Free Republic

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...

President Donald Trump has called off a "surge" of federal agents and troops in San Francisco planned for this weekend after speaking with local officials. "The Federal Government was preparing to ‘surge’ San Francisco, California, on Saturday, but friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge in that the Mayor, Daniel Lurie, was making substantial progress," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. "I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night, and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn...

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff apologized on Friday for making comments in support of President Donald Trump potentially sending federal troops to San Francisco, where his company is based. “Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” Benioff wrote in a post on X. The Trump administration recently deployed the National Guard to Portland, Oregon and Chicago, sparking protests and lawsuits and resulting in citizens and immigrants being detained without legal representation....

During his first month in office, Mayor Daniel Lurie achieved something remarkable: He received near-unanimous approval from San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to make himself more powerful. The board voted to broaden Lurie’s power to dole out contracts related to homelessness, mental health and drug abuse, and to reduce its own control over the process. In interviews with over a dozen people who work in city politics, most agreed that the new administration is a sea change from former Mayor London Breed’s way of doing things, which was marked by interdepartmental animosity, bad blood with supervisors, and corruption. “There’s a...

Thousands of commuters cross the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge every day, but few realize that beneath its eastern span lies a piece of military history. The Nimitz House, officially named Quarters 1, is a Classical Revival woodframe rectangular house of 5,886 square feet. Quarters 1 was built as part of the initial wave of building construction that established the Naval Training Station, on what was then known as Goat Island, as an active base between 1900 and 1923. The first barracks and the Commander's Quarters were completed in 1900. Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during WWII,...