Free Republic

Hana Ghanim, a UC Berkeley student, doesn’t feel safe at school anymore. Ghanim and other Muslim students at universities across the Bay Area are taking precautions after a number of hate crimes occurred on their campuses since the Nov. 8 presidential election of Donald Trump, who said during his campaign that he would ban people of her faith from entering the country. Her fears come after an incident Nov. 10 on the UC Berkeley campus in which three men threatened to rip off a student’s hijab, or headscarf, and taunted her over Trump’s stunning victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

San Francisco’s District Attorney said on Friday that he feels the need to reiterate that hate crimes won’t be tolerated, and undocumented immigrants will be protected. The declaration is in response to what George Gascon says is an uptick in hate-related incidents across the Bay Area and burgeoning concerns about the safety of immigrant communities after Donald Trump was elected president on Nov. 8. “The fear in the community is real,” he said. At the Hall of Justice, Gascon announced a hotline that people can use to report hate crimes. “This will not be a place where hate will be...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

It's worth asking why Elizabeth Holmes is still leading the embattled blood testing company Theranos Inc. But there may be a good reason why she still is in charge, one that has little to do with the scandal-ridden company's performance to date. Forget what venture capitalist Tim Draper — one of the first to invest in the Palo Alto company — implied this week that Holmes is being attacked because she's a young, female entrepreneur. The simple fact is that Theranos has not been able to deliver on its technology from a commercial, scientific or regulatory standpoint, and that falls...

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - Charges against 25 protesters who stopped traffic on the Bay Bridge in January were dismissed this morning by a San Francisco Superior Court judge, according to an attorney representing the group. The group, known collectively as the Bay Bridge 25, was arrested on Jan. 18 on the bridge on suspicion of misdemeanors, including obstructing traffic on a freeway, public nuisance and unlawful assembly, in addition to having their cars impounded.

When the Rev. Robert H. Schuller decided in the mid-1970s that his congregation was outgrowing the drive-in, low-slung Garden Grove church that Richard Neutra had designed for him 15 years earlier within earshot of Interstate 5, and that he needed a purpose-built cathedral to accommodate his increasingly popular “Hour of Power” televised sermons, he flew to New York to visit the architecture firm run by Philip Johnson and John Burgee. On the face of it, Schuller and Johnson were a very strange match, the self-made Orange County televangelist and the smoothly moneyed New York architect who was also an atheist...

POWAY, Calif. – Poway Unified School administrators sent a letter to parents Tuesday claiming that bullies have created an “unsafe learning and working environment” for a few students and staff since the presidential election. The letter, sent by acting Superintendent Dr. Mel Robertson, claims that the students and employees were targeted because of their race, religion or political beliefs. “Our students cannot learn when they are afraid or bullied and I know I speak for our full community in saying this cannot continue,” Dr. Robertson stated.

2016 has not been too kind to Elizabeth Holmes, the Steve-Jobs wannabe in charge of fraudulent Theranos. She has thus far been banned for 2 years from operating labs, removed from hosting fundraisers for Hillary and lost her entire net worth. And now, the Wall Street Journal has published the "tell-all" story of the whistle-blower, 26 year old Tyler Shultz, who brought the the whole Theranos farce crashing down. It's a sordid tale complete with all the expected twists and turns of a Jason Bourne thriller including intimidation, coercion and private detectives. Tyler Shultz is the grandson of George Shultz,...

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Got milk? Chances are it’s from California. There are more dairy cows in the Golden State than anywhere else in the country. But all that milk and cheese comes at a cost to the planet. Tom Frantz keeps a running count. He says dairy farms have taken over his farming community in the San Joaquin Valley. “There are ten of them within what I call smelling distance of my home,” he said, noting they’ve moved in in just the last 10 years.

In issuing its annual survey of state finances, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has affirmed the wisdom of Gov. Jerry Brown’s push for Proposition 2, the 2014 ballot measure that amended the California Constitution to create a sizable rainy-day fund and set aside money when revenue is free-flowing for use when it dries up. The LAO estimates that if California’s economy continues its modest growth and new spending commitments are not made, the state will end the 2017-18 fiscal year with $11.5 billion in total reserves. Of that amount, $8.7 billion can be used only for future budget emergencies. The...

