Free Republic

Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to announce Monday that the Stay-at-Home Order will be lifted in all regions of the state, according to a letter from the California Restaurant Association to its members. The letter, dated Sunday, said senior officials in the Newsom administration confirmed this with the association. "We see promising signs that California is slowly emerging from the most intense stage of this pandemic. We continue to look at what that means for the Regional Stay at Home order and anticipate that the state Department of Public Health will provide a formal update tomorrow morning," said Brian Ferguson,...

According to Bloomberg, real-estate data analytics firm Green Street released a new report outlining how the office space market in San Francisco will be the worst-preforming market in the US for 2021. Even though office vacancies in Manhattan are at record highs, it appears San Francisco tops New York City as companies reevaluating their space thanks to the pandemic. Green Street estimates that rent and occupancy may plunge 22% in San Francisco this year, the largest expected decline of any other city in the country. New York was number two with -17%, Los Angeles in third at -9%. Source: BloombergAll...

<p>A California church that espouses anti-LGBTQ beliefs and has been the recent target of protests was bombed with an improvised explosive device early Saturday morning, authorities said.</p><p>The El Monte Police Department responded to calls around 4:30 a.m. about smoke at First Works Baptist Church. Officers discovered windows were broken and realized there had been a blast, Lt. Christopher Cano told reporters at the scene. There were no injuries or deaths.</p>

An El Monte church that was threatened this month with an arson attack over its extremist views and condemnation of same-sex marriage was damaged early Saturday, Jan. 23, when someone threw a bomb at the building, blowing out windows. No one was injured in the explosion, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. The First Works Baptist Church at 2600 Tyler Ave. was also vandalized, the El Monte Police Department said. The FBI is investigating the attack, which it said involved “an IED,” or a homemade or “improvised” explosive device. The church, a target of recent protests, has asserted that the government...

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that private gatherings account for the vast majority of new statewide cases, while less than 2 percent are coming from bars and restaurants. Cuomo referenced a statewide contact-tracing data set, which collected information on how new cases have spread from September to November. According to the data, 74 percent of new cases have come from private social gatherings. The troubling information in this is that 74 percent of new cases are coming from household gatherings and living room spread," Cuomo said. "In many ways, you can understand what happened. You close bars, you close...

The rejection rate was lower than in the March primary, when 102,428 mail-in ballots were disqualified in the state’s 58 counties, or about 1.5% or the nearly 7 million mail-in ballots returned. A proposal under consideration in the Legislature would extend the universal vote-by-mail system for another year, which would cover a potential recall election for Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021 In the run-up to November, then-President Donald Trump was among the skeptics who questioned the integrity of mail-in elections, saying without evidence that “a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting.” Historically, there is no evidence of widespread voter...

The windows had “blown out from some type of explosion,” Cano said. The walls outside had been vandalized with profanity. Labeled a hate group for being “anti-LGBTQ” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the First Works Baptist Church is the subject of a Change.org campaign that’s seeking to oust the place of worship out of El Monte. The petition was started three weeks ago and has so far garnered more than 14,790 signatures. A group called Keep El Monte Friendly had planned a protest at the church this Sunday morning.

When President Joe Biden announced former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg as his pick for Transportation Secretary, many scratched their heads. Why would he tap someone who oversaw a small budget, in a small town, in the midwest for such a roll? That puzzle is finally coming together. It turns out that Biden favors Buttigieg's transportation views, specifically the idea that America should move away from the gas tax and instead opt into a tax based on the number of miles a person travels. It would be a new way to provide cash for the Highway Trust Fund, which...

The State of California became the worst of the 50 states in distributing its share of coronavirus vaccines on Thursday, as other states picked up their pace. Despite improving from 27.5% last week to 37.3% this week, California is “dead last,” as SFGate.com reported Friday: Thursday’s update to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker shows that the national rate increased from 38.8% last week to 48.6% this week. Last week’s 50th-ranked state was Alabama, which saw its usage rate jump from 21.2% to 41.1% week-over-week. For reference, California was ranked 49th last week.

It was supposed to be a lesson in anti-racism held schoolwide. On the afternoon of Inauguration Day, students at the highly-selective, public magnet Lowell High School were told to submit anonymous thoughts on race and inequity in a public "share board" on a school-sponsored forum, Padlet.

Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) has made good on his promise to begin his effort to “decriminalize all drug use” step by step with the introduction of several bills at the start of the new legislative session. Senate Bill 57 creates “safe injection sites” where drug addicts can use illicit drugs under medical supervision. Senate Bill 73 lowers the criminal penalties on users and dealers of heroin, opiates or opium derivatives, salts, cannabis, phencyclidine (PCP), and other dangerous drugs. Still promised, but not yet introduced, is a bill Wiener says will legalize all psychedelic drugs such as LSD and magic...

When The Washington Post published a 2019 campaign trail feature about then-presidential hopeful Kamala Harris’ close relationship with her sister, it opened with a memorable anecdote in which Harris bizarrely compared the rigors of the campaign trail to…life behind bars. And then proceeded to laugh—at the idea of an inmate begging for a sip of water. It was an extremely cringeworthy moment, even by the high standards set by Harris’ failed presidential campaign. But now that Harris is vice president, that awful moment has seemingly vanished from the Post’s website after the paper “updated” the piece earlier this month. Here’s...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Friday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is sending the article of impeachment against former President Trump to the Senate on Monday, paving the way for a trial. The House of Representatives this month voted to impeach Trump for the second time in his presidency for "incitement of insurrection" after a mob of his supporters besieged the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a failed attempt to stop the certification of then-President-elect Joe Biden's electoral college win. "I've spoken to Speaker Pelosi who informed me that the article will be delivered to the Senate on...

Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, was one of only a handful of Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over his role in inciting the Capitol riot. More than a majority of GOP House members have since indicated they'd support ousting Cheney from her leadership spot, while at least two other Republicans have lined up to replace her, Politico reports. At least 107 House members — more than half the caucus — privately support removing Cheney from power, multiple GOP sources involved in the effort told Politico. Meanwhile New York Reps. Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin, who defended...

A federal lawsuit was filed against social media giant Twitter on Wednesday on behalf of a teenager, who claims that the company waited for days to remove sexually graphic videos of himself and another minor posted to its platform by sex traffickers. The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California is done so on behalf of the minor, who is identified in the legal filing as a 16-year-old Florida resident. Withholding the child’s real name for privacy concerns, the plaintiff is referenced in the filing by the name John Doe. Doe is being represented...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has from the start said his coronavirus policy decisions would be driven by data shared with the public to provide maximum transparency. But with the state starting to emerge from its worst surge, his administration won’t disclose key information that will help determine when his latest stay-at-home order is lifted. State officials said they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.

Twitter refused to take down widely shared pornographic images and videos of a teenage sex trafficking victim because an investigation “didn’t find a violation” of the company’s “policies,” a scathing lawsuit alleges. The federal suit, filed Wednesday by the victim and his mother in the Northern District of California, alleges Twitter made money off the clips, which showed a 13-year-old engaged in sex acts and are a form of child sexual abuse material, or child porn, the suit states. The teen — who is now 17 and lives in Florida — is identified only as John Doe and was between...

Today, U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (OR-04) introduced the Wall Street Tax Act, legislation to create a new tax on financial transactions that would generate billions in revenue, while reducing speculative trading and volatility in the market. “High-frequency traders front-run the market and drive up prices for individuals, pension funds and other value investors,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio. “Some days high-frequency traders trade billions of shares that they sometimes hold for only seconds or less. They reap enormous financial benefits for themselves and their privileged elite investors but add no value to our economy. Congress needs to rein in excessive speculative...

On October 13, 2020 The Pivtorak Law Firm filed a class action and taxpayer lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against the heads of one of California’s largest state agencies, alleging that they created racially discriminatory policies and practices that are steeped in Critical Race Theory. The suit alleges that Wade Crowfoot, the Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency and Charlton Bonham, Director for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, implemented policies that create racial preferences in connection with recruiting, hiring, and other conditions of employment for state employees and which overtly treat people as racial categories rather...

CNN’s Manu Raju asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if pursuing impeachment against former President Trump at the start of the new Congress would undermine efforts to create unity with colleagues from across the aisle. “No, I’m not worried about that,” Pelosi said during her weekly news conference. “The fact is, the President of the United States committed an act of incitement of insurrection. I don't think it's very unifying to say, oh, let's just forget it and move on. That's not how you unify," she continued. When Pelosi said, “just because he is now gone,” she paused to say “thank...