Free Republic

On the eve of surrendering herself at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant St., Wynd Kaufmyn was a flurry of activity: Tailoring an old pair of jeans while chatting with reporters about her upcoming incarceration, stopping to pick up coffee and doughnuts for her official send-off at the courthouse Friday morning, and preparing for dinner with friends at one of her favorite restaurants, Ben ‘N Nick’s in Oakland. It was, after all, her 69th birthday.

(KRON) — A new competition will award up to $150 million to people with ideas to help improve San Francisco. The initiative, called Boundless San Francisco, will award grants of up to $50 million to as many as three organizations with winning proposals. Eligible nonprofits, businesses, academic institutions, and other organizations from anywhere in the world can apply, as long as their idea is designed to benefit San Francisco. Projects can focus on a variety of issues, including housing, education, public spaces, transportation, homelessness, crime prevention, or other ideas that could make the city a better place to live. Organizers...

Leopold Aschenbrenner was hailed as the ‘Nostradamus of AI.’ But his Situational Awareness hedge fund took on too much leverage, leading to a crash he never saw coming.When the week began, Leopold Aschenbrenner was preparing for his wedding. The plan was for a multiday celebration in Carmel, a seaside town in Northern California, with the ceremony at a Tuscan-style villa and the send-off at a spa in the forest. There would also be a pre-wedding colloquium to discuss ideas in panels and breakout sessions. The couple’s only request: no gifts.The 24-year-old investor had amassed a fortune by promising he could...

The Walt Disney Company has dramatically escalated its showdown with the Federal Communications Commission, accusing the agency of carrying out a politically motivated campaign on behalf of President Donald Trump that could strip broadcast licenses from some of Disney-owned network ABC’s biggest television stations. In a 109-page filing, Disney argued the federal agency’s actions amount to retaliation over the entertainment company’s programming, including criticism of the president by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and scrutiny surrounding Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of...

He might be getting just too friendly in the skies. The CEO of United Airlines was caught flying first class with rival American Airlines, his old employer who he has repeatedly taken jabs at and even pitched a merger to after they let him go a decade ago. Scott Kirby, 58, was seen on an American Airlines flight from the San Francisco International Airport on Friday, with flight attendant Kristine Tiley snapping a photo with her former boss. “LOOK WHO I HAD IN my first class today from sfo. What a great guy,” Tiley wrote on Facebook. “Just as nice...

A United Airlines flight reportedly struck a drone midair over San Diego early Wednesday — as the pilot’s alarming message to air traffic control surfaced online. The Boeing 737, identified as flight 1980 from San Francisco, hit the object at roughly 3,000 feet, according to an air traffic control recording posted to X. The pilot is heard saying the aircraft “hit a drone,” describing it as small, red and shiny. No injuries have been reported.

KSBW 8 is learning of a local connection to the tragedy in the San Francisco Bay after a boat sank with 20 people on board Tuesday. Family members had gathered on the boat to scatter the ashes of a Santa Cruz County woman who died more than 10 years ago. The ashes being scattered were those of Maria Vi Boisa, who was reported missing from Santa Cruz County in May 2015. The 32-year-old’s remains were eventually found two months later near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The cause of death remains undetermined, but the San Francisco Chronicle reported that she...

Ruby Rippey-Gibney — the former San Francisco City Hall aide whose affair with Gov. Gavin Newsom nearly upended his political career — will tell her side of the story for the first time in an upcoming Vanity Fair piece, The California Post has learned. Details of the piece remain unclear, but a source familiar with the matter said Rippey-Gibney intends to recount her perspective on the affair that rocked San Francisco politics in 2007 and has remained one of the most embarrassing moments in then-mayor of San Francisco Newsom’s life and career. The story comes as Newsom is widely expected...

A year after a University of California, Berkeley professor was killed during a custody dispute in Greece, his family says they're fighting to try to get alleged squatters out of his East Bay home. The family of Przemyslaw Jeziorski said the alleged squatters have been living in the Berkeley home for months, but California's eviction process has made removing them far more complicated. Jeziorski was shot and killed in Greece last July in the middle of a custody battle. The boyfriend of Jeziorski's ex-wife later confessed to the shooting. Jeziorski's ex-wife, Nadia Michelidaki, died by suicide in a Greek prison...

henmazzig June 28, 2026. Scott Wiener gave them everything they asked for. It still wasn’t enough. He’s spent decades fighting for the LGBTQ community. He passed the pro-trans legislation they’re now thanking him for in the same breath they scream at him. He’s one of the frontrunners to replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress. And earlier this year, he did the one thing they demanded most, he called Israel’s war a “genocide[sic].” And then they chased him out of a march he’d attended for 22 years. Cornered him at a bar and made him perform “free Palestine” on camera....

