Free Republic

SAN DIEGO – San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors met with legal counsel behind closed doors Thursday to discuss options should the county soon find itself in a more restrictive state tier which would force some industries to close indoors. The meeting comes just a day after the board formally requested the state remove San Diego State University and other local colleges from the county’s coronavirus case totals, a plea which was flatly rejected by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The health officer of Montgomery County, Maryland, ordered nonpublic schools, including “private pay schools” and “schools affiliated with religious institutions,” to remain closed for in-school instruction through October 1. “Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have based our decisions on science and data,” said Dr. Travis Gayles in a press statement Friday, and he added: At this point the data does not suggest that in-person instruction is safe for students or teachers. We have seen increases in transmission rates for COVID-19 in the State of Maryland, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia, particularly in younger...

FLORIDA SHERIFF: "The people in Polk County like guns, they have guns, I encourage them to own guns. — And if you try to break into their homes to steal, to set fires, I'm highly recommending they blow you back out of the house with their guns."

BEXAR COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — Bexar County is investigating after nearly 50 residents were locked out of their apartments at a San Antonio complex. They say they found their doorknobs bolted when they returned home on Monday. That’s despite a local moratorium on evictions that’s currently in effect due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It is sad. It is sad when somebody put a key on the door, even though they don’t have money for two or three months. Right now, we don’t need that,” says Luis Falcon, who son was locked out of his apartment. “This is the first flagrant...

The mayor of Champaign, Illinois has declared a town emergency over the Wuhan coronavirus that includes a potential ban on the sale of firearms and ammunition. According to a local report from WAND 17, Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen has issued an executive order that would give her office "extraordinary powers." She has issued the order despite the town and surrounding area not having a single case of the disease.

Steuben County DA Brooks Baker is apologizing after the Chemung County 911 released audio of a phone call where Baker is heard berating and cursing at a dispatcher. Baker called 911 after picking up a dog off I-86 and was looking to connect with Animal Control. After what Baker calls a “tense phone call” between Baker’s wife and a male dispatcher, Baker spoke with a female dispatcher in the audio released on Facebook. While discussing with the dispatcher where he can hand off the dog, Baker became agitated and cursed at the dispatcher four times in a two minute phone...

Less than six weeks after Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed into law New York’s so-called “Green Light Bill,” Assembly Bill (AB) 3675, which allows illegal aliens to apply for drivers’ licenses, a second county clerk has stepped forward to sue the state in an attempt to prevent the law from taking effect. On July 24, Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola (R) followed Erie County Clerk Mickey Kearns (D) lead and filed suit. Recent polls show a clear majority of New Yorkers are against giving drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens. Rensselaer County Clerk Merola called the Green Light Law a “travesty,”...

Flanked by members of a local African-American faith community, a defiant Scott Israel defended himself against allegations of incompetence on Friday and made clear he would fight his suspension on any front necessary — whether before the Florida Senate or in state or federal court. Israel, 62, a two-term Democratic sheriff of Broward County, was suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis three days after the new Republican governor was sworn into office. DeSantis cited a list of failures enumerated by a state panel that investigated BSO’s response to the Feb. 14, 2018, shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

'Eleven years I served this county. I hate this county. I prayed to God that he would curse it. And guess what? He did,' he said in the arrest footage. 'Man, I saw it hit and cursed, and I saw people laid off right and left - white people. I hate this county ...' he added. Steven Lamar Foster, 61, was arrested on September 23 of last year and held nothing back as cops cuffed him. New police dash cam footage reveals how Foster insulted Whitfield County, where he's worked for over a decade. Six months later he launched a...

Cook County board meetings are usually dry and filled with policy and procedure details. On Tuesday, that was not the case. There were tears and real emotion. CBS 2’s Roseanne Tellez introduces us to some of the people who got the most unwelcome news, days before Thanksgiving. Some county employees begged for their jobs. Cook County commissioners who supported a penny-an-ounce sweetened beverage tax say they warned of the cost of repealing it: a budget amendment filled with pain. “It has actual layoffs of human beings who have jobs and who have families,” Commissioner Larry Suffredin (13th District) said. Officials...

