Free Republic

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvanians have voted to retain three Democratic state Supreme Court justices, granting them additional terms on the bench after an unusually contentious, multimillion-dollar election. Republicans and their allies had hoped to defeat the justices and put their seats on the 2027 ballot, opening a path to flip the court. The Democratic majority has handed down critical rulings over the past decade, upholding mail voting and throwing out a congressional map that it found unfairly benefited the GOP. Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht were on the ballot Tuesday. They were first elected in 2015 in a...

The progressive candidate is on the cusp of a historic mayoral win. And that's adding to unease among Democrats looking for a way back to national power.On the cusp of electoral victory, New York mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani marched over the Brooklyn Bridge on Monday and arrived at City Hall, where he greeted cheering supporters with a promise.“We stand on the verge of ushering in a new day for our city,” he said. Their conviction would “be the light that our city and our nation so desperately need.”Put differently: His importance won’t stop at the shores of the Hudson.If public...

It was a long shot for Republican Virginia Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, and now it’s over. Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) has won the gubernatorial race, ending a contest that’s been riddled with drama. Sears had opportunities to turn things around. A white elderly Democrat carried a sign that was primarily seen as racist when Sears spoke out at an Arlington School Board meeting regarding the story of Richard Cox, a sex offender, who camped out at a high school girls’ locker room, claiming to be transgender. Spanberger’s answer to this question was also a trainwreck. Truth be told, Abby...

When his camera stopped working on his iPhone recently, New Yorker Richard Medina didn't waste any time. With the threat of tariff-fuelled price hikes on smartphones bearing down, he quickly called his phone company for a new one. "I said, 'We've got to switch this out now,'" the 43-year-old recalled. "Let's take care of it." The move was a sign of the pressure rising across the US, where households are being buffeted by what could be staggering price rises, and even possible shortages triggered by the sweeping tariffs that US President Donald Trump announced this month. Some are trying to...

The House voted Thursday to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments, delivering a severe rebuke to the Georgia Republican hours after she said she regretted her past embrace of conspiracy theories.The House voted 230-199 to remove Mrs. Greene from the budget and education committees, with 11 Republicans siding with Democrats. The move will diminish Mrs. Greene’s ability to shape legislation and work with other lawmakers, sidelining her just weeks into her first term in office.Democrats said the move was a necessary response to counter the violent rhetoric and misinformation that helped foment the riot at the U.S....

100.0% Precincts Reporting Semi-official Canvass Period May 12, 2020 - May 13, 2020 Christy Smith (Party Preference: DEM) 62,456 44.0% Mike Garcia (Party Preference: REP) 79,543 56.0%

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing executive orders that would clear the way to drastically reduce the United States’ role in the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as begin a process to review and potentially abrogate certain forms of multilateral treaties, officials said. The first of the two draft orders, titled “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations” and obtained by The New York Times, calls for terminating funding for any United Nations agency or other international body that meets any one of several criteria.

From the earliest days of his campaign, Donald J. Trump made keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States his signature economic issue, and the decision by Carrier, the big air-conditioner company, to move 2,000 of them from Indiana to Mexico was a tailor-made talking point for him on the stump. On Thursday, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor and the vice-president elect, plan to appear at Carrier’s Indianapolis plant to announce they’ve struck a deal with the company to keep a majority of the jobs in the state, according to officials with the transition team as well as Carrier....