Free Republic

Earlier this offseason, the San Francisco 49ers made Katie Sowers the second female full-time coach in NFL history. Kathryn Smith, who spent the 2016 season as a special teams quality control coach for the Buffalo Bills, was the first. On Tuesday, Sowers herself made history, when she opened up to OutSports and become the first openly LGBT coach in the NFL, male or female. "No matter what you do in life, one of the most important things is to be true to who you are," Sowers said. "There are so many people who identify as LGBT in the NFL, as...

A former US secret service agent has pleaded guilty to stealing over $800,000 worth of bitcoin during an investigation into online drug marketplace Silk Road. Shaun Bridges, 33, appeared in federal court in San Francisco and admitted to money laundering and obstruction of justice. Silk Road operated for more than two years until it was shut down in October 2013 having generated more than $214m in sales of drugs and other illicit goods using bitcoin, prosecutors said. Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road’s creator, who authorities say used the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, was sentenced to life in prison after a federal...

Pelosi wants permit for white nationalist rally at Crissy Field to be reconsidered SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is asking the National Park Service to reconsidered allowing an alt-right white supremacist rally to happened at San Francisco’s Crissy Field. The National Park Service has already issued the permit for the event that’s scheduled on Aug. 26. “Patriot Prayer” is a two-day event that honors freedom, spirituality, unity, peace, and patriotism, according to the group’s website. However, there are concerns that this event will provoke a situation similar to what happened in Charlottesville over the weekend. Pelosi...

(SF GATE) — San Francisco’s top political leaders piled on Tuesday in opposition to a right-wing group’s planned rally next week at Crissy Field, with Mayor Ed Lee expressing outrage that the National Park Service granted a permit for the event and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi questioning whether it had been approved “under guidance from the White House.” An organizer of the Aug. 26 rally rejected suggestions that it would be a gathering of white supremacists. And the local managers of the Presidio, a national park site, said the group’s politics made no difference because it had a constitutional...

Two people charged with murder in the fatal shooting and robbery of a San Francisco man at the Twin Peaks lookout last month entered not guilty pleas today in court. Fantasy Decuir, a 20-year-old San Francisco resident, and Lamonte Mims, a 19-year-old Patterson resident, face charges including murder, second-degree robbery and inflicting injury on an elderly adult in the July 16 fatal shooting of Edward French.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Thursday for the federal government to reverse the deportation of an Oakland nurse and her husband, saying their removal after more than two decades in the country revealed the “cruel and arbitrary nature” of President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Responding to a front-page Chronicle story about the couple — who plan to leave for Mexico on Tuesday with their 12-year-old son, while leaving behind three older daughters who have legal status — Feinstein’s office set up a meeting Thursday between the California Democrat and the family to discuss their plight. “These are the kind...

SAN FRANCISCO - First a Chinatown gangster dubbed Shrimp Boy and state Senator Leland Yee were both nabbed in a federal corruption sting. Now three others who were also targets of that undercover operation may be going to trial on corruption charges. That's exactly what the judge in this case has to decide - whether or not there's enough evidence and probable cause to go to trial. The three are accused of four counts of bribery and one count of money laundering. All three were high profile city officials. The three defendants are former city Human Rights Commissioner Nazly Mohajer,...

Near the end of Thursday’s BART Board of Directors meeting, the transit system’s elected leaders found themselves in the unusual position of staring at something not on the agenda: a fresh puddle of urine. BART directors usually meet twice a month in a clean, quiet, windowless board chamber in Oakland, but this time they took a field trip to Powell Street Station to view its “challenges” — homeless people sleeping in hallways, intravenous drug users, rundown conditions, dirty floors, and elevators and escalators used regularly as restrooms.

There are political movements to push the federal minimum hourly wage to $15. Raising the minimum wage has popular support among Americans. Their reasons include fighting poverty, preventing worker exploitation and providing a living wage. For the most part, the intentions behind the support for raising the minimum wage are decent. But when we evaluate public policy, the effect of the policy is far more important than intentions. So let's examine the effects of increases in minimum wages. The average wage for a cashier is around $10 an hour, about $21,000 a year. That's no great shakes, but it's an...