Wiener caused anger in Jewish community after flip-flopping on the issue amid pressure from pro-Palestinian groups as he campaigns for CongressScott Wiener, the California lawmaker who earlier this month announced that he believed Israel had committed “genocide” in Gaza, is stepping down as a leader of the state legislature’s Jewish caucus. Wiener, a state senator from San Francisco, has been a co-chair of the caucus since 2023. He is currently running for Congress. In a statement released Thursday, he attributed his resignation from the caucus’ leadership position to both his campaign and the backlash over his Israel comments. He will...

Marchers and police clashed on Friday night toward the end of the Trans March in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, according to multiple witnesses and footage of the skirmish. Three witnesses told the Chronicle it all started when police tried to arrest someone spray painting a building on Market Street. When marchers approached and tried to block the arrest, officers responded with force, according to Nora Long and other witnesses. People could be heard on video shared with the Chronicle, repeatedly yelling, “let him go.” there trying to stop them,” Long told the Chronicle. “From there, the cops responded with more violence.”...

The mother of transgender California track athlete AB Hernandez seems to believe that the winner’s podium at a female track event is no place for females.In a speech at the San Francisco Pride Summit on Thursday, Nereyda Hernandez took strong exception to the recent California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) decision to give first-place honors to the female athletes who finished behind her son. Hernandez says the new rule has rendered her son “invisible.”

Buster Posey tried to move on from the Giants’ Pride Night controversy. Instead, his response seemed to frustrate just about everyone. The Giants president of baseball operations met with reporters Tuesday at Oracle Park and opened with a brief statement acknowledging that fans had “strong feelings” about the issue. But when follow-up questions came, Posey repeatedly shut them down. “I’ll answer baseball questions,” Posey said. That did not go over well. The controversy began on June 12, when Giants pitchers Landen Roupp, J.T. Brubaker and Ryan Walker wrote Bible verse references on their Pride Night caps. A fourth pitcher, Sam...

How is this any different than Islamic law in, say, Turkey (Obama's favorite and most trusted ally)? In October, 43-year-old Fazil Say went on trial in Turkey for "denigrating" Islam for a series of tweets earlier that year. In one of his messages he had retweeted a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyám, in which the 11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy. This is the same thing. If the DoJ pursued the vicious, offensive, racist, antisemitic tweets directed at me (and others) by Muslims and leftists, they would be pursuing little else. But they wouldn't and they shouldn't. Note...

(CNSNews.com) – A Muslim civil rights activist told Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) that she stands by the advice posted on her Web site that tells Muslims not to speak with the FBI or other law enforcement personnel unless a lawyer is present. Kyl said he was “stunned” that Farhana Khera, president and executive director of Muslim Advocates, would “issue those kind of instructions,” given the connection between many domestic terror attacks and radical Islam and the importance of cooperation from American Muslims to help thwart those attacks. “I would think that Muslim Americans would feel a special obligation to...

On October 19, 2011, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates delivered a letter to John Brennan, who was then the assistant to the president on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism. The letter was signed by the leaders of virtually all significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council...

In “response to the spike in anti-Muslim bigotry,” the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has quietly scheduled a special hearing for early next week to better protect Muslim civil rights in America. Organized by Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, who chairs the judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, the event will mark the first-ever congressional hearing on Muslim civil rights. Durbin put it together because he claims there’s been a surge in anti-Muslim bigotry in the last year. As examples he offers Quran burnings, restrictions on mosque construction, hate crimes, hate speech, and other forms of discrimination....

Late last week, the San Francisco Giants hosted their "Pride Night," with the team wearing hats with a rainbow-colored Giants logo. Several Giants pitchers, in a statement of their faith, wrote Bible verse designations on their hats. One, starting pitcher Landen Roupp, addressed his reasoning after the game, saying that the verse is about representing "God's covenant." "It's just about God's covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy," Roupp said to reporters. "That's just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I'm thankful we...

The Supreme Court just issued a unanimous ruling, and the case behind it has everything: Twitter, Saudi dissidents, federal prosecutors, and a fake invoice. The decision came down June 11, 2026, in Abouammo v. United States, No. 25-5146. Justice Elena Kagan wrote for a 9-0 Court, reversing the Ninth Circuit and sending the case back. Legal reporter Katie Buehler summed up the ruling this way: The defendant is Ahmad Abouammo, a former Twitter employee accused of giving confidential information about Saudi dissidents to a high-level Saudi official. According to the Court, the Saudi official wired Abouammo $300,000. Later, after Abouammo...