Free Republic

San Francisco's beloved mall will finally shut its doors after years of harrowing decline and fears of crime and homelessness. San Francisco Centre, formerly known as the Westfield Mall, will permanently close on January 26, an employee for the disgraced shopping center's lone remaining store told the San Francisco Chronicle. The iconic mall began spiraling downward with the rest of the Democrat run city after the COVID-19 pandemic. Rumors of the closure have circulated for months as sprawling homeless encampments deterred tourists and locals alike. As downtown foot traffic decreased, the mall saw fewer and fewer customers. Its flagship Nordstrom...

The San Francisco 49ers are hoping to advance, so they can get some of their key players back from injuries in the coming weeks. It has been another season plagued by the injury bug, and there's a wild theory circulating on social media that attempts to explain why. The 49ers have called their current practice facility and stadium in Santa Clara home since 2014. Since then, they've been among the league's worst in missed games due to injury. This week, a self-proclaimed researcher on social media named Peter Cowan claimed it's the substation next door that's to blame -- particularly...

A California NGO called Community Forward SF is running San Francisco’s Managed Alcohol Program The NGO is supposed to provide free alcohol shots for homeless alcoholics They’ve got $16 million per year for 5 years and have ONLY SERVED 55 CLIENTS $80 MILLION DOLLARS “One of these organizations in San Francisco which is supposed to be providing free shots of alcohol to homeless alcoholics. And in five years, at $16 million dollars a year, they've served 55 clients — This is tax money and it buys free shots of booze to street drunks.”

And then there were none. The Panda Express in the basement food court of downtown’s San Francisco Centre, the city’s largest mall, has closed, leaving the woebegone retail destination without any restaurants. A sign informs visitors that the Panda Express location is permanently closed and that they can visit other locations in the city for its orange chicken and other Chinese American dishes. […] The mall’s new owners, a group of lenders associated under the name DBJPM 2016-SFC Emporium, bought the mall’s debt in November. Earlier this month, they sent unlawful detainer notices to three of the mall’s remaining tenants...

San Francisco is ringing in the New Year by pushing for reparations for the city's black residents, to the tune of $5 million per person.How will they pay for it? Well, the ordinance creates a fund of both private and public monies to cover the payments. Mayor Daniel Lurie signed the ordinance into law on December 23. The bill was unanimously passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in early December.Supervisor Shamann Walton, who authored the bill, said the ordinance will "provide restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation to individuals who are black and/or descendents of a chattel enslaved person and...

The mayor of San Francisco discreetly approved a bill to create a fund that may eventually grant each of the city's eligible black residents $5 million in reparations. Mayor Daniel Lurie quietly signed the incredibly divisive Reparations Bill just two days before Christmas. The ordinance establishes a Reparations Fund, as recommended by the city's African American Reparations Advisory Committee (AARAC) in its 2023 report.

A retired San Francisco schoolteacher is accusing the city of running a “Big Brother” surveillance dragnet that illegally tracks everyday drivers. Michael Moore, a retired public school teacher, filed a federal class-action lawsuit Monday alleging sweeping Fourth Amendment violations. Moore says the city’s Flock license-plate reader system unlawfully monitors his movements as he drives to stores, his sons’ schools and family gatherings — all without a warrant or probable cause. San Francisco has installed roughly 450 to nearly 500 Flock cameras along major roadways, making it “functionally impossible” to drive anywhere in the city without having your license plate photographed,...

“The U.S. has no obligation to host foreigners, like Sami Hamdi, who support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wrote. Jessica Russak-Hoffman. (Oct. 28, 2025 / JNS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained British commentator Sami Hamdi at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security stated. Hamdi, who also serves as managing director of International Interest, a London-based political advisory group, was attempting to fly to Tampa to speak at the annual gala of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Waymo is shipping a software update to help its robotaxis navigate disabled traffic lights during power outages “more decisively,” the company said Tuesday in a blog post that explains why its self-driving vehicles got stuck at intersections during a blackout in San Francisco this past weekend. Waymo said the self-driving system in its robotaxis treats dead stop lights as four-way stops, just like humans are supposed to. That should have allowed the robotaxis to operate normally in spite of the massive outage. Instead, many of the vehicles requested a “confirmation check” from Waymo’s fleet response team to make sure what...

