Free Republic

HOUSTON – The first openly gay person to be elected mayor of Houston says she hopes her victory in Saturday's election will change how the world views the city. Houston is the nation's fourth-largest city and the biggest to elect an openly gay mayor. Mayor-elect Annise Parker spoke Sunday at a press conference after defeating former city attorney Gene Locke with 53.6 percent of the vote in the hotly contested runoff election.

San Francisco health officials reported an alarming increase in new syphilis cases last year after years of declines. New syphilis cases rose 55.8 percent in 2008 over the previous year, San Francisco public health officials reported. The increase was significantly lower than the dramatic spikes reported early in the decade, when new infections increased 167 percent from 2001 to 2002. But last year's rise would seem to indicate an increase in unsafe sexual practices, which could lead to a rise in HIV infection rates.

...I didn't expect to be a crime victim on the streets of San Francisco. ... But it happened, on a beautiful evening this past weekend near Union Square. As crimes go, it could have been much worse. I was helping an elderly man when somebody sneaked up behind me and stole my garment bag. I lost a nice suit, a nice pair of shoes and overnight toiletries. Not the end of the world, but frustrating. The real crime was the vulnerability of it all....

To all you would-be politicians hoping to jump start a career in the public spotlight at the local level, be fore-warned: Local politics can be a pretty cut-throat business. And you'd be well served to not provide your political opponents with any ammunition to help them bring you down East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer blasted a local television station Thursday, one day after it aired photographs that purported to show the mayor wearing a wig and lingerie. The news conference came less than a week before voters decide if he should be re-elected. You see, that guy didn't think ahead....

Four people in Los Angeles killed by gunfire in 12-hour span August 23, 2009 Four people across the city were killed by gunfire in a 12-hour span, police said today. One person was found dead about 7 a.m. in Glassell Park, and three people were killed in separate shootings Saturday night in Gramercy Park, West Adams and Hyde Park, authorities said. Los Angeles police said the man who was found dead early today, in the 3400 block of Drew Street, appeared to be about 35. He had a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene....

SAN FRANCISCO—Doughnuts could be a distant memory for San Francisco city workers. They must now follow "healthy meeting" guidelines under a sweeping initiative unveiled by Mayor Gavin Newsom Thursday to encourage better eating. That means less junk food and smaller portions at staff meetings. The mayor is also ordering all city departments to help locate vacant or unused city-owned land that could be used to grow food. Vendors that offer healthy food will get preference for city contracts and permits. All vending machines on city property additionally will have to meet new nutrition standards.

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or "progressive" platform have been enacted: * A "living wage" ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors. * A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average. * A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members. * A powerful government employee union that does the same for its members. * A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the...

Man-o-man. I'm here in Chicago and I'm feeling the second bump of the recession and its feeling bad. This is a canary in the coal mine report from my vantage point and its very weird and bad here. I'm a 54 year old Architect self employed for 23 years and well able to take care of myself. I hear about friends losing their jobs who are my age who are real producers. I am working on a project in a new condo on Michigan Avenue that was 90% sold last October and it looks empty today - probably heading into...

WASHINGTON - Historically, when the economy heads south, crime rates go up. But in this recession, things are different in the District. The murder rate is at its lowest in nearly thirty years. With more on this, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A former high-level aide to Sen. Barbara Boxer has been sentenced to five years in prison on child pornography charges. Jeff P. Rosato, 32, of Arlington, was sentenced Friday in a hearing before U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. He received the minimum sentence allowed under federal guidelines and will have to register as a sex offender.

Text size: Indictments reveal prison crime world Officers, inmates charged in drugs, extortion By Justin Fenton | justin.fenton@baltsun.com April 17, 2009 The court records read like a scene out of Goodfellas: From their prison cells and with the help of corrections staff, authorities say, members of a violent gang were feasting on salmon and shrimp, sipping Grey Goose vodka and puffing fine cigars - all while directing drug deals, extorting protection money from other inmates and arranging attacks on witnesses and rival gang members. A seven-month investigation that included wiretaps on contraband prison cell phones led to the indictment on...

