Free Republic

California Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her husband, venture capitalist Paul Pelosi, could earn a windfall of more than $1 million thanks to a bullish bet Paul made on a Bay Area tech company. The couple is eyeing Nvidia, a software and graphics chip company headquartered in Santa Clara. According to a recent financial filing Nancy submitted with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Paul purchased 50 call options in Nvidia with a strike price of $120. The purchase was made on Nov. 22, 2023, and the contracts expire on Dec. 20, 2024. Paul’s call options have a strike price...

The Google engineer charged with murder last week admitted to beating his wife to death with his fist in their $2million Santa Clara home, court documents obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com reveal. Police noticed that suspect Liren Chen’s right hand was ‘extremely swollen and purple’ and that he had blood on his clothing, legs, arms and hands, records reveal. When fire department personnel asked the 27-year-old how he hurt his hand, he replied, ‘I punched my wife,’ and told them it happened the prior day, records state. A friend of Chen told police he’d seen Chen with his wife Xuanyi Yu...

A man has been charged with murdering his Google Engineer wife after he was found 'staring blankly' into space with her dead body nearby. Police arrested Liren Chen, 27, who also works for Google, on January 16 at a home on Valley Way, Santa Clara. He has been charged with murder but his arraignment was postponed after he was hospitalized. Chen was found 'spattered with blood' with an 'extremely swollen and purple arm' kneeling outside a bedroom where his wife was 'deceased on the floor'. His wife, thought to be Xuanyi Yu, had 'severe blunt force injuries to her head',...

Pro-Palestinian protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza flooded Westfield Valley Fair mall in Santa Clara on Black Friday.

Enforcers of the county’s rules reported the number of cars in the parking lot, whether or not masks were being worn, and even instances of hugging.SAN JOSE, California (LifeSiteNews) — A Christian church in California’s Santa Clara County was hit with hefty fines and its members were surveilled via stakeouts, cell phone monitoring, and other measures “reminiscent of totalitarian regimes” after the church defied the county’s draconian COVID-19 lockdown rules in 2020, according to a March 5 report by independent journalist David Zweig. San Jose’s Calvary Christian Fellowship, headed by pastor Mike McClure, openly defied the Silicon Valley county’s harsh...

Financial regulators have closed Silicon Valley Bank and taken control of its deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Friday, in what is the largest U.S. bank failure since the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago. The collapse of SVB, a key player in the tech and venture capital community, leaves companies and wealthy individuals largely unsure of what will happen to their money. According to press releases from regulators, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation closed SVB and named the FDIC as the receiver. The FDIC in turn has created the Deposit Insurance National Bank...

Silicon Valley Bank has been closed by regulators, which have taken control of the bank’s deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced Friday.The California Department of Financial protection and Innovation closed SVB, and named the Federal Deoposit Insurace Corporation as the receiver.The FDIC has created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara, which now holds the insured deposits from SVB.

She was involved in 'pay-to-play' scheme involving gun permits issued by her officeFormer Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith has been found guilty on all six civil counts of corruption and willful misconduct less than one week after retiring. Laurie Smith was found guilty in a civil corruption trial on Nov. 3, 2022. She had resigned as Santa Clara County sheriff three days earlier. Embarcadero Media file photo. Smith was on trial over accusations from a 2021 civil grand jury report that the sheriff's office traded concealed carry weapon licenses to campaign donors and that Smith accepted San Jose Sharks...

The County of Santa Clara Public Health Department announced that all masking metrics have been met and therefore indoor masking will no longer be required beginning March 2. The Public Health Department and the California Department of Public Health strongly recommends that the public continue to wear masks in all indoor public spaces. The California Department of Public Health continues to require masking in higher-risk settings such as public transit, healthcare facilities, shelters, jails, and long-term care facilities. For information on the State’s requirements, visit: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/guidance-for-face-coverings.aspx “We are very encouraged by the progress we have made. We have much less...

Every employee who enters the county and operates in "higher-risk" setting must be boosted or exempted. The County Executive is doing the same mandate for all County employees. Dumb ideas.Steve Kirsch11 hr ago Dr. Sara Cody is mandating that pretty much everyone involved in healthcare in Santa Clara County get boosted without citing a single study showing the long-term impact of her mandate. All the studies I’ve seen all show the opposite. WHERE’S THE SCIENCE SARA? My phone has been lighting up recently. People in healthcare are livid about the latest mandate from Sara Cody, the public health officer of...

