Free Republic

Chick-fil-A, the nationwide fast food chain known not only for its fried chicken sandwiches but also for its charitable foundation’s history of donating to organizations with anti-LGBTQ+ leanings, is facing a community uproar over a proposed new California location in the very gay-friendly city of Palm Springs, according to the Desert Sun and the Palm Springs Post. Plans for the new location at The Springs, a shopping plaza at the northeast corner of Ramon Road and Gene Autry Trail, have been formally submitted to the desert city, but the project is on hold as the company negotiates with the shopping...

Three's Company star Suzanne Somers passed away at age 76 on October 15- one day before her 77th birthday - in Palm Springs, California. Now her husband Alan Hamel, 87,has said that 'very strange' things are happening inside the house they shared together. In one day, three unusual things occurred that made him wonder if the blonde beauty's spirit was in their home, he told PageSix.

Residents of Palm Springs, California, are a bit butt-hurt over a proposed AIDS memorial sculpture looks suspiciously like a human anus. The design, which is meant to honor individuals who have lost their lives to HIV and AIDS, is facing backlash for its “inappropriate connotations,” according to KESQ. Palm Springs residents are not fully convinced that this should be the artistic representation of these deadly diseases, according to the outlet. Mock-ups of how the Downtown Park installation might look show a nine-foot-tall wheel of limestone with striations converging on a hole in the center. The donut-shaped sculpture by Phillip K....

Two suspects are on the loose this evening following a reported robbery at a downtown Palm Springs jewelry store where shots were fired. Witnesses reported two men entered the shop, located on the 190 block of South Palm Canyon, armed with hammers, apparently attempting to rob the store Tuesday afternoon. An employee of the store reportedly fired a gun during the incident and the suspects fled on foot.

He did it for his belle. A Florida man was arrested after speeding 100 mph while driving his girlfriend to a job interview at Taco Bell on Tuesday, according to arrest documents. Jevon Pierre Jackson, 22, was driving along DeGroodt Road near Falls Church Road in Palm Springs — a 40-mph zone — when he began swerving in and out of traffic at high speeds in a black Mercedes, according to an affidavit obtained by WKMG-TV. Jackson flew past an unmarked police vehicle and into a no-passing zone where he “split the lane,” causing a white pickup truck to swerve...

They’ve got a three-year itch. A group of Palm Springs residents are fighting to remove a towering statue of Marilyn Monroe in one of her most iconic poses, arguing that the work is a sexist eyesore that blocks traffic. On Feb. 23, the Art Newspaper reported, California’s 4th District Court of Appeals overturned a motion to dismiss a lawsuit by the Committee to Relocate Marilyn (Crema), which is battling to remove Seward Johnson’s 2011 sculpture “Forever Marilyn” from its current site outside the Palm Springs Art Museum.

At least four large surf lagoons are proposed for the region around Palm Springs, which is more commonly known for art festivals, mountain hikes and golf, and has no natural waves in sight. The proposals, which range from private, luxury communities to a public wave park, come as surfing soars in popularity in the United States. It became an Olympic sport last year, and industry experts forecast its continued growth as travel recovers following pandemic shutdowns and amid a rise in inland surf parks, according to San Jose-California-based Global Industry Analysts Inc. Cheyne Magnusson, a pro surfer who is revamping...

Have you noticed it’s becoming harder to differentiate satire from reality? When I first saw the headline about a city in California approving a program to provide transgender and nonbinary residents a guaranteed income, I was sure it had to be from the Babylon Bee. Oh, but it’s not. It’s also not an April Fool’s joke. It is very much accurate. Earlier this week, the Palm Springs City Council voted unanimously to fund a pilot program that would guarantee a basic income for transgender and nonbinary residents. So far, $200,000 has been allocated for this program, which is far less...

Vice President Kamala Harris flew to Southern California on Friday for a quick trip but the White House was mum about the reason behind it, according to a report. Harris departed Friday afternoon from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and flew to Palm Springs, a resort town about 107 miles east of Los Angeles, The Washington Times reported. The vice president was scheduled to return to Washington on Saturday, the White House said in a statement, according to the newspaper.

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store. The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other...

