Free Republic

San Francisco's streets are so filthy that at least one infectious disease expert has compared the city to some of the dirtiest slums in the world. The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit surveyed 153 blocks of the city in February, finding giant mounds of trash and food on the majority of streets. At least 100 discarded needles and more than 300 piles of human feces were also found in downtown San Francisco, according to the report. San Francisco's new mayor, London Breed, had proposed adding nearly $13 million to the city's $65 million street cleaning budget over the next two...

WASHINGTON – The United States Department of State authorized on Monday the voluntary evacuation of all non-emergency government employees stationed in Haiti and their families due to widespread protests in the country. The US government’s advisory comes after protests erupted in Haiti on Friday after the government decided to hike fuel prices by 37-50 percent, a decision which has since been reversed, but which has failed to quell the protests. “The US government authorized the voluntary departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and their families. Right now, the US government has limited ability to provide emergency services to US citizens,”...

On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned American citizens, volunteers and missionaries in Haiti to stay in place and hunker down after angry demonstrators attempted to get past a barricade and security guards at a Port-au-Prince hotel. CNN reports that American Airlines, JetBlue and the Spirit Airlines (whose official slogan is: “We’re like a Greyhound bus with wings”) canceled all flights to Haiti following unrest in the country related to rising fuel prices, corruption and widespread poverty. When comparing them side-by-side, the story of the American Revolution ain’t got shit on the history of Haiti. For black people, Haiti...

The mayor of a major British city is mincing no words in expressing his feelings about U.S. President Donald Trump’s impending visit to the United Kingdom. Sheffield Lord Mayor Magid Magid said this week that Trump is “banned” from entering his city, and declared July 13 — the day the president is due to arrive in the U.K. for his state visit — as “Mexico Solidarity Day.” Magid, whose official designation is “Lord Mayor,” which is a ceremonial title given to mayors of some major U.K. cities, announced his decision during a Sheffield City Council meeting on Wednesday. Magid wore...

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Tourists are turning away from the City by the Bay, while a huge medical convention has cancelled plans to meet in San Francisco, saying its members don’t feel safe on the streets. Locals may feel comfortable, but visitors are often shocked when the reality of San Francisco’s streets is a far cry from its postcard image. Tourists once took home memories of famed cable cars. These days, too often it is of the image of someone begging, or dancing in circles, or just wandering around the streets intoxicated or mentally ill. “You can smell it,”...

, HOST: Port-au-Prince, Haiti is a city of more than 3 million people with no sewer system. International donors have spent millions of dollars on infrastructure meant to help the situation. But a multi-year plan to build sewage treatment plants all over the country has stalled. And residents say things are getting worse. Rebecca Hersher reports. REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE: Port-au-Prince's low cinderblock housing projects are the frontline of the sewage problem in the city. Project Drouillard or Project D is hopping on a sunny Friday afternoon. Men are playing dominoes. Kids are shooting marbles in the narrow dirt alleyways. (CROSSTALK)...

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment." In plain English: s--- is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. ... Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — President Trump’s dismissal of Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “s-hole countries” whose inhabitants are not desirable for U.S. immigration shocked people around the world and provoked swift condemnation. “The African Union Commission is frankly alarmed at statements by the president of the United States when referring to migrants of African countries and others in such contemptuous terms,” said Ebba Kalondo, the spokeswoman for the African Union. The reaction from the United Nations human rights spokesman, Rupert Colville, was uncharacteristically blunt. He described the remark as “racist.” In Haiti, people took to Twitter to share...