Gunfire erupted Wednesday at a railyard in San Jose and a sheriff’s spokesman said there were multiple fatalities and injuries and that the suspect is dead. Santa Clara County sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Russell Davis said that he could not specify the number of fatalities and injuries. “I can’t confirm the exact number of injuries and fatalities, but I will tell you that they are multiple injuries and multiple fatalities in this case,” Davis said. He added that “the suspect is confirmed deceased.”

The hopeful homeowners showed up in droves, queuing on the sidewalk in front of Santa Clara real estate development Nuevo Homes and settling into their makeshift campsites for the night. Then, they waited. The scene resembled some sort of bizarre Black Friday sale with a line of people stretching down the block, many of them lingering there for hours. The doorbuster deal in question? The chance to buy a newly built townhouse, 18 of which were listed for sale on Saturday morning at a fixed price of $1.2 million, reports NBC Bay Area. The properties were constructed by SummerHill Homes,...

Guess she’ll have to take the bus. Funding for a rail project near House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s California district that Republicans denounced as wasteful was removed Tuesday from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill. The Senate parliamentarian ruled the $140 million appropriation wasn’t allowed under the so-called Byrd rule that polices unrelated items in budget reconciliation bills. Republicans singled out the rail project as an example of unrelated “pork” in the bill, which is being rammed through Congress without Republican support using special rules that allow a simple majority vote in the Senate. On Tuesday, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)...

The Supreme Court is telling California’s Santa Clara County that it can’t enforce a ban on indoor religious worship services put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. The high court issued an order Friday evening in a case brought by a handful of churches. The justices, in early February, told the state of California that it can’t bar indoor church services because of the pandemic. The justices said at the time that the state could cap indoor services at 25% of a building’s capacity and continue to bar singing and chanting. ... The justices’ unsigned order Friday said that...

In Gateway City Church v. Newsom, (9th Cir., Feb. 12, 2021), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Santa Clara County, California COVID-19 Order that prohibits all indoor gatherings, including worship services. The court said in part: The challenged ban on indoor “gatherings” ... applies equally to all indoor gatherings of any kind or type, whether public or private, religious or secular. The Directive, which appears to affect far more activities than most other jurisdictions’ health measures, does not “single out houses of worship” for worse treatment than secular activities.

A grand jury in Santa Clara, California, has issued an indictment accusing Apple’s chief security officer, Thomas Moyer, of offering bribes to secure concealed carry permits for Apple employees. Moyer allegedly promised to donated 200 iPads worth $70,000 to the sheriff’s office in exchange for four concealed carry licenses “withheld from Apple employees,” according to a press release from the Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen. “Tom Moyer is innocent of the charges filed against him. He did nothing wrong and has acted with the highest integrity throughout his career. We have no doubt he will be acquitted at trial,”...

Democrat-dominated Santa Clara County, California, used spies to infiltrate North Valley Baptist Church and fined the church $10,000 when they caught worshipers singing during indoor religious services. .... the church was fined $5,000 for holding a religious service on Sunday morning and another $5,000 when the spies caught the Christians praying again on Sunday evening. Various left-wing protests have taken place in the county. And while it's not clear if the county sent spies in to also "monitor" the lefties (highly doubtful), angry protesters have sung, chanted, shouted, and spittled as they express their hatred for the police and contempt...

The message posted on the front door of the North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, California was jarring. “Cease and Desist.” That’s what the four-page letter read. The Santa Clara County Counsel officially ordered the mega-church to shut its doors. They were in violation of the law. The congregation had been accused of holding indoor services, failing to ensure that speakers wore face masks and singing. Yes, good readers, the church stands accused of singing hymns and spiritual songs. “North Valley Baptist is failing to prevent those attending, performing and speaking at North Valley Baptist’s services from singing,” read...

Ultimately, all coronavirus deaths are connected to Wuhan, but that’s not what UCSF microbiologist Dr. Charles Chiu means. He’s talking about different strains of the virus which can be detected with gene sequencing. So, for instance, the original Wuhan strain of the virus can be differentiated from the strain that formed the first U.S. hotspot in Washington state by looking for specific mutations.Dr. Chiu, who has been studying the outbreak in the Bay Area hasn’t been able to test samples from the three early victims of the disease which Santa Clara officials announced yesterday, so consider this informed speculation:...

Pilot run by Google subsidiary Verily offers process toward tests in Santa Clara and San Mateo countiesA pilot Web site intended to offer COVID-19 risk screening and testing for high-risk individuals set to go live Monday, launched Sunday evening. The site is limited to residents of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Participants must be U.S. residents, be 18 or older, speak and read English and be willing to sign a COVID-19 Public Health authorization form. Information on a screening site at Project Baseline, an online health-information platform run by Google subsidiary Verily, said it was “working to deliver COVID-19...