Free Republic

Once again, my math shows one Orange County house costs roughly what three median-priced American homes do. Yes, plenty of real estate affordability benchmarks exist. One I track is a personal concoction that paints a simple picture: the ratio of the median selling prices of existing single-family houses in Orange County to the same measure nationwide, according to the National Association of Realtors. In 2016’s second quarter, Orange County median price was a record high $742,200. That’s the third highest among the 178 markets surveyed by the Realtors group. Nationwide, pricing hit $240,700, also a record. This means local homes...

This hefty hound really did not want to have a bath - so his owner had to drag him across the grass to get him to the hose. The English bulldog, named Doughnut, was not expecting a wash at his home in Orange County, California. He spotted the coils of the hose from afar and decided to resist - by playing dead.

I just got back from voting in Orange county. It is the lightest I have ever seen. Three voters the whole time I was there plus me.

A large police presence was expected to be on hand in hopes of keeping any possible protests outside of Donald Trump's rally in Anaheim under control Wednesday. The event at the Anaheim Convention Center was scheduled to begin about noon as Trump returns to Orange County for the first time since a campaign rally in Costa Mesa on April 28. Seventeen people were arrested when violence erupted outside the Pacific Amphitheatre on the OC fairgrounds that day. Video from Sky5 showed a protester jumping on top of a parked patrol car at the event. One of the protesters was charged...

Orange County (CA) voters: help defeat Andrew Stein, a liberal candidate for Superior Court Judge. From his FB page: "I am a Democrat, raised in a family of working people and union members. I am a liberal, in that I believe that drug addiction and drug addicts need rehabilitation, as opposed to being warehoused in a cell." What Stein does do not mention (and deletes comments about it) is that he defended a animal abuser in 2011. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/dog-312079-stein-nizato.html If you can, please post comments on his FB page: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewMSteinforsuperiorcourt2016/

... Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, will make a rally stop at the Anaheim Convention Center on Wednesday, according to his campaign website ... Sen. Bernie Sanders will be making a campaign stop in Irvine on Sunday and another Tuesday at the Anaheim Convention Center ... Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, also is expected to be in Orange County next week, according to a campaign email sent Saturday. No other event details were immediately available ...

Laguna Beach's LSD culture in the 1960s, a cranky widower befriended by his chatty neighbors and a man who's dealing with the fallout from his reality show days are all stories that will be told at the Newport Beach Film Festival this year. At this, the 17th annual festival, there are more than 400 features, short films and documentaries from 50 different countries. It's a chance to see things that likely won't appear elsewhere, especially in the United States. The festival starts this Thursday and runs until the following Thursday. "The largest misconception about any film festival is that these...

Full title: 'Night Stalker' movie will premiere in Santa Ana, about 20 miles from the Mission Viejo site of his last crime A new film – “The Night Stalker,” starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Richard Ramirez – is set to premiere in Orange County in early June after producers decided the movie should be seen in an area that the serial killer terrorized in 1985. “We wanted to open in a place where he had an impact,” producer Matt Brady said. The film will be screened at The Frida Cinema, the art house theater in downtown Santa Ana, about 20...

Digital First Media will be the next owner of The Orange County Register and The Press-Enterprise, a bankruptcy judge ruled Monday. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Mark Wallace approved a request from Freedom Communications to approve the newspaper company’s sale to Digital First Media, the second-highest bidder in last week’s newspaper auction, a deal worth around $52 million to creditors. None of the major players objected to the deal. Digital First Media, the nation’s second-largest newspaper company by circulation, won after the auction’s top bid by Chicago-based Tribune Publishing, owner of the Los Angeles Times, ran into antitrust problems. Digital First...

ORANGE – Jim Reeves grew up eating burgers at Watson’s. The 57-year-old, who says his family moved to Orange in 1893 “in a covered wagon ... before Watson’s opened,” says his parents also ate at Watson’s. So did his grandparents. Watson’s, which opened in 1899 as the drugstore in downtown Orange, is one of the county’s oldest businesses. It’s where Tom Hanks filmed part of “That Thing You Do!” It’s also where George W. Bush once stopped in for a malt. In Orange, Watson’s is an icon. Now, that icon and the town around it are about to change. A...

