Free Republic

Gov. Gavin Newsom is ordering state agencies to begin sweeping homeless encampments on public property, using newfound authority after the U.S. Supreme Court’s OK last month. In an executive order expected to be issued Thursday morning, the governor directs agencies to remove encampments that pose a risk to “life, health and safety.” The order could impact tens of thousands of people living in tent encampments across California. The latest count showed roughly 180,000 people in the state were living without shelter on any given night. The Newsom administration has invested $24 billion in recent years to try to shrink that...

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) will run for governor of California in 2026 after current Gov. Gavin Newsom reaches his two-term limit. The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday: Villaraigosa, who has been out of elected office since leaving Los Angeles City Hall in 2013, joins a crowded field of high-level Democratic candidates that includes Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former state Controller Betty Yee, state Sen. Toni Atkins, and state schools Supt. Tony Thurmond. All are vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second and final term in office.

After the motion was met with resentment, Democratic National Convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa had to call the vote three times to reinstate language into their party platform that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as well as the words "God-given" in a passage about employment

From furniture installers to plant whisperers, businesses are reeling from record-high office vacancy rates.Bay Area carpet and flooring company Conklin Bros. has existed in one form or another for nearly a century and a half, starting with a mule-drawn wagon and weathering the 1906 earthquake and a constant cycle of economic booms and busts. An employee for the past 35 years, JoAnn Edson, can’t remember business ever being as slow as it is now. “We’re struggling,” she said. “We’re just trying to stay open and stay afloat.” Before Covid, Conklin Bros. bustled with flooring orders for local offices, hotels and...

Never has an NCAA Sports Day been so widely and breathlessly covered as it was on Monday.And never has it been clearer that Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, did not just fall out of a coconut tree.With President Biden recovering from COVID-19, the task of honoring top college athletes from across the country fell to Harris, who performed the same duty last year with much less fanfare.This year, of course, the event occurred the day after Biden announced he was ending his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris as the party’s replacement candidate for president....

Amid Friday afternoon’s heat, the five posh floors of Saks Fifth Avenue in San Francisco’s Union Square offered a cool elegance that belied the jarring news from the day before: the store is transitioning to an appointment-only model and laying off staff. What will it feel like to go on pre-arranged shopping trips inside a sprawling department store? That is an open question for customers and staffers. As part of the transition slated for Aug. 28, the store will lay off an unspecified number of employees, according to the Chronicle, which first reported the changes. The news comes at a...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill this week that allows schools to hide information from parents about their child’s gender identity.AB 1955 is the first of its kind in the United States. It prohibits school staff “from enacting or enforcing any policy, rule or administrative regulation that requires an employee or a contractor to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent.”The law—which passed through both chambers of the state’s Democrat-controlled Assembly—means that children can identify by their biological sex at home and a different...

Ex-MSNBC host Keith Olbermann called for CNN to fire one of their most prominent political commentators for juxtaposing former President Trump and President Biden in a way that put the Republican in a positive light. In the weeks following Biden’s widely criticized performance in the presidential debate, the president’s supporters have feuded with his critics who are calling for him to step down in lieu of another candidate.

More than 1,400 Black women and allies have indicated their support for President Biden and Vice President Harris in a letter released Thursday. Highlighting the fact that millions of Americans cast ballots for Biden and Harris in the primary, the women said attempts to change the ticket “disregard” and “circumvent the will of millions of voters who participated in a democratic process.” “The suggestion that any candidate who won their primary should simply step aside because victory appears difficult at the moment is disrespectful to the voters, unjust and undemocratic,” the women wrote. The letter is signed by Black powerhouses...

Total vanity, but if Brandon bows out and kamala becomes president she can't appoint newsom as VP, since they are from the same state.

Nearly 400 public water systems in California have failed to meet recommended safety standards for drinking water, according to a report last month from the State Water Resources Control Board, but a new climate bond measure recently joined the state’s November ballot may help.Some 913,000 Californians, approximately 2 percent of the state’s population, are potentially affected by 385 failing public water systems according to the report.Fifty-six of those systems “serve disadvantaged communities and 67 percent serve majority communities of color.”The annual report identifies California drinking water challenges, part of an effort to improve access to safe drinking water started by...

