Free Republic

Photos appearing to show Chinese vendors offering beverage discounts in celebration of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s assassination began to crop up on Chinese social media platforms. “Celebrating Abe’s death Milktea buy 1 get 1 free for 3 days straight,” read a Chinese language-printed banners. “Celebrating Abe’s death, Buy 1 get 1 free,” read another promotion. “Celebration Abe’s assassination, all beer buy 1 get 1 free,” read a poster. The social media posts advertising free drinks in honor of Abe’s death on Friday are indicative of a general wave of anti-Abe sentiment that has washed over Chinese social media...

A George Soros-backed prosecutor in Virginia released on probation a violent repeat offender who went on to kill an elderly homeless woman—the third case of its kind in the jurisdiction this year. Fairfax County commonwealth's attorney Steve Descano (D.) in October charged Chante Antonio Jones with assault and battery before releasing him on recognizance, slapping him with just a $212 fine and one-year period of supervised probation. Police on Monday arrested Jones for beating 63-year-old Michelle Huntley to death at a bus stop where she had taken shelter. The brutal killing last week is just the latest instance in which...

Can we stop playing nice and admit Islam is hundreds of years behind the rest of the world? A gruesome video shows an Iranian “man” smiling as he tours a neighborhood showing off his wife’s severed head in one hand and a large knife in his other. ... Husband of the year Sajjad Heydari decapitated his wife in an “honor killing.” What did the 17-year-old woman do to deserve this? She was sick of being abused. According to the New York Post, Mona Heydari married her cousin Sajjad when she was 12 years old. She was a victim of ongoing...

One of two young Americans convicted Wednesday of killing a Rome police officer "is in a bad place" after being sentenced to life imprisonment, Italy's stiffest sentence, a lawyer and spokesman for his family told CBS News.Elder and his co-defendant Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, now 20, got into an altercation with two police officers in July 2019 while the two friends — then teenagers — were on vacation in Rome. During the incident, Elder stabbed officer Mario Cerciello Rega 11 times with a 7-inch military-style knife he had brought from the United States, while Natale-Hjorth fought with another officer, Andrea Varriale.

A court transcript shows little was done by the Philadelphia DA’s office to prosecute the alleged killer of an 11-year-old for a previous assault charge mere weeks before the murder occurred......“When I was in the DA’s office, you typically had three strikes before the case would be discharged for lack of prosecution,” said Lorainne Donnelly, who served over ten years at the Philadelphia’s DA’s office. “But in this transcript, the prosecutor was not ready to proceed at the second court listing and specifically told the Judge that the Commonwealth ‘did not have a motion,’ signaling to the Judge that she...

The family of Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot while participating in the pro-Trump invasion of the U.S. Capitol, plans to sue the police department and the officer who fired the gun for at least $10 million.News of the forthcoming lawsuit came more than two weeks after the Justice Department said it would not file criminal charges against the officer who killed Babbitt.Terrell Roberts, an attorney for the Babbitt family, told CNBC it had not been determined when, or in which court, the civil lawsuit against the U.S. Capitol Police would be filed.

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) -- HPD Police Chief Susan Ballard said three police officers tried non-lethal force first, including by deploying a Taser, before fatally shooting a 29-year-old suspect multiple times in Nuuanu on Wednesday night who was repeatedly punching them. The man had no weapons and no criminal record. When Ballard was asked whether the suspect reached for or grabbed one of the officers’ guns, she said that is still under investigation. Ballard spoke Thursday morning, defending the officers’ actions and saying they all walked away from the incident with injuries. One of the police officers, the first on the...

San Francisco restaurants will reopen indoor dining on Wednesday, March 3, Mayor London Breed announced at a media event held Tuesday. This will be the first time diners are allowed to take a seat inside the city’s restaurants since COVID-19 cases skyrocketed by 250 percent last NovemberAccording to a statement from Breed’s office, “at this time, San Francisco is averaging 67 new cases a day, which is comparable to where the city was in mid-November before the surge.” The city’s “new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have decreased steadily since the holiday surge that peaked in early January,” the statement says.Inside,...

The thought hit me early this morning. One rich group of politicians constantly sends out messages about how horrible the "other side" is and a huge number of people on that group's side screams, "Get them!". The problem is, each rich group is exactly like the other side. They care little to nothing about the Bible, Jesus or God, they're both immoral, both lie, both care little or nothing about the poor, both gossip, both deceive, both curse, both cheat and steal assets, both drink alcohol in prodigious quantities, do drugs, etc., ad nauseum. It's no wonder Republicans voted against...

