Free Republic

A teacher with the Mill Valley School District was found dead in the water off of Drakes Beach on Point Reyes on Wednesday, just a day after he was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a child, according to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. Darren Smith, 55, was arrested on Tuesday following a report that the school district filed with the Marin County Sheriff's Office on March 28, according to a news release. The Marin Independent Journal reported Thursday that after initially being booked into the Marin County Jail, Smith was released on $200,000 bail. A Google Search preview of...

The weekend is about to look a little less like the weekend for the bosses at one of the world’s largest technology and manufacturing companies. Samsung will soon require its executives to work six days a week, according to an April 18 report from the Korea Economic Daily. The Korea-based conglomerate, which makes Galaxy smartphones, flatscreen televisions, appliances and a wide range of other devices, is a stalwart of the tech industry. It generates tens of billions of dollars of revenue every quarter. But after a weak financial year, the executives leading that effort will have to put in one...

A Maryland high school teacher was arrested after he allegedly used artificial intelligence to create phony audio, planting racist and antisemitic words into the voice of his boss, officials said Thursday. Dazhon Darien, a physical education teacher and athletic director at Pikesville High School, was accused of falsifying the voice of principal Eric Eiswert in January, authorities said. "We now have conclusive evidence that the recording was not authentic," Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough told reporters in Towson. "It’s been determined the recording was generated through the use of artificial intelligence technology." Darien was charged with disrupting school activities...

NY Reporter asks Union Worker: "What's your message to Joe Biden?"

After months of delays, the battle between landlords and tenants in one Bay Area city has come to an end. A rent control ordinance in the city of Concord went into effect Friday after its opponents failed to get enough signatures to place the issue on the November ballot. “We are thrilled that the people of Concord have spoken again in favor of people over corporate greed,” Rhea Elina Laughlin, executive director of advocacy group Rising Juntos, said in a statement. The ordinance reduces the annual percentage by which landlords can raise rent in Concord and bolsters certain eviction protections....

An anti-Israel protester was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats at a Bakersfield City Council meeting in California on Wednesday. During the public comment section of the meeting, protester Riddhi Patel threatened to murder council members and Republican Mayor Karen Goh for not backing a cease-fire resolution against Israel and for installing heavier security at the government building due to ongoing anti-Israel protests. Video of the meeting depicted Patel claiming she hoped oppressed minorities would guillotine city government members, declaring that even Jesus Christ would kill them, and threatening to go to their houses and murder them. The threats...

Chick-fil-A, the nationwide fast food chain known not only for its fried chicken sandwiches but also for its charitable foundation’s history of donating to organizations with anti-LGBTQ+ leanings, is facing a community uproar over a proposed new California location in the very gay-friendly city of Palm Springs, according to the Desert Sun and the Palm Springs Post. Plans for the new location at The Springs, a shopping plaza at the northeast corner of Ramon Road and Gene Autry Trail, have been formally submitted to the desert city, but the project is on hold as the company negotiates with the shopping...

A new poll from the media outlet Axios found that President Joe Biden’s support among the Latino population is eroding while support for former President Donald Trump is rising. The latest Axios-Ipsos poll found that among Latinos, Biden was only leading Trump by nine points (41-32) as opposed to Biden’s first year as president when the margin was a whopping 29 points (53-24). That could prove pivotal in swing states such as Nevada and Arizona. “In almost every case, Trump performs better than the Republican brand and Biden performs worse than the Democratic brand,” Ipsos pollster and senior vice president...

Today, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics approved an unprecedented ban on the participation of transgender women, in a move that could pressure other major governing bodies of athletics, including the National Collegiate Athletics Association, to follow suit. According to the official press release, “Only NAIA student-athletes whose biological sex is female may participate in NAIA-sponsored female sports.” The policy does not specify how it defines biological sex, nor does it clarify its implications for intersex athletes. It also excludes athletes who have begun “any masculinizing hormone therapy.” This ban comes amid increased scrutiny over trans bodies in sport and...

Several neighborhoods in San Francisco and Oakland had the most postal worker robberies in California in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Postal Service. According to the data analyzed by ABC7, about 61% of the 145 reported postal robberies across the state last year happened in the Bay Area. Robberies of postal carriers and drivers have increased across the country in recent years. Thieves, often armed with guns or other weapons, have stolen mail carriers’ master keys to gain access to large groups of mailboxes. The robberies have become an increasing concern since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic...

Barstool Sports founder ​Dave Portnoy announced Thursday that he has raised $1.5 million for the family of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller – after he vowed to match contributions. “Thanks to everybody who donated. We raised 750k. With the matching of the funds that brings the total to 1.5 million that will go directly to the family,” the outspoken media personality wrote on X. Earlier, he wrote that he’d “match whatever our total raised through midnight today is.” The 31-year-old cop was shot and killed when a routine traffic stop in Queens turned into a shootout with alleged career criminal...

