Free Republic

Walt Disney Co. (DIS) - shares slipped lower Thursday after the company said it would delay the re-opening of its hotels and theme parks in the state of California amid a new surge in coronavirus infections. Disney said it will publish a new re-opening schedule early next month after it receives new guidelines from state officials in Sacramento. Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park had been slated to re-open on July 17, but two consecutive days of record infection rate increases have forced health authorities, as well as Governor Gavin Newsom, into a more conservative strategy. The decision could...

San Francisco’s plan to put homeless people in hotels and motels is not going well. One recent morning a disheveled, visibly disturbed man ran frantically around the lobby of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the historic and elegant property located at the crest of tony Nob Hill. As one of San Francisco’s designated Front-Line Worker Housing (FLWH) hotels, it’s reserved for health-care and public-safety employees working on Covid-19 related matters. But San Francisco is surreptitiously placing homeless people in luxury hotels by designating them as emergency front-line workers, a term that the broader community understands to mean doctors, nurses, and similar...

Oakland's school board voted unanimously Wednesday evening to abolish the school district police force by January, adopting the "George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department." Citing the disproportionate arrests of Black students by Oakland's school police, as well as the district's "obligation to promote the healthy development of each one of its students" and the many alternative ways to handle discipline inside schools, the board directed the superintendent to take steps required to eliminate the department. From the 2015-2016 school year through 2019-2020, Black students have accounted for 73 percent of arrests in city schools but just...

One recent morning a disheveled, visibly disturbed man ran frantically around the lobby of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the historic and elegant property located at the crest of tony Nob Hill. As one of San Francisco’s designated Front-Line Worker Housing (FLWH) hotels, it’s reserved for health-care and public-safety employees working on Covid-19 related matters. But San Francisco is surreptitiously placing homeless people in luxury hotels by designating them as emergency front-line workers, a term that the broader community understands to mean doctors, nurses, and similar professionals. “Do I look scary to you?” the man demanded. “They’re trying to evict me...

<p>A judge has ruled that Rep. Devin Nunes has no right to sue Twitter over statements made by a fake Internet cow, someone parodying his mother and a Republican strategist. Judge John Marshall said in a decision Friday that Twitter was “immune from the defamation claims of” Nunes, R-Tulare, due to federal law that says social media companies are not liable for what people post on their platforms.</p>

An off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer is accusing Target Starbucks employees of hiding a tampon in his Frappuccino. In the hours since his accusations made headlines, employees and former employees of the coffee giant have been trying to disprove the claim. The incident reportedly occurred at a Starbucks nestled in a California Target. Fox 11 reporter Bill Melugin spread the officer’s story on Twitter, where it caught the eye of Starbuck’s employees. The events outlined in Melugin’s tweets and accompanying story didn’t quite add up for some employees, who pointed out issues and holes in his retelling.According to Melugin,...

San Diego Gas and Electric employee was fired after a stranger posted to Twitter a photo of the man making the white power symbol with his hand while in a company truck. Emmanuel Cafferty says he was just cracking his knuckles, but he was suspended and a few days later, fired. It all started about two weeks ago near a Black Lives Matter rally in Poway when Emmanuel Cafferty, a San Diego Gas and Electric employee, encountered a stranger on the roadway. The stranger followed Cafferty and took a picture of him as his arm hung out the window of...

The thunderous sound of fireworks — their blasts sudden, deafening and often terrifyingly similar to gunfire — have reverberated throughout the Bay Area in recent weeks. Residents in the big cities and even in the quieter suburbs report the explosions started over Memorial Day weekend and have persisted through June, waking them in the night, interrupting their babies' naps and scaring their pets. Fireworks packaging has been found around Lake Merritt in Oakland, and Nextdoor boards and Twitter are filling up with news of the booms and bangs in San Francisco. "I’m losing my mind," said SF resident J. Barry....

Park was set to reopen on July 17, but no new date was announced Disney said on Wednesday it will delay the reopening of its Disneyland resort and theme park and did not offer up a new date. “The State of California has now indicated that it will not issue theme park reopening guidelines until sometime after July 4. Given the time required for us to bring thousands of cast members back to work and restart our business, we have no choice but to delay the reopening of our theme parks and resort hotels until we receive approval from government...