We’ve previously talked about the problems that New York State has in terms of hanging onto its population. People have been fleeing the state’s high taxes and oppressive liberal government for years now, dropping the state’s congressional representation by several members and putting the state through redistricting every census cycle. Rather than acknowledge what’s really the problem, however, Democratic leaders in the state government continually come up with new and interesting theories to blame these changes on. The latest is a real humdinger. Governor Andrew Cuomo came out this week and blamed the exodus on… Florida. (CBS Miami) This...

New York state lost more residents last year than any other state in the U.S. Newly reported data from the U.S. Census Bureau places New York at the top of the list of just nine states that lost residents between 2017 and 2018. New York lost 48,510 people while Illinois was close with a drop of 45,116 residents. New York is the fourth most populous state in the country, trailing only California, Texas and Florida. As a percentage of total population, New York’s 0.25 percent loss was less significant than that of West Virginia, Illinois, Alaska and Hawaii. But the...

ALBANY, N.Y. (WRGB) - New York State leads the country in an undesirable category. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau says New York tops the nation in population loss. The report says nine states saw a drop in population between July 1, 2017, and July 1, 2018. New York led the way at a loss of 48,510 people. Illinois (45,116), West Virginia (11,216), Louisiana (10,840), Hawaii (3,712), Mississippi (3,133), Alaska (2,348), Connecticut (1,215) and Wyoming (1,197) also lost people. New York's population of 19,542,209 is still fourth-highest in the country. Nevada and Idaho are the nation’s fastest-growing states. Both...

New York State leads the country in an undesirable category. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau says New York tops the nation in population loss. The report says nine states saw a drop in population between July 1, 2017, and July 1, 2018. New York led the way at a loss of 48,510 people.

Cuomo blames weather for New York's population decline Posted: Sep 25 2018 03:25PM EDT Updated: Sep 25 2018 03:31PM EDT ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed the upstate weather for prompting New Yorkers to flee to other states. Cuomo told reporters Tuesday that while job losses and high taxes once drove people to leave New York, his administration has ended that trend and improved the local economic situation. He said many of the New Yorkers leaving the state now are doing so for personal reasons or decisions that he called "climate based." The comments came after Cuomo's...

The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service of the University of Virginia analyzed Census Bureau population projections to estimate each state’s likely population in 2040, including the expected breakdown of the population by age and gender ... we see that, in fact, the [US] population will be heavily centered in a few states. Eight states will have just under half of the total population of the country, 49.5 percent, according to the Weldon Cooper Center’s estimate. The next eight most populous states will account for an additional fifth of the population, up to 69.2 percent — meaning that the 16...

States with high taxes are at risk of losing people, business and money. In fact, conservative economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore argue that up to 1.3 million people will leave California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Minnesota and New York over the next three years and move to states with lower taxes. The impact of tax migration is particularly interesting to examine in a state such as Florida, a low-tax swing state that is expected to pick up two Electoral College votes. While the northern area around Orlando contains large communities of conservative-leaning Midwestern migrants, Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton see...

In the tweet confirming he switched his official residency from New York to Florida, President Trump said, “Despite the fact that I pay millions of dollars in city, state and local taxes each year, I have been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state.” As if on cue, those leaders instantly proved his point. “Good riddance,” thundered Gov. Cuomo. “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out,” chimed in Mayor de Blasio. Their sneering hostility is yet another example of how Cuomo and de Blasio are failing to take advantage of having...

The trial of a man charged with killing two Southern California police officers in an ambush-style attack began with tears Wednesday, as jurors cried when the prosecutor in the case held up the AR-15 rifle used in the killings and described the fatal wounds. Prosecutor Manny Bustamante told jurors in opening statements that admitted gang member John Hernandez Felix targeted the officers simply because they were police. Some cried as he spoke of their wounds. Palm Springs Officers Lesley Zerebny and Jose "Gil" Vega were killed while responding to a domestic violence call at Felix's mother's house on Oct. 8,...

Study finds that faults beneath the Salton Sea ruptured during Colorado River floods and may have triggered large earthquakes on the southern San Andreas FaultSouthern California's Salton Sea, once a large natural lake fed by the Colorado River, may play an important role in the earthquake cycle of the southern San Andreas Fault and may have triggered large earthquakes in the past. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Nevada, Reno, discovered new faults in the Salton Sea near the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. By examining...