palace are yet to comment. The photo shows the princess sitting down, surrounded by Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Prince George, the latter wrapping his arms around her. It was the...

HUNTINGTON BEACH, California, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Bisecting a wide sandy beach, the Huntington Beach pier beckons tourists and surfers alike, creating a break in the waves that helps gives the city its nickname: Surf City, USA. It is a scene as laidback as the name would suggest - and a stark contrast to the political hostility spilling out of City Hall just a short drive inland.

A Palestinian-American teenager, Tawfic Abde Jabbar, was killed in the West Bank on January 19, allegedly after an altercation with armed Israelis. More on his death, and how it was differently reported in its English and Arabic language versions, can be found here: “A Tale of Two Narratives: English-Language & Arabic-Language Reports Differ on Palestinian-American Teen’s Death,” by Chaim Lax, HonestReporting, January 25, 2024:On Friday January 19, 2024, a Palestinian-American teenager, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, was killed in the West Bank, allegedly following an altercation with armed Israelis.The Israeli inquiry into this matter is still ongoing.However, an investigation by the Jewish...

A politician bidding to run against Vladimir Putin in Russia's upcoming presidential election described the decision to go to war in Ukraine as a "big mistake" in comments to the wives of soldiers on Thursday. Boris Nadezhdin, representing a centre-right party called Civic Initiative that has no seats in parliament, is seeking to gather the necessary 100,000 signatures from people across Russia to enable him to stand against Putin. -snip- Nadezhdin has promised to present a plan for ending the conflict. Last week he also aimed sharp criticism at the authorities over heating outages that have struck parts of Russia...

HonestReporting.com, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog, published a report Monday showing two photojournalists, one working for Reuters and one working for the Associated Press, urging Palestinians to join Hamas terrorists October 7 in infiltrating Israel. HonestReporting reported: A Gaza photojournalist working for international media called on residents of the coastal enclave to cross the border into Israel on October 7, after Hamas terrorists had breached it, an HonestReporting investigation has found. Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa, a freelancer who has been working for Reuters, made the comments while excitedly displaying footage of Hamas atrocities on an Instagram Live hosted in Gaza by...

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan asked his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken in a call on Sunday for Washington to use its influence over Israel to halt Israeli attacks on Gaza and the West Bank, a Turkish diplomatic source said. Turkey, which supports a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, has harshly criticised Israel, calling for a full ceasefire and for Israeli leaders to be tried in international courts for war crimes, and slammed Western support for Israel. Washington, Israel's closest ally, has repeatedly said it supports Israel's right to defend itself after the cross-border rampage by Hamas militants on Oct....