A former teacher who made national news nearly two decades ago when she tried to retain her job at a Sacramento-area high school while transitioning from male to female has been charged in an Oakland triple homicide. Dana Rivers, 61, of San Jose was arrested early Friday in Oakland on suspicion of killing Patricia Wright, 57; Wright’s wife, Charlotte Reed, 56; and the couple’s 19-year-old son, Toto Diambu-Wright. Police said the two women were both stabbed and shot, and the man was stabbed. They were pronounced dead at the scene. Police said Rivers was covered in blood and about to...

After working at Theranos Inc. for eight months, Tyler Shultz decided he had seen enough. On April 11, 2014, he emailed company founder Elizabeth Holmes to complain that Theranos had doctored research and ignored failed quality-control checks. The reply was withering. Ms. Holmes forwarded the email to Theranos President Sunny Balwani, who belittled Mr. Shultz’s grasp of basic mathematics and his knowledge of laboratory science, and then took a swipe at his relationship with George Shultz, the former secretary of state and a Theranos director. “The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this...

2 Child Protective Services' Employees Placed on Administrative Leave Pending Investigation into 2-Month Old's KidnappingThe baby boy is currently being held in a foster home in Mazatlán, Mexico Two Child Protective Services' (CPS) employees were placed on administrative leave after a 2-month old baby was kidnapped by his mother and taken to Mexico, a spokesperson with San Diego County confirmed with NBC 7. Baby Maximus Garcia was taken by his 36-year old mother Erika Ramos Saucedo last Thursday. The 2-month old had been dropped off at the South Bay Womens Recovery Center in National City by a CPS employee for...

In the Spring of 2019, Californians will go to the polls in a historic vote to decide by referendum if California should exit the Union, a #Calexit vote. You will have this historic opportunity because the Yes California Independence Campaign will qualify a citizen’s initiative for the 2018 ballot that if passed would call for a special election for Californians to vote for or against the independence of California from the United States. This is a very important question. It is the responsibility of this campaign to explain what a yes vote will mean for you, your family, your community,...

Pomona College reportedly paid for students to attend rallies protesting President-elect Donald Trump, and provided them with a phone number to call in the event of any arrests. The school’s Draper Center for Community Partnerships wrote in a Facebook post on Nov. 11 that it would fund the transportation costs for 70 students to attend an “anti-hate rally” the next day in Los Angeles, reported the Claremont Independent. “We are sponsoring a group of 70 students to go to the anti-hate rally in LA tomorrow morning!” the Facebook post read. “Please share with your communities—as of now, this is open...

Embattled Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a victim who has been "totally attacked," venture capitalist Tim Draper told CNBC on Tuesday. Holmes has been under fire since a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal suggested the blood-testing start-up's testing devices were flawed. "Elizabeth Holmes is a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated. She is a woman entrepreneur who built a fabulous company, did great things for consumers and she got attacked," the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson said in an interview with "Closing Bell." "This is a great entrepreneur who...

Theranos Inc. allegedly voided 11.3% of all blood-test reports that the Silicon Valley laboratory firm provided to customers of Walgreens stores through a yearslong partnership between the two companies, according to legal papers the drugstore chain filed Tuesday. Theranos, whose main lab failed an inspection by U.S. regulators earlier this year, told Walgreens in June that it subsequently voided 31,000 test reports provided to the chain’s customers, Walgreens said in the public version of a sealed lawsuit.

A civil liberties group on Tuesday filed a lawsuit that could slow California’s plans for resuming executions. The ACLU of Northern California challenged a state law that gives the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation wide flexibility in establishing execution procedures. Delegating such policy decisions to a state agency, the suit says, violates separation of powers provisions of the California Constitution. The suit follows a Nov. 4 decision by the corrections department to finalize new regulations for conducting lethal injections and the subsequent passage of a ballot measure intended to expedite executions. A separate lawsuit challenging Proposition 66 is pending before...

A high school girl in California beaten for supporting Trump. This makes me glad he won!!