Free Republic

A “greedy and grotesque” LA woman has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars for fraudulently obtaining real-estate property in a multimillion-dollar squatting scheme that included dismembering and disposing of a body. Caroline Joanne Herrling, 44, of West Hills was sentenced Friday to 240 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $3,887,051 in restitution for the elaborate racket, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a statement. “This defendant’s misconduct was both greedy and grotesque, causing profound pain to the victims and their loved ones,” US Attorney Martin Estrada said.

Houseboat and yacht residents in the San Francisco Bay have sounded off about incidents of piracy skyrocketing by marauders pillaging and plundering from their watercrafts — and even stealing entire boats as The Golden City faces a crime crisis.

Thousands of dead fish and other marine life carcasses are washing ashore in the San Francisco Bay Area, creating a foul smell. Experts point to an unprecedented "red tide" algae bloom as the mostly likely cause. Abnormal numbers of dead crabs, bat rays, striped bass, white sturgeon and more have been spotted throughout the Bay area over the last week, officials say, notably at Oakland's Lake Merritt. The start of the fish die-off could date back even further—as the harmful algae bloom has been spreading since late July. The carcasses are worrying environmental scientists, as they mark a devastating loss...

Four dead gray whales have washed ashore San Francisco Bay Area beaches in the last nine days and experts said Friday, April 9, 2021, one was struck by a ship. They were trying to determine how the other three died. "It's alarming to respond to four dead gray whales in just over a week because it really puts into perspective the current challenges faced by this species," says Dr. Pádraig Duignan, Director of Pathology at The Marine Mammal Center.(The Marine Mammal Center via AP) Four dead gray whales have washed ashore San Francisco Bay Area beaches in the last nine...

The first shots exploded around 9:40 p.m. On Sept. 11, 2012, a group of local fighters, AK-47s in hand, burst through the fortified front gate of a US outpost in Benghazi, Libya. One very long night later, the diplomatic compound was engulfed in flames and a covert CIA base a mile away lay in ruins, partially reduced to rubble by mortar fire. Four Americans were dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two CIA members. What happened in between is covered in "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi," a new film from "Transformers" director Michael Bay in theaters Friday. It...

During a Q&A session following his speech on middle class economics to the City Club of Cleveland Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama revealed on thing he would do differently if he could start his presidency over knowing what he knows now. “I think I would have closed Guantánamo on the first day,” he told the crowd. The reason he didn’t, Obama said, is that at the time there was bipartisan agreement that the detention facility should be closed. Instead of making it happen right way, the president chose to sign an executive order that tasked a group with figuring out

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Put away the chestnuts; the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has announced that wood burning will be banned in the region on Christmas Eve—and possibly on Christmas Day, too. Tuesday will be the 17th “Winter Spare the Air” day of the season, and the air district will decide that day whether wood burning will also be banned on Christmas. “The weather forecast looks like we might see another Spare the Air day for Christmas Day,” air district spokesman Tom Flannigan said. He explained that winds are light, and the weather is forecast to be...

A Palm Bay homeowner says he shot and killed two men in self-defense during an altercation inside his house, according to police. Dispatchers received a 911 call around 1 a.m. from someone at a home on Thuringer Street NW. The caller said shots had been fired, and officers found two men dead inside the home. According to Palm Bay police, two men who had a mutual friend with the homeowner were loitering

As promised, the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. appealed to an expanded panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco today to allow it to keep operating at Point Reyes National Seashore. The oyster farm and owner Kevin Lunny asked an 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a decision in which a smaller panel of the court ruled against the company by a 2 to 1 vote in September. In that ruling, the smaller panel upheld a federal trial judge’s denial of a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the oyster harvesting to continue...

While broken bolts on the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge are commanding everyone's attention, Caltrans has another problem on its hands - 96 seismic shock absorbers on the western span, some of which began leaking lubricant just three years after they were installed. The estimated cost of the fix - $13 million. And, like the brittle bolts on the eastern span, there are questions as to whether Caltrans ordered the right shocks - or dampers, as they are known - in the first place. The dampers are located between the bridge towers just below the roadway, and are...

Bay Area bridge commuters will be ponying up $37 for each of the 150,000 people expected to walk across the new Bay Bridge span during the big Labor Day opening celebration. That's the breakdown on the math for the $5.6 million in toll money going toward the public side of the public-private celebration marking completion of the new eastern span.