... she makes chicken for her children but eats Oodles of Noodles herself... ... She is 29, with twin babies and a toddler, facing eviction because she's $300 behind on rent... ... The little girl, 15-16 months old, wears a striped top that swallows her tiny arms. Her nose is runny, her eyes empty. Hers is not the picture of hunger that Americans are accustomed to seeing. She isn't emaciated, like those living in squalid conditions in famine-stricken countries, but she is underweight and malnourished, often fed chips and sugary drinks instead of milk and formula... ... poor diets lacking...

MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee woman accused of filing fraudulent voter-registration forms has been charged with one count of election fraud. A criminal complaint released to the media Tuesday says 19-year-old Latoya T. Lewis turned in multiple forms with the same voter name on them.

Well, well - looks like The Gangsta Thug Messiah wants us honest taxpayers to bail out his criminal voting class in the 35 blue counties. Make it so, Number 2!

As if we needed any reminder that times in America have changed, there is further evidence that the nearly decade-long rally of prosperity and reduced crime has ended. We are officially in a recession, a panel of experts told us last week, after months of speculation and hundreds of thousands of layoffs. At the same time, many big cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Boston and Pittsburgh are reporting an increase in homicides this year, potentially signaling an end to the slide in violent crime. In Chicago as of last week, police had recorded 612 murders so far in 2001...

Hearst to Slash, Sell or Close the Chronicle By SHIRA OVIDE Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper unless it can quickly slash costs at the money-losing daily. A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. Getty Images A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. A vendor sells a copy of...

Unbelievable. Houston taxpayers could start footing the bill to help first-time homebuyers pay off debts and improve their credit scores, under a proposal before City Council this week.The “Credit Score Enhancement Program” will give up to $3,000 in grants to individuals who are trying to qualify for mortgages through the city’s homebuyers assistance program. City officials say some applicants fall short of eligibility by only 10 or 20 points on their credit scores, and paying off some debt balances can quickly improve their numbers. Want to know how dumb this is? The Chron.com article doesn’t mention the sponsor of this...

Mayoral challengers attack incumbent Villaraigosa By Jerry Berrios, Staff Writer Updated: 02/23/2009 05:29:15 AM PST TUJUNGA - As election season winds down, five of the nine candidates hoping to dethrone Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took some jabs at the well-financed incumbent at a mayoral forum in Tujunga Sunday afternoon. Sunday's forum was yet another debate at which the mayor was a no-show. During a recent editorial board meeting with the Daily News, Villaraigosa said his campaign would focus on his achievements and he would not debate the mayoral challengers. On Sunday morning, Villaraigosa did attend a meeting of San Fernando...

Police in Baltimore today made what is believed to be the first arrest in a civil disobedience program aimed at supporting homeowners who refuse to vacate their foreclosed homes. An activist with ACORN — the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now — faces criminal charges after breaking into a home in southeast Baltimore on Thursday to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the country.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The man at the center of an investigation into Mayor Sam Adams' sex scandal has done a nude photo shoot for an undisclosed amount of cash. The Advocate reported Beau Breedlove accepted Unzipped Magazine's offer to be featured on the magazine's May cover, going Los Angeles last weekend for the shoot. "He came to L.A. to prove that the Portland scandal does not define his sexuality,” Unzipped's Online Editor Sean Carnage told Advocate.com. Oregon Attorney General John Kroger is investigating whether Mayor Adams engaged in illegal activity in the relationship. A firestorm of debate has raged over...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In a sign that job losses are felt in every corner of the nation, unemployment rates rose in 98% of metropolitan areas across the country in December, according to a recent government report. ... Morgantown, W.Va., had a rate of just 2.7%, the lowest in the country. Morgantown houses West Virginia University, which is the town's largest employer. The University has a large hospital and pharmaceutical manufacturing component - areas of the economy that are actually adding jobs. Of the 49 metropolitan areas with a population of at least 1 million, Detroit had the largest unemployment...