BISBEE — The dining the room at the Copper Queen Hotel is like taking a step into another era. A grand chandelier from the early 1900s hangs in the center of the long, rectangle room and an antique-style phonograph plays old jazz in the background — the effect is transporting visitors back to what the hotel used to be in the beginning of the 20th century. Steven Reed, the general manager of the Copper Queen, said hotel staff wanted to capture the essence of the early 1900s in one dining room experience and restore the art-nouveau atmosphere the Copper Queen...

WATERLOO - Polygraph testing will soon be used to help supervise and treat local sex offenders. The Seneca County Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed Tuesday to contract with Michael Schank, owner of New York State Polygraph Service of Himrod, to provide the exams under the supervision of the county Probation Department, which will work in conjunction with the Mental Health Department. The service was recommended by the Public Safety & Jail Construction Committee Nov. 28 as a part of the county's new comprehensive sexual offender treatment program. The initial suggestion came from William Kelly, a licensed clinical social worker under...

Earlier today, the official Facebook page for Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County comic strip posted a letter purportedly from the legal team of President Donald Trump...In case anyone had their doubts that the letter is a hoax, comics journalism zine kingpin Christian Hoffer contacted the legal firm to check...it looks likely Donald Trump did not, in fact, threaten the creator of Bloom County over a Facebook meme

Where is the richest county in the nation in terms of average gross income? For a long time now if you’d have guessed one of the collar counties around the nation’s capitol you’d have been correct. You’d also likely be forgiven for suggesting one of the bedroom communities around the Big Apple in Connecticut and New York. They’re traditional magnets for money. But according to Time Magazine, the latest figures show that wealth has begun to aggregate somewhere new and it’s far, far to the west. One county in Texas is now at the top of the heap and...

Continuing to refuse federal immigration detainees at the Westmoreland County Prison could cost $65 million in state funding under a pending sanctuary cities bill being considered in Harrisburg, county officials said. “This is really a horrible piece of legislation,” Commissioner Ted Kopas said of the proposed law overwhelmingly passed by the state Senate in February and now being considered in the House. “We don't have an immigration policy because that is not our job.” The law, if passed, would slash hundreds of millions of dollars in state subsidies to cities and counties that refuse detention requests from U.S. Immigration and...

For many Americans, it feels as if the 2016 election split the country in two. To visualize this, we took the election results and created two new imaginary nations by slicing the country along the sharp divide between Republican and Democratic Americas.

Seneca County NY is taking a stand against sex offenders. It’s among the first counties in New York State to tell moderate and high risk sex offenders where they can and can’t live. New residency restrictions on sex offenders just took effect in Seneca County. Thursday, some sex offenders started looking for a new place to live, because the new law regulates exactly where they can live and keeps them away from kids. Most Waterloo residents are happy about the new residency requirements in their county. County Attorney, Steven Getman, researched the law. He said the main mission in the...

Pension fund chiefs from California and New York City urged Exxon Mobil shareholders on Wednesday to back a measure that would force the company to finely detail how its business will be impacted as governments move to tackle climate change. CalPERS investment director Anne Simpson and NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer also said in a letter they would engage other shareholders as they push the world's largest publicly-traded oil company to say more about how its revenues, reserves and operations could be hurt by the Paris Agreement that governments signed in December to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Their...

The sister of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was killed in a car accident Saturday in Arizona. Pima County sheriff’s spokesman Ryan Inglett said Ann Day, 77, suffered fatal injuries after her vehicle was struck by two other cars near Tucson. Day was a former Arizona Republican state senator and Pima County supervisor. Day was driving eastbound on Ina Road around 7:40 a.m. when an oncoming car crossed the median. Day’s vehicle was struck head-on, Inglett said. A truck traveling behind Day then rear-ended her. She was alone in the vehicle. Paramedics transported Day to the hospital, where...

A DOTD project manager has informed a citizen committee that they must limit their discussion to DOTD's selected proposals for the Interstate 49 extension or resign from the committee. The order, issued in an Tuesday email to the Community Working Group, came from Toby Picard, the engineer who is project manager for the proposed connection of Interstate 49 with U.S. 90 south. There currently are 14 versions of the connection, all of which include at least a partially elevated highway through the heart of Lafayette. These are the only options that are acceptable for discussion by the committee, Picard's email...