Two deputy U.S. marshals were shot early Friday morning in the Bronx as they tried to arrest a 35-year-old man sought in connection with the shooting of a state trooper in Massachusetts, the authorities said. The man, Andre K. Sterling, was killed as he exchanged fire with the deputies, who were expected to survive, the authorities said.

t may contain the “Crossroads of the World,” but Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday that Manhattan is “not the center of our universe.” Only about 10 percent of Manhattan office workers were back as of Sept. 18, more than six months after the coronavirus pandemic upended life in the Big Apple, the Wall Street Journal had reported, citing data from commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group Inc. “When Mayor de Blasio makes dismissive comments about the dire lack of commercial activity in Midtown, he’s really dismissing the needs of hundreds of thousands of everyday New Yorkers who will...

Elevator etiquette requires that no more than two parties share a ride, and that’s only if the next party in line says it’s OK. And Broadway is still dark, an ominous symbol of what Covid has wrought on the Big Apple.

Six weeks after the city and county of San Francisco reopened restaurant dining rooms, cases of COVID-19 have skyrocketed by 250 percent, city officials say. That’s why, as of 11:59 p.m. on Friday, November 13, 2020, restaurants will be required to shut their indoor dining operations down again, and to revert to an outdoor dining, takeout, and delivery model for an unknown period of time. “With winter on the way, limited indoor dining represented the only real hope for many restaurants to survive the next three months,” the GGRA says, as “the majority of restaurants simply cannot make it financially...

San Francisco’s Department of Public Health (DPH) has shut down at least 10 bars across the city, saying that even after repeated warnings, the venues continued to violate health orders intended to slow the spread of COVID-19. And according Ben Bleiman, the city’s most vocal defender of bars and nightlife, they should shut down even more. According to DPH spokesperson Jenna Lane, that list is accurate, but she hastened to add that all of those closures were only temporary, and that as of November 11, all the bars had reopened. Here’s how it works, Lane says: Members of the public...

The Bay Area’s brief indoor dining boom is over, as Santa Clara, Marin, and Contra Costa Counties announced that all restaurants must move back to takeout, delivery, and outdoor service as of Tuesday, November 17, after a sharp uptick in cases of COVID-19. Those three counties join San Francisco, which closed dining rooms as of November 14, even as other regions, like Alameda and Solano counties, warn that they might also revert to takeout and outdoor service only.

San Francisco CrossFit helped broaden the appeal of a type of training that was considered unconventional in the fitness industry when it opened 15 years ago. Now the popular business has become another victim to the pandemic. CrossFit held a final training session on Sunday then closed for good. Longtime members of the facility said the loss is much bigger than just a gym. They said they will miss the community and the relationships that they’ve built over the years. “It’s really sad. I mean we’ve been here for 15 years. As you can see, you know, there’s a huge...

With coronavirus again surging across California, officials are faced with a narrowing number of options to slow the spread.Weekly coronavirus cases have doubled in the last month around the state, and Los Angeles County recorded more than 6,800 cases over the weekend, an alarming spike that has officials talking about more restrictions.

San Francisco pausing its reopening plans due to increasing coronavirus case and hospitalization reports, early signs that the surge that has swept over most of the United States is starting to seep into the Bay Area. Almost all activities that were scheduled to reopen or expand capacity on Tuesday are now delayed, city and public health officials said Friday. That includes indoor swimming pools, bowling alleys and gym locker rooms. Restaurants and places of worship must remain at 25% capacity instead of bumping up to 50% as planned. “Throughout our response to COVID-19, San Francisco demonstrated our willingness to make...

As we noted last week, there is nearly 12 million square feet of vacant office space now spread across San Francisco, including 5.6 million square feet of un-leased space and 6.2 million square feet of space which has been leased but is now sitting vacant and actively seeking a subletter (which is up from 770,000 square feet of sublettable space at the same time last year). For context, the 1,070-foot-tall Salesforce/Transbay tower at First and Mission, which is the tallest building in San Francisco, contains 1.35 million square feet of office space spread across 59 floors. In other words, there’s...

Non-essential offices are allowed to bring employees back to their buildings in San Francisco starting Tuesday. A 25% indoor capacity limit still applies. Under the new guidelines, employers must conduct a health check of employees each day. “When they started realizing what was happening, they shut down our office and made us permanent remote, ” said SF resident Christiana Ratto. “I don’t think anyone is ready to go back to the office. The more I talk to them, it’s still a little iffy.” “I don’t think anyone is ready to go back to the office.” CHRISTIANA RATTO, SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENT...