Free Republic

Amazon has agreed not to sell foie gras in California from birds that have been force-fed and pay civil penalties as part of a lawsuit settlement, a prosecutor said Friday. The lawsuit filed by prosecutors in Los Angeles, Monterey and Santa Clara counties accused the giant retailer of violating a 2004 state law banning sales of the fatty duck and goose liver delicacy if it was produced by force-feeding birds. A judge approved the settlement on Thursday between Amazon and the three prosecutors, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said. Under the deal, Amazon agreed for the next five...

A combination of recent changes in California’s election rules have lengthened the ballot-counting process and upended traditional voting patterns in a year that Democrats captured a string of U.S. House seats in the state. Suspicious Republicans have pointed a finger at the state’s dominant Democratic Party, suggesting the changes intentionally left Republicans at a disadvantage. Whether Democrats have a clear edge is debatable. What’s not is that vote counts in California now routinely stretch long beyond Election Day. A stunning five million ballots, or more than 40 percent of the overall total, were counted after Nov. 6. Some counties still...

House Speaker Paul Ryan questioned California’s ballot-counting process after Democrats were able to flip several GOP-held seats.The state’s election system “defies logic to me,” he said during an interview with the Washington Post’s Paul Kane. “We had a lot of wins that night, and three weeks later we lost basically every contested California race. This election system they have, I can’t begin to understand what ballot harvesting is.”“We were only down 26 seats the night of the election and three weeks later, we lost basically every California race,” he continued. “This election system they have — I can’t begin to...

California will reconsider life sentences for up to 4,000 nonviolent third-strike criminals by allowing them to seek parole under a ballot measure approved by voters two years ago, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday. The state will craft new regulations by January to include the repeat offenders in early release provisions. Gov. Jerry Brown also will not appeal a court ruling that the state is illegally excluding the nonviolent career criminals from parole under the 2016 ballot measure he championed to reduce the prison population and encourage rehabilitation. The state parole board estimates between 3,000...

Randall Marquis has lived in California for 31 years, but he knew it was a mistake when he received a notice last month that said he was newly registered to vote. He may have a state driver’s license, but he’s a citizen of Canada. “When I saw that card, I just threw it out,” Marquis said. “I know I’m not going to vote. I’m not allowed to vote, it’s stupid that I should be registered to vote.” The Newport Beach resident, who has a green card and is married to a U.S. citizen, was one of some 1,500 people who...

Public health authorities are investigating an outbreak of flea-borne typhus in downtown Los Angeles. Typhus is a disease caused by bacteria found in infected fleas that can come from many kinds of animals including cats, rats and opossums. Symptoms can include high fever, chills, headaches and rashes. Accumulations of trash that attract animals like rats may increase the risk of exposure. Typhus is treated with antibiotics. It is not transmitted person-to-person.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) appeared on CBS This Morning on Tuesday to talk about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Supreme Court nominee Brent Kavanaugh attacked her at a high school party decades ago. Then Harris used the video in a fundraising email to supporters. “Team — Kamala was on CBS This Morning earlier today to talk about Christine Blasey Ford’s serious and credible allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. If you missed it, you can watch the interview here,” the email said and included a link to the video on YouTube. “Please take a moment to watch Senator Kamala Harris’ interview this...

"We're going to launch our own satellite — our own damn satellite to figure out where the pollution is and how we’re going to end it," Brown told the audience at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco..."In California, with science under attack, in fact we’re under attack by a lot of people, including Donald Trump, but the climate threat still keeps growing," Brown added. "So, we want to know, what the hell is going on all over the world, all the time?"..."If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite," Brown said back in...

A new state recommended social studies and history curriculum is being introduced in public schools around California that blatantly promotes a bias perspective on the policy achievements of governor candidate Gavin Newsom. Dubbing him “Champion for People’s Rights,” the first grade textbook teaches kids about “respecting the rights” of others by pointing to Newsom’s advocacy for same-sex marriage, while mayor of San Francisco. The text doesn’t even try to be objective and fails to mention that marriages for same-sex couples were not an established right at the time, but a brand new concept and only legal in a select number...