From fetal defects and women’s health risks to late recognition of pregnancy and lack of money, the reasons for second-trimester abortions vary, say doctors who support a clinic that would perform the procedures in Madison, WI. "Unfortunately, some women don’t find out that there is a lethal anomaly or other problems with their fetus until quite late," said Dr. Julie Fagan, a women’s health specialist at University of Wisconsin Hospital. But opponents say the only situation where a woman should consider an abortion at any stage — a serious threat to her life — would require her to go to...

Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez, a Democrat Party member in his third term, has been arrested for bribery, falsifying evidence and conspiring to falsify evidence charges stemming from allegedly underpaying a local contractor for home renovations. The contractor, Carlos Costa, was not paid for nearly two years by Mayor Perez and thought he “would be blackballed as a contractor in the city” if he did not do the renovations free, prosecutors said. When confronted by investigators for not paying Costa, Democrat Mayor Perez said he was distracted by his wife’s illness. Investigators say Perez lied in 2007 Perez when he...

A study finds Pennsylvania again leads the nation in the rate of black homicides. The nonprofit Violence Policy Center supports gun-control efforts. They found in the study that there were nearly 37 homicides per 100,000 black Pennsylvania residents in 2006. Michigan was second and Indiana was third. The report analyzed the most recent data available from the FBI. Pennsylvania has finished first twice in the three years that the group has conducted the study. Co-author and Violence Policy Center executive director Josh Sugarmann says the results show that the role of guns in black homicides cannot be denied and must...

DENVER (AP) ― Denver's mayor and workers at about a dozen businesses are wearing pajamas to work Thursday to raise awareness about homelessness.

Berkeley -- Berkeley's city council voted early today to let the public library override the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act in order to get its checkout machines serviced.After a heated debate, the council voted 6-2, with one abstention, to grant a waiver for the library to contract with 3M, a multinational technology company, even though the firm refused to sign a form promising it does not engage in nuclear research or development.The library asked permission to sign a 5-year, $63,000 contract with 3M to maintain five self-checkout scanning machines at the main library and four branches. The Peace and Justice Commission...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Hartford's mayor turned himself in Tuesday on charges of having a city contractor do $40,000 in work at his home and paying for it only after being confronted by investigators. Eddie A. Perez, a native of Puerto Rico and the first Hispanic mayor in the city's history, called his conduct inappropriate but said he did not commit a crime. He pledged to remain in office. "I should never have used a city contractor to have done improvements on my home," Perez said Tuesday. "It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I should never have allowed the perception of...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Mayor Sam Adams, who has admitted lying about a sexual relationship with a teenager, said Sunday that he would not resign. A city commissioner, Randy Leonard, told The Associated Press that Mr. Adams had left a phone message in the morning saying he had decided to remain in office. Two other commissioners told The Oregonian of Portland that Mr. Adams, the city’s first openly gay mayor, had told them the same thing. The fourth, Amanda Fritz, declined to comment. Efforts to reach Mr. Adams were unsuccessful. The Oregonian’s editorial page has called for his resignation, as...

Story Updated: Jan 19, 2009 at 5:25 PM PST By KATU.com Staff PORTLAND, Ore. - Newly sworn-in Mayor Sam Adams has admitted having a sexual relationship with a teenage intern he met in 2005, according to Willamette Week, a news partner of KATU. The paper said it spoke with Adams Monday afternoon while the mayor was in Washington D.C. In that interview, the paper reports, Adams said the relationship with Beau Breedlove lasted for a couple of months in 2005. Adams and Breedlove met in 2005 when Breedlove was 17 years old. Adams told Willamette Week the pair had a...

FRENCHBURG — Menifee County was never part of the boom, but it is surely part of the bust. It's a county that stands out by several measures. With fewer than 6,800 people Menifee is sparsely populated and rural, sometimes even remote, heavily white — and full of Obama voters waiting for their world to change after the new president is inaugurated on Tuesday. Menifee's Obama vote sets it apart in Kentucky, which was a McCain stronghold in the 2008 presidential election.