Getting arrested is no child’s play — except for these California cops. The Murrieta Police Department has been posting hilarious arrest and lineup photos with suspects’ faces replaced by Lego heads to comply with a woke state law protecting offenders’ rights. Images on the department’s Instagram page show the Lego blocks with a variety of facial expressions — crying, frowning, smirking or raging — digitally superimposed onto the bodies of people being busted. The agency said replacing suspects’ faces with Lego blocks allows it to be in compliance with a new state law. One appears to show two people handcuffed...

Sometimes, it feels like the San Francisco Giants just can’t help themselves. Another unforced error after an offseason spent repairing the damage from Greg Johnson’s “somewhat break even” debacle, this time in the form of letting longtime public address announcer Renel Brooks-Moon go after what appears to be a contract dispute. In a press release hilariously titled “Ahead of the 2024 Season, Giants Name Renel Brooks-Moon Public Address Announcer Emeritus” — I’m still dizzy from all of that spin — the Giants casually mentioned that after exchanging contract numbers with Renel, a new deal could not be reached and she...

Sports news and commentary Deadspin has been sold again — and its entire staff has been laid off. Deadspin, once owned by Gawker Media, became part of G/O Media in 2019. In a memo to company staff Monday, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller announced that Deadspin was sold to European firm Lineup Publishing. With the sale, the staff of Deadspin is getting pink-slipped. “Deadspin’s new owners have made the decision to not carry over any of the site’s existing staff and instead build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand,” Spanfeller wrote in the...

A retired California pastor has been caught on camera drawing a Swastika on his Jewish neighbor's groceries. Leah Grossman confronted her neighbor, Mark Nakagawa, at 10.15pm on December 5, seconds after her doorbell camera caught him scrawling on a box of seltzer. The single mother of two told CBS she was 'shattered' when she saw it was a Swastika, and asked him 'Is that a Nazi symbol?' Nakagawa initially denied drawing the Swastika, but when confronted with the video evidence, claimed he was trying to teach her about the history of the symbol. Grossman said it wasn't her first run-in...

It took almost 20 torturous years to build the Fontainebleau Las Vegas and, when it finally opened, four executives left in the first month. In a town built on luck, those aren’t good odds. There are few Vegas projects as snakebitten as the Fontainebleau. What was supposed to be a towering spinoff of the Miami icon has turned into a nightmare for just about every owner who’s taken it on. Not even its grand opening on Dec. 13 could stop the barrage of bad press, from execs bailing to a viral $21 plate of six sad nacho chips. With this...

Bradley Cooper admitted he struggled to feel connected to his and Irina Shayk’s daughter, Lea, when she was born. The “Maestro” star appeared on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast Monday and discussed his growth as a father since welcoming the 6-year-old in March 2017. Cooper, 49, explained the first few months of Lea’s life he didn’t understand when fellow parents would say, “I would die in a second for my kid.” “That’s my experience,” the actor continued. “Fascinated by it. Loved taking care of it. But would I die if someone came in with a gun?” He admitted after only...

Citing what they describe as a “hostile” political climate, hundreds of Adobe workers are protesting the company’s decision to hold its flagship MAX conference in Miami Beach in October, according to a Wednesday report from Business Insider. The outlet secured a 10-page petition sent to company leadership, signed by more than 500 employees of the San Jose tech giant. The petition said workers were “shocked and dismayed” by MAX’s move to Florida, and called out the state’s history of “egregious policies,” BI reported. “We sincerely hope that the overwhelming evidence that Florida is a hostile environment for Adobe’s employees, partners,...

An 8-year-old boy suffered a gunshot wound to the head while he was out looking at Christmas lights with his mother who was also delivering food for DoorDash. It happened in Lawton, Oklahoma, which is about 90 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. Nichole Groshong said in a GoFundMe post that she, her sons Zack and Waylon and her mother-in-law were in the 900 block of SW 35th Street around 8 p.m. on Dec. 10 when she stopped and put the car in reverse to show them some more lights. Then shots rang out. “I drove away as fast as I...

Nikola founder Trevor Milton was sentenced Monday to four years in prison in connection to defrauding investors of the embattled electric- and hydrogen-powered truck maker. Milton also was fined $1 million and could later be forced to forfeit property as part of his sentence. The punishment was far lower than the 11 years prosecutors had requested at Milton’s sentencing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. But it was substantially more than the non-jail sentence of probation sought by Milton’s attorneys. “I did not intend to harm anyone and I did not commit those crimes levied against me,” Milton told Judge...