SAN FRANCISCO — In what one aviation expert called a near-miss of what could have been the largest aviation disaster ever, an Air Canada pilot on Friday narrowly avoided a tragic mistake: landing on the San Francisco International Airport taxiway instead of the runway. Sitting on Taxiway C shortly before midnight were four airplanes full of passengers and fuel awaiting permission to take off, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the “rare” incident. An air traffic controller sent the descending Air Canada Airbus 320 on a “go-around” — an unusual event where pilots must pull up and...

‘We are different’: Activist defends $190K payout by taxpayers to an illegal for being turned over to ICE(full title) Crime literally pays in the city of San Francisco. Only in American can an illegal immigrant sue a city for the indignity of having the law enforced against him in a country he’s not supposed to be in and win a six figure payout. San Francisco reached a settlement with Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno, an illegal alien from El Salvador, awarding him $190,000 after police turned him over to immigration authorities when he went to a police station to recover his stolen car,...

House Republicans took action Thursday to crack down on illegal immigrants and the cities that shelter them. One bill passed by the House would deny federal grants to sanctuary cities and another, Kate’s Law, would increase the penalties for deported aliens who try to return to the United States. Kate's Law, which would increase the penalties for deported aliens who try to return to the United States and caught, passed with a vote of 257 to 157, with one Republican voting no and 24 Democrats voting yes. Kate's Law is named for Kate Steinle, a San Francisco woman killed by...

San Francisco taxpayers could soon pay $190,000 in a lawsuit settlement with an undocumented immigrant who claimed he was reported to federal immigration authorities in violation of the city’s sanctuary city ordinance, the City Attorney’s office confirms to KPIX5. The settlement is expected to be confirmed by San Francisco supervisors in future hearings. Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno walked into the police station on December 2, 2015 to recover his stolen car. When he left the station, he was immediately taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A document from federal immigration authorities released by his attorneys indicates that a San...

Hundreds of thousands of revelers descended on Market Street on Sunday morning to join the explosion of color and chest-thumping music as the 47th annual Pride Parade took over downtown San Francisco.

on Ossoff, the 30-year-old Democrat candidate for Georgia's special election runoff this coming Tuesday, reported having nine times as many donors from California than from Georgia in the past two months. Between March 29 and May 31, Ossoff reported 7,218 donations from California and only 808 donations from Georgia, The Mercury News reported. This means he took 8.9 times as many gifts from the Golden State. In the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area alone, Ossoff reported receiving 3,063 donations in the same period, nearly four times his Georgia total. These are only the donations he is required...

Students and Jewish community members filed a lawsuit Monday against San Francisco State University and Cal State’s board of trustees, alleging that the San Francisco campus of the country’s largest public university system has long cultivated a hostile environment in which Jewish students are “often afraid to wear Stars of David or yarmulkes on campus, and regularly text their friends to describe potential safety issues.”

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?” The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark. Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they...

A UPS driver shot-and-killed three of his co-workers in San Francisco before turning the gun on himself. The gunman has been identified as Jimmy Lam. When police were called to the scene at around 9 a.m. local time on June 14, officers reported that the shooter was “down.” In total, Lam shot 5 people, killing three, two other people were wounded and are being treated at Zuckerberg San Francisco General. The UPS facility in question, along 16th and Potrero streets, is the main UPS facility in the city. Lam was a resident of the San Francisco-area.

11:55 a.m. Authorities say the shooter who opened fire at a San Francisco UPS warehouse was armed with an assault pistol when police found him. San Francisco Assistant Police Chief Toney Chaplin told reporters that officers found wounded victims and brought them to safety Wednesday. When they found the gunman, he put the weapon to his head and shot himself.

At least five people were shot at a sprawling UPS warehouse and customer service center in San Francisco, officials confirmed to NBC News. The shooting early Wednesday led to a massive police response and a shelter-in-place warning for the Portero Hill neighborhood and surrounding area. San Francisco police responded to the UPS warehouse on 17th Street and Potrero Avenue, according to a tweet from the San Francisco Police Department. Authorities had earlier said at least two people were being treated for injuries in connection to the shooting. An official later confirmed that at least five people were shot and that...