WASHINGTON - From the steam grates of Pennsylvania Avenue to the porticoes of the city's grand buildings, homeless Washingtonians who live inside the nation's tightest security zone are being encouraged to decamp during the inauguration for shelters in the city's outer neighborhoods. The security sweeps will probably begin Monday. Buses will make one-way trips to two of the District's largest shelters, which will remain open round-the-clock, said D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6). "Everyone has to be out of the perimeter by then," Wells said.

WASHINGTON – Frank Mearns has left the place he calls home, a stone's throw from the White House, and joined thousands of others in Washington who were forced to pull up stakes and move from their regular digs for the presidential inauguration. But Mearns isn't making a quick buck by renting out his pied-a-terre, as some Washington residents are. Nor did he head out of town on an inauguration escape holiday, as some locals did. He's one of Washington's army of homeless cleared from the center of the U.S. capital ahead of the historic inauguration of Barack Obama. "Everyone's got...

Dixon, a Democrat, has been the target of a nearly three-year probe by State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh into corruption at City Hall, an investigation that has centered on allegations that Dixon has used her office to award lucrative contracts to various people including her sister, her then-boyfriend and her former campaign chairman.

PHILADELPHIA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - A grand jury on Friday indicted Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon on 12 counts including perjury, theft and fraudulent misappropriation stemming in part from gifts she received from a former boyfriend, prosecutors said. The indictment alleges that in 2004, Dixon received gift cards used to buy electronics including a PlayStation 2, CDs and DVDs. The cards were intended to be given to needy families but Dixon used them to purchase items for herself, it says. Those actions violate the city's Ethics Disclosure Law under which public employees are required to disclose gifts, the indictment says. Dixon,...

President-elect Barack Obama met with the mayors of nine U.S. cities Thursday who together are asking the federal government to give them over $10.7 billion to finance various public works and maintenance projects. Among the mayors who met with Obama, Miami Mayor Manuel Diaz is asking for the most federal tax dollars, a total of $3.2 billion. His requests include $1.5 million to build the Grapeland Flowrider, a new water park attraction, and $100,000 to build dirt-bike trails. Miami also wants $94 million in federal tax dollars for parking garages at the Orange Bowl, and $20 million for work on...

Md. Files Criminal Charges Against Councilman

The fireplace police descended on the Bay Area on Wednesday. For the first time ever, residential fires are illegal under a new law, passed in July, that bans home burning on winter season Spare the Air days. The first such ban took effect at noon. Seventy inspectors from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District planned to spend the day and evening patrolling residential neighborhoods, looking for telltale chimney wisps. Violators will get warnings by mail. Repeat offenders face fines of as much as $2,000. The fireplace police say they are determined to keep law and order in the living...

New York may want to throw out the budget-cutting scissors and grab a machete. The downturn in the financial markets could eliminate 225,000 jobs and cost the state $6.5 billion in tax revenue related to the securities industry over the next two years, according to a grim report released Monday by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. And these estimates may be on the conservative side. The report acknowledges that things could get far worse if structural changes in the industry wipe out many of those high-paying Wall Street jobs forever. Wall Street accounts for 20 percent of the...

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed says he will request 2 percent -- or $14 billion -- of the federal government's $700 billion bailout package. Reed told The Associated Press Friday that he and several other California mayors plan to collectively present a bailout request to the federal government. He did not know when the request would be formally submitted, nor did he say what other cities would be asking for funds. Reed says the city -- the nation's 10th largest -- needs the money to fund the extension of rapid transit and expand the area's clean technology businesses. San Jose's...

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted this afternoon to join a lawsuit filed by the City of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Clara County challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative voters passed by a narrow margin this month. The vote was carried by the board’s three Democrats: Supervisors Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the board join the lawsuit, and Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, who voted in support. Of the two Republicans, Supervisor Michael Antonovich was out of town, and Supervisor Don Knabe left the meeting just as speakers began. More than...

A Jersey City councilman has reportedly been arrested for urinating on a crowd of concertgoers from the balcony of a Washington D.C. nightclub.

