Free Republic

Taxpayers are yet again helping fund disruptive activism in Los Angeles — this time the radicals planning to chaos across the city and county for Saturday’s “No Kings” protests, which organizers claim will be the biggest yet. One the leading groups participating in the event is the Liberty Hill Foundation, a social justice nonprofit that receives $14 million in Los Angeles city funding for tenant outreach and housing programs. Public filings show the group has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the ACLU of Southern California, raising further questions about taxpayer-supported organizations being used for radical political advocacy. ACLU...

A massive power outage left tens of thousands of people without electricity Thursday night across South Orange County and parts of San Diego County. San Diego Gas & Electric reported that more than 100,000 customers were initially affected. Video taken near the Civic Center in Mission Viejo showed one of the areas impacted by the blackout. Other areas that were impacted included Laguna Hills and Laguna Niguel. The cause of the outage was not immediately known.

California sued the Trump administration Monday to block what it says is an unprecedented power grab: using emergency authority to force the restart of an offshore oil operation shut down more than a decade ago. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, argues a March 13 order by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright oversteps his authority under the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law. “No matter how much President Trump may claim there’s a so-called national energy emergency — it’s just not true,” Attorney General Rob Bonta told reporters. “The U.S. already produces significantly more oil and...

San Francisco's highly publicized problems with drug abuse, homelessness and violent crime are the result of misguided progressive laws and policies, Bill O'Reilly concludes in a new special report, "The Decline and Fall of San Francisco." The Decline and Fall of San Francisco: A Bill O'Reilly Special | On Balance | 43:09 NewsNation |2.62M subscribers | 5,272 views | March 28, 2026

A rising San Francisco political figure has been sidelined by a sudden health crisis, and insiders say her future in office is now hanging by a thread. Jackie Fielder, one of the city’s most outspoken progressive supervisors, has been hospitalized after disappearing from public view for roughly two weeks, according to a report. Her office confirmed she’s dealing with what it described as an “acute personal health crisis,” but offered no further details about her condition. Sources told The San Francisco Standard there has been significant internal upheaval within Fielder’s office in recent weeks, and that she has privately indicated...

Emmy award-winning director Marina Zenovich's Water & Power: A California Heist, a National Geographic documentary film executive produced by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney, unfolds like a real-life version of the 1974 film noir "Chinatown," uncovering the exploits of California's notorious water barons, who profit off the state's resources while citizens endure a debilitating water crisis.

A California dad was arrested this month over his desperate bid to make a dangerous intersection near a children’s park safer. Joseph Brandlin, 44, installed 30-inch-high signs and painted the word “STOP” on the ground — just weeks after his son was nearly caught up in a crash, which he described as the “last straw,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “I was almost done and no one was going to know anything,” Brandlin told officials at a city council meeting March 17. He branded the decision “mind-boggling,” citing other four-way stops in the city, and now risks jail after being...

An ex-security staffer for President Joe Biden who posed for pics with former VP Kamala Harris in front of a presidential jet was arrested for a chilling murder in San Francisco. Nation Wood, 25, was arrested Wednesday, just 24 hours after he allegedly shot and killed Samantha Emge, 22, a 2025 graduate of San Francisco State University, at a home in San Francisco’s Sunset District. Wood identified himself as a part-time security staffer for Biden’s White House Secret Service team starting in November 2023 on his LinkedIn profile. He worked at the White House through July 2025, finishing out his...

Gavin Newsom is reflecting on the long-term grief he dealt with after witnessing his mother end her life through assisted death, also referred to as death with dignity. Newsom was a 34-year-old rising politician at the time and told the outlet that he felt guilty that his busy schedule kept him distant as his mom suffered from the disease. But when the day arrived, he and his sister Hilary were by Tessa’s side. “I hated her for it — to be there for the last breath — for years,” he said. “I want to say it was a beautiful experience....

Cheryl Hines is speaking up after a former late-night television host called her out. It's a feud five years in the making, but is only now heating up. Hines is now responding directly to allegations that she and her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sold comedian Chelsea Handler a “toxic” $6 million Los Angeles home. The transaction took place five years ago, leading Hines to question the timing of Handler's complaint. Speaking on a forthcoming episode of the Fearless podcast, Hines pushed back on Handler’s claims, suggesting they don’t quite add up. “She bought this house five years ago, and...