ABC reporter Arlette Saenz reported for The Note on Joe Biden’s speech Sunday in the Green Bay area, including this statement: "In Afghanistan, we have lost 1,980 fallen angels as of yesterday, and I’m precise because every single one of those lives deserves to be recognized. Wrong: The U.S. death toll in Afghanistan at the end of August was 2,101. Biden somehow subtracted from the Defense Department count, ignoring three civilian casualties and 118 soldiers who died elsewhere after medical evaluation. Did they not deserve to be recognized? Saenz led with Biden attacking Paul Ryan for failing to admit in...

It seems that Uncle Sam’s Mickey Mouse loan deal to the now-bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra was not only a bad investment decision, but likely a contributing factor to the company’s implosion. The new factory built with Department of Energy funds foisted fixed costs on a company already struggling through an industry shake-out, [investors] say. What’s more, the debt paradoxically made raising more money difficult. Once the government demanded priority in the event of failure, private investors were less likely to prop up the company. One Solyndra investor said that, in retrospect,''the worst thing that happened to Solyndra was the loan.''

SAN FRANCISCO -- An estimated half-million illegal immigrants live in the Bay Area, according to a study that is one of the first to try to measure the number of local residents living in the U.S. illegally. The report by the Public Policy Institute of California used tax returns, previous national estimates and mathematical models to determine that 563,000 illegal immigrants live in the Bay Area, about 8 percent of the region's total population. Santa Clara County leads the Bay Area with 180,000 illegal immigrants, followed by Alameda County with 124,000 and Contra Costa County with 79,000, the study found....

Muslim Brotherhood-tied CAIR and their operative, Lamis Deek, know the power of Islamic Jew-hatred as commanded in the Islamic texts and teachings, and instead of fighting it, they mine it. Exploit it. They know the power of their hate. The vile inciter and demagogue Lamis Deek's history is well documented. It is not surprising that she is the attorney for the Muslim Brotherhood-tied MAS group building a super-mosque on a quiet residential street in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. CAIR's Great FBI Scare Lecture Investigative Project on Terrorism A recent "Know Your Rights" presentation by the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR)...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The seats of some well used methods of public transportation have been analyzed by a biologist and the results might keep commuters on their feet. A supervisor with San Francisco State University's biology lab recently tested the bacterial content of a random BART seat and a Muni seat. The Bay Citizen commissioned the study. On Muni's plastic seats she found two forms of harmless bacteria, and after using an alcohol wipe on the seat no bacteria was detected. But the cloth seats on BART told an entirely different story: tests of the seats on BART revealed fecal...

If you are a true GREEN BAY PACKERS FAN, you just might enjoy: THE PACKER BROTHERS PODCAST! The Packer Brothers Podcast? It's high-energy, passion, and love for the Green Bay Packers – with a dash of humor. Well, Packers fans, is Aaron Rodgers' bell getting rung going to end up the closing bell to the Packer's playoff hopes? Of course, they're still in the hunt, but the question is this: Is Rodgers? A game full of missed opportunities results in an 8-5 record. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Was the surprisingly tough showing by the Lions back in early October in...

If you are a true GREEN BAY PACKERS FAN, you just might enjoy: THE PACKER BROTHERS PODCAST! The Packer Brothers Podcast? It's high-energy, passion, and love for the Green Bay Packers – with a dash of humor. Packers 34, 49ers 16 Another slow start for Green Bay, this time in the friendly confines of a chilly and windy Lambeau Field. But dominate they did, eventually, their shaky visitors from San Francisco. Another lights-out performance by Aaron Rodgers, a sensational rumblin', bumblin', stumblin' TD by a healthy Donald Driver to seal the victory, and a surprisingly strong debut by the...

If you are a true GREEN BAY PACKERS FAN, you just might enjoy: THE PACKER BROTHERS PODCAST! The Packer Brothers Podcast? It's high-energy, passion, and love for the Green Bay Packers – with a dash of humor. Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda. That about sums it up. Aaron Rodgers is a very fine quarterback, perhaps the best in the Georgia Dome last Sunday, but he is not a great goal line running back. That, of course, is not his fault, but regardless, the Packers take a tough loss against a very solid, well-balanced Atlanta Falcons team led by quarterback Matt Ryan,...

If you are a true GREEN BAY PACKERS FAN, you just might enjoy: THE PACKER BROTHERS PODCAST! The Packer Brothers Podcast? It's high-energy, passion, and love for the Green Bay Packers – with a dash of humor. Ho hum, another trip to the Metrodome to play the Vikings. What a fantastic game for Aaron Rodgers, Greg Jennings, Tramon Williams, Charles Woodson, and the rest of the surging Packers in the Voodoo Palace, the MetroTomb (what we will always call it, no matter which corporate leviathan buys the naming rights). You can savor last Sunday's tasty victory over the 'Sota...