Red, white and true blue: City hoists Old Glory Stores see star-spangled sales Thursday, November 6, 2008 Last updated 12:05 a.m. PT By ANDREA JAMES AND KERY MURAKAMI P-I REPORTERS Barack Obama's presidential win held a poignant significance for liberal Seattleites: This is their America, too. The feeling was evident in jubilant partying in the streets, in quiet moments of reflection and in blossoms of red, white and blue. With newfound patriotism, Seattleites want to wave the flag, hang it from their homes and stick it on their cars. "The thing that's kind of astounding to me is I never...

Slowly but surely, voters in the Washington area are purging Republicans from the ranks of local government. After eight years of an unpopular president and five years of a war most people believe was launched under false pretenses, voters in the District, Maryland and Virginia are taking out their anger on the GOP. The search-and-destroy mission is nearly complete. While Democrats have long held an advantage in state and local government, until recently both parties claimed their share of victories. Now, though, Democrats have a near monopoly on power in Washington and the close-in suburbs. Consider:

Election night was not kind to Gavin Newsom, who may end up one of the biggest losers after suffering a potentially crushing loss with Proposition 8 and at best breaking even in the local contests he had a stake in. Political analysts have long argued that Newsom has short coattails in local politics - a theory in play with the Board of Supervisors races, in which at least three of the seven seats up for grabs seem likely to go to candidates he did not endorse. With the local ballot measures, voters for the most part sided with Newsom's choices,...

In a decidedly Democratic town awash in a sea of Barack Obama political signs, William Wedemeyer knows he is going against the political grain with the McCain-Palin sign he proudly displays on the front lawn of his Ann Arbor home. Still, Wedemeyer was taken aback when he recently received a package in the mail addressed to "Joe Six Pack'' and containing a couple of bags of dog feces. He said he'd like a few minutes alone with whoever sent it. "I'd like to have a five-minute talk about First Amendment rights,'' said Wedemeyer, who lives on the 1000 block of...

Hartford - Locked in a tough re-election campaign in a district that overwhelmingly supports Barack Obama, Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays has joined some fellow Republicans in publicly voicing frustration with John McCain's presidential campaign. Shays told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the Republican nominee's campaign has gone too negative against Obama, and has muted his message of being an independent thinker with the best ideas and experience needed to solve the nation's problems. Several other notable Republicans, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, have made statements similar to Shays' comments in recent weeks. Some prominent Republicans, including former...

Sneed hears a plan is afoot to impeach Gov. Blagojevich following the presidential election next month. Word is the votes are there. Stay tuned. Ring ring . . . A confident man: David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist/guru, has a special ring tone on his cell phone assigned to Barack Obama: "Signed, sealed, delivered." The Obama rally . . . Mayor Daley's big worry: that Obama's election night rally in Grant Park could turn into a security nightmare. • • Consider: The Obama camp is expecting 70,000 people. • • The shocker: How about 1 million-plus trying to get in to...

Palin effigy hung in Halloween displayOct 28, 2008 9:13 AM An effigy of US Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin hanging by a noose as part of a Halloween display drew complaints on Monday, but local officials said the homeowner was covered by free speech rights. A mannequin dressed to resemble the Alaska governor, with her trademark beehive hairdo and glasses, was hung by the neck from the eaves of the home in famously liberal West Hollywood. On the roof, a mannequin of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, protruded from the chimney surrounded in flames, holding his head as he was...

Post Office Requests Police Escort After Violence Stops Service For Two Weeks HARVEY, Ill. (CBS) ― Dozens of mailboxes remain empty after the post office suspends service in one south suburban neighborhood. Some people get angry when their mail is late. But in Harvey, people have been waiting for days and days. They're not getting any mail at all. CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports that one mail carrier in Harvey feels threatened. The U.S. Post Office seems to think that this is one of the most dangerous blocks in the country. People who live on it say they haven't gotten...

SAN FRANCISCO -- In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest. San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K -- a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex. The ballot question technically would not legalize prostitution since state law still prohibits it, but the measure would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to go after prostitutes. Proponents say...