The Orange County Sheriff's Department is investigating a courthouse fight that broke out Wednesday between a District Attorney's investigator and a defense attorney who triumphed over prosecutors in a recent case involving jailhouse informants. The investigator and attorney got into an argument that turned physical around 10 a.m. in a hallway outside a 10th floor courtroom, Lt. Mark Stichter said. He didn't know what prompted the argument. But defense attorney James Crawford said he was attacked by a DA investigator he didn't recognize. "My back was to him and the next thing I know I find my head getting slammed...

A 96-year-old Laguna Woods man has been charged with molesting two girls, ages 10 and 11, authorities said Monday. Kenneth Leroy Collins is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday on four felony counts of lewd or lascivious act with a minor under 14, according to court records.

FULL FOOTAGE: Planned Parenthood Orange County Changes Abortions to Harvest Intact Fetuses IRVINE, March 1--A new undercover video shows the relationship between Planned Parenthood’s late-term abortion clinic in Orange County and a local for-profit biotech company, Da Vinci Biosciences, to harvest the organs of aborted fetuses to sell nationally and internationally. The video, produced by The Center for Medical Progress, highlights a conversation between Dr. Jennefer Russo, the Medical Director at Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties, and citizen journalists from The Center for Medical Progress posing as a for-profit fetal tissue company similar to Da Vinci. Dr....

Three people were stabbed, one with a flagpole, and 12 people were arrested during a brawl on Saturday morning between self-described Ku Klux Klan members and counter-protesters at an Anaheim park, police said. Initially arrested were five Klan members – four men and a woman – and seven counter-protesters – five men, a male juvenile and a woman. Seven people were booked in the Anaheim jail on assault or abuse charges. Police are seeking one additional suspect who can be seen in a video of the altercation punching a Klansman.

Three people were stabbed, including one who was critically wounded, and 13 were arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupted in violence Saturday, police said.

Authorities were still investigating how the inmates obtained their escape tools and said no disciplinary action had been taken in the wake of the escape. ... more than 10 people have been arrested since the escape. Among them is a teacher who had a "significant role" in the planning of the jailbreak. The 44-year-old Lake Forest woman was arrested Thursday on suspicion of accessory to a felony in helping the inmates escape from lockup in downtown Santa Ana. She allegedly provided the men with Google Earth maps of the jail complex, according to investigators. One of the escaped inmates, Nayeri,...

The two remaining fugitives who escaped from an Orange County jail last week were arrested by San Francisco police, authorities said Saturday. The suspects were arrested at around 9 a.m. in the city's park district police area, according to San Francisco police officer Grace Gatpandan. Officials had said Friday that Hossein Nayeri, 37, and Jonathan Tieu, 20, were probably in the Bay Area and might be headed to Fresno. No details about the arrests were immediately available. The Orange County Sheriff's Department scheduled a press briefing for noon in Santa Ana. The location of the arrest was not provided. But...

Full title: 'Oh my God, they let Hannibal Lecter out': Deputy D.A. says O.C. Sheriff was too lax with escaped inmate A deputy district attorney compared one of the men who escaped Friday from the Central Men's Jail to a movie villain and contended the Sheriff's Department was too lax in its handling of the suspect after it was warned about his violent past. "He's diabolical," said prosecutor Heather Brown, who is handling the 2012 case against Hossein Nayeri on charges of kidnapping and torture. "My first reaction was: Oh, my God, they let Hannibal Lecter out. He is sophisticated,...

With all the guns owned by Americans and the surge of purchases every time President Obama opens his mouth on the subject, there is still a huge population of adult Americans who have no knowledge of guns and how they work. I would fall into that category even though I once owned a rifle, but that was a lifetime ago; any knowledge I then had has totally dissipated. My son was interested in the experience so we engaged my brother who target shoots as a hobby and he willingly provided us a primer on the gun range experience. We met...

At 5:45 Saturday evening, a full moon will rise over the Saddleback Mountains and shine down upon Orange County. As it does, will the moonbeams bring mayhem and madness with them? Maybe. But rest assured, the county's law enforcement officers will be more than ready to keep the peace. There has always been a perception among cops, firefighters and emergency room personnel that there's more (and often stranger) crime on the night of a full moon. "When something crazy or weird happens, I look up at the sky to see if the moon is full," says Newport Beach police Officer...