Last week California’s Department of Motor Vehicles sent 23,000 “erroneous” voter registrations to the office of Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who maintains the list of registered voters. The DMV blamed it technical errors and said none of the erroneous registrations involved undocumented immigrants. Padilla was “extremely disappointed and deeply frustrated” and the DMV assured him it wouldn’t happen again. Legitimate voters have good reason to believe Padilla was not disappointed but delighted. The odds are strong that illegals make up most if not all of the newly registered voters. The registrations of illegals will be happening again, in...

The Los Angeles City Council voted to rename Rodeo Road as Obama Boulevard in honor of former President Obama, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced in a tweet Tuesday night. “We’re thrilled that Angelenos and visitors will forever be reminded of the legacy of President @BarackObama when traveling across L.A.,” he said in the tweet. City Council President Herb Wesson proposed the name change in June 2017. Not to be confused with the upscale Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Rodeo Road is a 3.5-mile street that runs from near the Culver City border east to Mid-City. ETC...

Nancy Pelosi is the chief villain of Republican campaign ads. The leader some Democrats promise to vote against. The subject of much speculation that her grip on power is coming to an end. Nevertheless, she says she’s not going anywhere — and certainly not while President Donald Trump is in the White House. “This is not anything to make a big fuss over, it’s politics,” Pelosi said in a 35-minute phone interview with The Associated Press. “I can take the heat and that’s why I stay in the kitchen.” Pushing back on those who say her leadership position is in...

A dozen alleged members of an MS-13 gang in Santa Cruz have been accused in a revised indictment by a federal grand jury in San Jose of charges including murder, drug trafficking and racketeering.

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Sacramento Police officers clad in riot gear raided an immigration protest on Tuesday. Officers temporarily shut down N Street between Sixth and Seventh streets and got right to work, lifting heavy pieces of furniture including beds and couches, and it all up into truck beds. “We’ve had complaints of their presence noise and inability to get through the sidewalk,” said Sacramento Police Capt. Norm Leong.Police say they collected what’s been “illegally stored” for the last five days. But activists say they were just protesting President Trump’s immigration policies, and claim what may have looked like a campsite...

Two California fathers are in critical condition after they were stabbed by their adopted son. Tom Boulet and Ken Coll were attacked in their Sherman Oaks home at 1 a.m. Tuesday after a reported argument with their son, Matthew Boulet, who had returned home from college. Law enforcement officials found the couple with multiple stab wounds. They were rushed them to a local hospital and are in critical condition, though KCAL reports they are expected to survive. Boulet was found inside the house and officers reported he admitted to stabbing of his fathers. “He was very nonchalant when he said...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the streets of her city are flooded with the excrement of the homeless in an interview Friday. Breed, a Democrat who was inaugurated as the San Francisco’s mayor Wednesday, urged homeless advocacy groups that receive money from the city to teach homeless people to “clean up after themselves.” “There is more feces on the sidewalks than I’ve ever seen growing up here,” Breed told KNTV. “That is a huge problem and we are not just talking about from dogs — we’re talking about from humans.”

Comedian George Lopez was recently seen in a TMZ video emptying a small water bottle onto President Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, acting as though he was urinating. It was unclear when the footage was taken, but the celebrity website posted the video Wednesday.

As the national discourse on race, religion and sexual orientation became increasingly heated in 2017, the number of hate crimes in California jumped significantly for the third consecutive year.

Officials say San Francisco will become the first major U.S. city to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour Sunday under a ballot measure approved by voters in 2014. City Administrator Naomi Kelly says it will be the first to hit the milestone for all workers. But it won’t be the last. California lawmakers approved a plan two years ago to increase the state’s $10 minimum to $15 by 2022. […] Advocates have been urging a $15 minimum, saying workers need a “living wage” to survive. …

The mayor of West Hollywood, Calif., will join city officials on Wednesday to present adult film star Stormy Daniels with a Key to the City and a City Proclamation, according to a media advisory. In the press release, city officials recognized Daniels for her "leadership in the #RESIST movement" and noted that the city has previously passed resolutions calling for articles of impeachment to be introduced against President Trump. Daniels, the release reads, has "proven herself to be a profile in courage by speaking truth to power even under threats to her safety and extreme intimidation." The city will also...