Waymo, the operator of driverless ride-hailing vehicles, was also impacted by the massive power outage in San Francisco. Numerous people reported on social media seeing the autonomous cars sitting at intersections, apparently confused because the traffic lights were out. On Saturday night, the Mountain View-based company shared on its app that it has paused service. As of 6 p.m. on Sunday, Waymo service has been restored. Waymo issued a statement to ABC7's Suzanne Phan, writing: "We are resuming ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yesterday's (Saturday) power outage was a widespread event that caused gridlock across San Francisco,...

Metro Long Island Politics World News Search Type to Search Search US News San Francisco power outage left 130,000 in the dark as self-driving cars stalled in middle of streets By Nicholas McEntyre Published Dec. 20, 2025, 11:30 p.m. ET Today's Video Headlines 00:22 / 00:49 San Francisco plunged into darkness when nearly 30 percent of the city was struck by a power outage, which brought vital transportation, such as self-driving cars, to a grinding halt on Saturday night. Over 130,000 houses and businesses were left in the dark, largely in the northwest part of San Francisco, including the Richmond,...

A massive outage has knocked out power to 130,000 homes and businesses across San Francisco, leaving at least one-third of the city in darkness. The power failure left a large swath of the northern part of the city in the dark on Saturday, beginning with the Richmond and Presidio neighborhoods and areas around Golden Gate Park. Social media posts and local media reported mass closures of restaurants and shops and darkened street lights and Christmas decorations. The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were 'significant transit disruptions' happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel...

Hillel is the world’s largest Jewish campus organization, providing a welcoming community, cultural events, and spiritual support for Jewish college students worldwide, aiming to enrich their lives. Last night, the San Francisco chapter was set on fire. During the final Shabbat of the semester—while students and staff were inside preparing for services—an attempted antisemitic mass-casualty attack was carried out at a Jewish building in San Francisco. Police have confirmed it was arson: a suspect arrested, significant damage done, the building shut down, and Shabbat and Chanukah events canceled. This is the inevitable consequence the moment campus quads were allowed to...

The first part of this video begins with ABC Sports coverage of the beginning of Game 3 of the World Series which was interrupted by the quake

Now for the feel-good story of the week: A California immigration judge wept after being abruptly fired mid-asylum hearing, making her the latest victim of the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown. Won’t someone please stop laughing and share in the tears of this victim? Shuting Chen, 41, of San Francisco, was halfway through a hearing on Friday for three Venezuelan siblings who had fled persecution and waited years for their day in court when an email labeled ‘notice of termination’ flashed onto her screen. Chen was appointed by Biden’s handlers in 2022. ‘I started to cry in my courtroom in front...

Justin Raimondo: An American Neo-Fascist By Stephen Schwartz FrontPageMagazine.com | March 15, 2005 Dennis “Justin” Raimondo is a minor celebrity in the U.S., thanks to a 10-year career as an amateur demagogue in the libertarian milieu of the San Francisco Bay Area, a political environment where anything goes and nothing matters. He has the familiar personality traits of the type: “sentimental formlessness, absence of disciplined thought, ignorance combined with gaudy erudition.”  He poses as a conservative but maintains a website at antiwar.com, that features anti-American cranks like Noam Chomsky and is hugely popular with the left – not surprisingly since it...

Presumed 2028 presidential candidate Gavin Newsom, Democratic governor of California and a card-carrying member of the San Francisco elite, has been channeling the ghost of Horatio Alger in a much-mocked attempt to portray himself as someone who made it out of a tough childhood. But Newsom, 58, famously grew up surrounded by the most powerful families in California who not only backed his early business ventures but greased the wheels of his political ascent, sources have told the Daily Mail. Even his staunchest supporters admit that Newsom's early life was not exactly the stuff of deep struggle. But that hasn't...

See comments. Celebrate.

More than 2 1/2 years ago, I wrote about the prostitution problem in San Francisco. Neighbors of one particular street, Capp St., were complaining about a sudden uptick of business on their block that was making it difficult to sleep at night.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that a British journalist, who is suspected of being a member of the Islamic extremist group the Muslim Brotherhood, is in ICE custody and faces deportation from the United States. In a post on X, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin thanked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and “the men and women of law enforcement” for their work. McLaughlin added that the visa of Sami Hamdi has been revoked. “Thanks to the work of @Sec_Noem and @SecRubio and the men and women of law enforcement, this individual’s visa was revoked and...