A former Los Angeles Unified School District employee has been charged in what prosecutors described as a pay-to-play scheme that directed more than $22 million in contracts to a single technology company, making it one of the largest money laundering schemes in the district’s history. Officials with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office allege that between 2018 and 2022, 53-year-old Pasadena resident, Hong “Grace” Peng, who worked as a technical project manager for LAUSD, of illegally awarding Innive, a Texas-based tech company, millions of dollars worth of contracts for work on the district’s My Integrated Student Information System (MiSiS)....

Once upon a time in California, I went to the Orange County fairgrounds to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger give the signal for a wrecking ball to drop onto a vehicle. The audience went wild, and Schwarzenegger went on to become governor and deliver on his promise to roll back a car tax increase, thereby blowing a $4-billion hole in the state budget. SNIP “There’s no historical precedent in modern California history for a governor’s race with such a large field or such an amorphous field of candidates,” said longtime political observer Dan Schnur. “Unless you’re paying very close attention, it feels...

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest wiffle-waffle messaging on Israel is the Democratic Party’s problem in a nutshell: Even while support for the Palestinian people is now at a two-decade high, party leadership simply cannot get in tune with voters.

San Francisco is restoring eighth-grade algebra after more than a decade, with the San Francisco Board of Education voting 4-3 Tuesday night to approve the change, reversing a controversial policy that had eliminated the course in middle schools in the name of equity. The vote follows years of debate over academic rigor, access and declining outcomes, as families increasingly pushed the district to expand advanced coursework options. "Families want to see a public school system that offers rigorous coursework. This is absolutely an instructional strategy," school board President Phil Kim said, according to The New York Times. "But it’s also...

“ Today at the Board of Supervisors, we recognized for the first time, Eid al-Fitr. Eid al-Fitr known as the Festival of Breaking the Fast, marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan—a time observed by Muslims around the world through fasting, prayer, reflection, and acts of charity. It is a time that emphasizes compassion, gratitude, and a deep sense of community....”

A man released from police custody in Azusa was found dead four days later in an unoccupied patrol vehicle parked at the station, officials announced. The gruesome March 26 discovery was made by a civilian employee at 4:51 a.m. in a vehicle that police said was not in active use by department personnel and was pending mandatory maintenance. Medical personnel with the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to the station, located at 725 N. Alameda Avenue, and declared man dead at 4:59 a.m., according to an Azusa Police Department news release. Azusa Police Captain Robert Landeros told the Orange...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom teared up Wednesday when announcing an expansion of the state’s Service Corps geared at recruiting young men. “Forgive me, this is embarrassing,” he said, as his eyes welled. “All the noise, we just need to turn off. Listen to this, this is it,” he continued while wiping tears off his face. “We’re all just sitting there, screaming and yelling at each other, everybody’s getting at each other’s throats, trying to tear everybody down, and how are we going to get out of this? This is it,” he went on. The governor’s teary showcase was in response...

"I don’t want this state that I love to become the country I left,” Steve Hilton tells the lunch meeting of South­ern California Republican Women. Knives and forks rattle on porcelain as the perfectly coiffured ladies down cutlery to clap. Remarkably, Hilton, director of strategy under former British prime minister David Cameron, has topped virtually every poll for governor of California since he launched his campaign in April last year. Hilton has leant into the West Coast aesthetic and spirit. Once the rebel of Downing Street in T-shirts and stockinged feet, today he sports a tech-bro beard, more bracelets and...

A world-renowned Napa Valley restaurant has been hit with bombshell claims of unpaid wages and vile bathrooms. Elena Flows Beteta is suing French Laundry and Thomas Keller Restaurant Group over alleged violations of the California labor code, per the Press Democrat. Beteta, who worked as a dishwasher from 2022-2025, filed the suit in Napa County Superior Court on behalf of her and “over fifty current and former aggrieved employees,” she claims. They claim the restaurant and its owners failed to “consistently pay for all hours worked, including overtime hours.” Beteta and the other employees allege they were repeatedly “required to...

A woman in Los Angeles has filed a civil lawsuit against Puka Nacua alleging the Rams wide receiver made an "unprovoked antisemitic statement" and later bit her on the shoulder. The lawsuit cites gender violence, assault and battery, and negligence. The plaintiff, Madison Atiabi, alleged the events happened on New Year's Eve in Century City. In the court document obtained by ESPN, Atiabi said Nacua said, "f--- all the Jews," and that she "immediately felt uncomfortable and emotionally distressed" because of her Jewish faith. Later in the lawsuit, Atiabi said she was in a car with Nacua when he "forcibly"...