Delivery drivers in the South Bay say they're increasingly worried about becoming robbery targets. It's happening enough that at least one company, Core Mart, is now hiring armed guards to escort its drivers. ... Flavio Lopez works for another delivery company and said he wishes he had a guard or at least a second person to help him keep an eye on the merchandise. Lopez hasn’t been robbed, but he has had run-ins downtown. "Stuff you gotta deal with downtown," he said. "It is what it is." Darrell Cortez, a retired San Jose police officer who now works in corporate...

Vance thinks that jobs lost because of incompetent central planning don't matter—but that jobs lost to immigrants do.In an interview published this week by The New York Times, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) calls for a more muscular federal government to intervene even more aggressively in the economy than it already does, to create what Vance calls "incentives" for American workers. In doing so, Vance inadvertently reveals one of the major flaws in this line of analysis. Vance's opinions about these things carry significant weight, in no small part because he's on the shortlist to be Donald Trump's running mate. With...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, while campaigning for President Biden in the battleground state of Pennsylvania over the weekend, was asked about his own prospects should the Democratic incumbent exit the race. A longtime top Biden campaign surrogate, Newsom has rallied behind the president's re-election bid, making stops in Michigan and Pennsylvania in recent days. Yet his own name has been floated as a potential replacement for Biden should the 81-year-old president step aside and allow for an open convention, when Democratic delegates convene in Chicago next month to formally decide their nominee.

A mob of looters ransacked an Oakland gas station convenience store and caused thousands of dollars in damage as the frustrated store manager claimed police took nine hours to respond to his plea for help. The horde, who had just attended a nearby car sideshow, broke into the 76 Station near the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport around 4:30 a.m. on Friday, according to ABC 7 News Bay Area. Owner Sam Mardaie estimated approximately 80 to 100 people broke through his store’s front door and grabbed everything they could get their hands on.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), one of several high-profile Democratic politicians seen as a possible replacement for President Biden should he leave the presidential race, slammed former President Trump on Thursday, saying he “wants to take us back to a pre-1960s world.” Newsom then said when it comes to “voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights” that the former president “wants” the U.S. to go backwards. “You got Donald Trump… wants to take us back to a pre-1960s world,” the California governor said in a clip captured by Fox News Thursday and highlighted by Grabien News. Newsom has long been a forceful...

Armed attackers killed a woman in front of her horrified husband as they attempted to rob the couple outside an upmarket Newport Beach mall, police have said. The 69-year old woman and her husband had been outside a Barnes & Noble at the Fashion Island mall when they were approached by two men at around 3.30 pm on Tuesday. A 'struggle' ensued, with one of the men fleeing the scene on foot and firing several rounds with a handgun as he did so, according to reports.

Months of speculation and complaints about when, or even if, Gov. Gavin Newsom would give his annual State of the State address ended Tuesday morning with more of a whimper than a bang. At a few minutes past 10 a.m., Newsom posted a pre-recorded speech to his social media channels. Flanked by American and California flags, the Democratic governor solemnly warned that “the California way of life is under attack” by forces threatened by the state’s diversity, pluralism and innovative spirit. “Our values and our way of life are the antidote to the poisonous populism of the right, and to...

A delegate for President Joe Biden’s reelection effort warned on Monday that black women will abandon the party if Democrats replace the presumptive nominee with another “white man” instead of Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden spoke with a raspy voice and trailed off during the Thursday debate with former President Donald Trump, leading Americans to express concerns about his age and fitness for another four years as president. Areva Martin, an attorney and California delegate for Biden for President, said on “The Stephen A. Smith Show” that Democrats should “stay the course” with the president and that passing over Harris...

President Biden’s campaign is intensely trying to quell speculation that he may drop out of the 2024 race following his lackluster debate performance last week. Most top Democrats have voiced support for Biden continuing in the race, while members of his family, including first lady Jill Biden, have declared they also want him to remain a candidate, casting doubt on the potential for replacing Biden. But if Biden were to step aside, several prominent Democrats could be waiting in the wings as possible successors. Here are the top possible Biden replacements: Kamala Harris Gavin Newsom Gretchen Whitmer Pete Buttigieg Josh...