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit California around 10:45 a.m. local time Wednesday. The epicenter was near Cartoga, about 180 miles north of Los Angeles. People at several businesses near Lone Pine and Bishop told ABC News the while the shaking was "intense," they didn't see any damage. Several rockslides were reported in Inyo County. Some shaking was felt in LA. This comes a day after a 7.4 magnitude quake hit Mexico, near the resort of Huatulco, killing at least six people and damaging hundreds of homes, according to The Associated Press. At least six others were hurt, including two people...

So, I'm headed to the office and take a detour to get my car washed and drive right in - - no line and no one in front of me. Unreal. At 9am there should be a several cars in line but, nope. It occurs to me that the little guys who use to wash my car or dry are probably out jobs for quite a while. Why? Well, with everyone being paid to work from home by their employers and other being paid to stay home by the American Taxpayer (who went to work today) It makes sense there...

California counties must comply with state and federal COVID-19 rules if they want part of up to $1 billion in funding through the state budget, according to details of a budget deal expected to win approval in the Legislature.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted in an interview Tuesday that Republicans are "trying to get away with murder, actually -- the murder of George Floyd" -- marking a dramatic escalation in rhetoric as the Democrat-controlled House prepares to pass its police reform package. Pelosi, D-Calif., speaking to CBS News Radio correspondent Steve Futterman, said Senate Republicans' reform proposals in the wake of Floyd's in-custody death in Minneapolis were "unsalvageable" and won't make "any difference." Specifically, Pelosi said Democrats want a total ban on chokeholds, which Attorney General William Barr has also suggested he would support. But, Pelosi said, some Republicans...

We were told that the governmental interest in ensuring that hospitals aren’t overrun with too many COVID-19 patients was so strong that it superseded the Bill of Rights. All businesses had to be shut, masks must be worn, church services had to be canceled. As Chief Justice John Roberts said in upholding California’s ban on church services, “When those officials ‘undertake to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties,’ their latitude ‘must be especially broad.’” The very first action one would expect a government to undertake to stem the tide of a virus is to not purposely admit...

The San Francisco 49ers are doing all they can to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement and elevate its status to new heights. Specifically, on Monday, they elevated the Black Lives Matter flag to the top of Levi’s Stadium right next to the California and American flags.

Twelve years ago, officials in Vallejo, Calif., reluctantly took a step that activists are now urging in cities across the country: They defunded their police department. Unable to pay its bills after the 2008 financial crisis, Vallejo filed for bankruptcy and cut its police force nearly in half - to fewer than 80 officers, from a pre-recession high of more than 150. At the time, the working-class city of 122,000 north of San Francisco struggled with high rates of violent crime and simmering mistrust of its police department. It didn't seem like things could get much worse. And then they...

A Farrakhan Supporter Led the LA Black Lives Matter Rally That Became a Pogrom "F___ the police and kill the Jews." Fri Jun 19, 2020 Daniel Greenfield 8 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. "It’s no coincidence that the riots here escalated in Fairfax, the icon of the Jewish community. I saw the Watts and the Rodney King riots. They never touched a synagogue or house of prayer. The graffiti showed blatant antisemitism. It’s Kristallnacht all over again," Rabbi Shimon Raichik, a...

Film producer and philanthropist Steve Bing died Monday of an apparent suicide. Bing lived at a high-rise luxury tower in Century City, where a death investigation was underway. It is believed he jumped from the building. Bing, 55, was a prominent Hollywood producer and contributor to charitable and political causes who was behind films such as "The Polar Express" and the Rolling Stones concert film "Shine A Light." Bing also contributed millions of dollars to nonprofit charities as well as Democratic candidates. "I loved Steve Bing very much," former President Bill Clinton ...

Brett Favre on Monday backtracked his remarks equating Colin Kaepernick with Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety who left his career to join the Army after 9/11. The Hall of Fame quarterback said his comments during an interview with TMZ Sports was not meant to compare Kaepernick and Tillman, “but a recognition that they both sidelined their football dreams in pursuit of a cause.”

The San Francisco Unified School District is moving toward renaming some schools in the city amid a moment of national reckoning on race and history. From the toppling of statues honoring controversial figures who were tied to slavery in Golden Gate Park this weekend to a push to rename Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Marin County, the Bay Area is changing its views on honoring controversial figures of the past. *** The Black Lives Matter movement that has erupted in recent weeks following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has amplified a push to rename schools in the...