Free Republic

Urgency and emotion hung over the thousands of people who gathered at Dolores Park, then took to the streets for the city’s 19th annual Trans March on Friday. This year’s march was set to a backdrop of political anxiety, punctuated by Friday morning’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and months of anti-trans legislation taking hold in dozens of states across the country

A White House staffer and former Texas state representative are among those suing several participants of a "Trump Train" that allegedly harassed a Biden campaign bus last October in Texas, claiming in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the Trump supporters engaged in coordinated, illegal political intimidation in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act. The complaint was filed on behalf White House staffer, David Gins; former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis; former Biden campaign volunteer Eric Cervini; and the driver of the Biden campaign bus, Timothy Holloway. The plaintiffs wrote in their complaint filed in the Western District of Texas...

Dolores Park got a polka-dot makeover on Wednesday morning courtesy of the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department. To aid social distancing as the summer beckons and the region moves into Stage 2 of Gov. Newsom's statewide reopening plan, white chalk circles were painted across the popular two-block park on the western edge of the city's Mission District. The social-distance guidance circles, around six feet in diameter, are designed to help park-goers know when they are getting a little too cozy amid the coronavirus pandemic, and San Franciscans largely welcomed the addition Wednesday afternoon.

A religious organization is suing the city San Francisco to remove an open-air urinal it calls unsanitary and indecent from a popular park. The Chinese Christian Union of San Francisco filed a civil complaint last week demanding the city remove the concrete circular urinal from the iconic Dolores Park. The group says the urinal, which is out in the open and screened only through plants for privacy, “emanates offensive odors,” “has no hand-washing facilities” and “it’s offensive to manners and morals.” …

SAN FRANCISCO — An attorney representing a group of civic organizations has sent a legal claim letter to the city of San Francisco threatening to sue if an open-air urinal in Dolores Park is not removed in 20 days. The concrete circular urinal, which is out in the open and screened only through plants for privacy, was installed in the iconic park last month to the approval of some. They said the park's meager three toilets led some to relieve themselves in bushes and on buildings. But the backlash has already started with six civic groups teaming up in a...

The names of the tech workers in this story have been changed.Ten thousand miles from Silicon Valley, in a room near the Black Sea, Yegor Karpenchekov dreams of money. At night, while the rest of Odessa sleeps and cocaine smugglers drift in and out of the port under cover of darkness, Yegor logs onto FaceTime and talks to a 70-year-old woman in San Francisco. Her name is Sally Faubion, and five months ago she recruited Yegor from the freelancer marketplace UpWork to code her apps. She believes "divine intervention" brought them together; for Yegor, it was likely $20 per hour...