Free Republic

Fired manager Darin Hodge said the issue erupted when he asked a customer to take off their MAGA hat. In an emailed statement, he said he would do it again. “I stand by my decision to ask the patron to remove his hat. The MAGA hat has come to symbolize racism, bigotry, islamaphobia [sic], misogyny, white supremacy, homophobia. As a person with a strong moral backbone, I had to take a stand against this guest’s choice of headwear while in my former place of work,” he wrote. Eva Gates, Vice president of Human Resources for the Sequoia Group of Restaurants...

Two leaders of a fundamentalist group who between them have 29 wives and 160 children were sentenced to house arrest on Tuesday after being convicted of polygamy. Winston Blackmore, 61, was found guilty last year of having 24 wives while James Oler, 53, was found guilty of having five wives. Blackmore has 149 kids, the Star Vancouver reported. Blackmore's six-month conditional sentence, to be served under house arrest, allows him to go to work and deal with medical emergencies. Oler's term is three months of house arrest. Both face 12 months of probation. Blackmore was also ordered to perform 150...

<p>A woman could be facing charges after an irate confrontation at a Langley Tim Hortons Monday ended in feces being thrown at staff.</p> <p>On Wednesday, surveillance video showing Tim Hortons staff being harassed was posted on Liveleak and YouTube.</p> <p>In the video, which has no sound, a woman can be seen screaming at staff before squatting on the floor and relieving herself. She then picks up the excrement and throws it at staff.</p>

Warning: The details of this story and coarse language references may be disturbing to some readers. Vancouver Island parents say they believe they were doing the right thing when they tackled and restrained a man they allege was in their Port Alberni home to have sex with their underage daughter. RCMP officers responded to a call about a disturbance at a residence in the 3600-block of Bruce Street shortly before 12:30 p.m. Thursday.Mounties arrived to find a 28-year-old man who's being investigated for child luring had been restrained "as a result of vigilante actions." The incident was captured in a...

LANGLEY, British Columbia (Reuters) - Layers of squirming black soldier fly larvae fill large aluminum bins stacked 10-high in a warehouse outside of Vancouver. They are feeding on stale bread, rotting mangoes, overripe cantaloupe and squishy zucchini. [snip] Enterra Feed, one of an emerging crop of insect growers, will process the bugs into protein-rich food for fish, poultry - even pets. After being fattened up, the fly larvae will be roasted, dried and bagged or pressed to extract oils, then milled into a brown powder that smells like roasted peanuts.

On Wednesday night, many Washington residents were greeted by a loud and unexpected sight: a big fireball that lit up the sky. Witnesses reported hearing a loud, booming sound; others reported shaking as the fireball whizzed through the sky. Officials were both surprised and confused by the sudden appearance, later reaching out to the FAA and other agencies in an effort to figure out what caused it. ... Witnesses say the fireball was spotted as far north as the Vancouver region and as far south as Portland. According to Johnson Space Center’s Dr. Marc Fries, this was one of the...

Chelsea Manning was turned back at the Canadian-U.S. border because she was convicted of espionage for passing information to Wikileaks, the former U.S. intelligence analyst said on Monday. Manning told Reuters via direct message on Twitter that she drove up to the Canadian border in Lacolle, Quebec, on Thursday evening, planning to vacation in Montreal and Vancouver. She said she was stopped at the border and detained overnight before being handed a report stating she was inadmissible “on grounds of serious criminality,” according to a picture of the report she posted online. The offenses Manning was convicted of under the...

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Supporters of Donald Trump clashed with protesters speaking out against the president's administration Sunday afternoon during a “Rally for Trump and Freedom" in Vancouver. At least four counter-protesters were detained during the event at Esther Short Park. Supporters and demonstrators alike started arriving at the park around noon. The rally got underway at 1 p.m. with speeches from supporters of the Freedom Movement, local Republican representatives, and live music. More than 150 people planned on attending, based on a Facebook event for the rally. The group then plans to march to the Interstate 5 overpass on Evergreen...

Justin Trudeau has become the first sitting prime minister to participate in Vancouver’s annual Pride parade. He and his family waved to cheering crowds as they led the procession along the rainbow-decorated streets of the city’s downtown on Sunday. Trudeau says Pride is about celebrating community, family and the diversity that he says makes Canada strong. The prime minister is no stranger to Vancouver Pride — this is the third year in a row he’s taken part in the event.

VANCOUVER, Washington -- A 2-year-old girl is in critical condition and fighting for her life after deputies say her own father nearly beat her to death. But one man is being credited with giving her the chance to survive. Don Gilbert is still in shock after he intervened when the girl's father, 32-year-old Kyle Holder, started attacking his daughter at a motel in Vancouver, Washington, authorities say. Deputies say Holder and his girlfriend were in their motel room and their 2-year-old daughter was sleeping when suddenly, Holder grabbed the girl and threw her out the window onto the concrete. Law...

Lena Dunham has launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump, calling the Republican Presidential candidate a "hell hound". The Girls creator and star, who has publicly supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton since the start of her campaign, has been critical of the billionaire since he launched his bid for the White House. And at TheWrap's Power Women Breakfast in New York on Thursday (09Jun16), the actress did not hold back when talking about Trump. Calling him a "maniacal, misogynist, racist, Islamophobic, ableist, transphobic hell hound", she went on to reveal she frequently laughs at the controversial politician. "I think we...

OTTAWA — The Liberal government is intent on buying Super Hornet fighter jets, according to multiple sources. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet reportedly discussed the issue last week, and while no formal decision was taken, one top-level official said: “They have made up their minds and are working on the right narrative to support it.” Rather than a full replacement of the air force’s aging CF-18 fighter fleet, it’s believed the purchase will be labelled an interim measure to fill what Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has warned is a pending “gap” in Canada’s military capabilities. The Liberals promised during the...

The majority owner of a Point Grey mansion that was sold earlier this year by Canaccord founder Peter Brown for a record $31.1 million is a “student,” property records show. Land title documents list Tian Yu Zhou as having a 99-per-cent interest in the five-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 14,600 square-foot mansion on a 1.7-acre lot at 4833 Belmont Ave. Zhou’s occupation is listed as a “student.” The other owner of the property, which boasts sweeping views of the North Shore mountains and Vancouver, is listed as Cuie Feng, a “businesswoman.” Feng has a one-per-cent interest in the property, which was assessed this...

So far, he’s filmed five properties in Point Grey and a few in the south Cambie area. Many of them sit behind blue fences, the telltale sign a backhoe is on its way. Fieldwalker said accessing the properties is simple: “We just go up to them and shoot.” In the following film posted to Fieldwalker’s Vimeo page, the viewer is brought inside a 3,430 square-foot Point Grey teardown on Drummond Drive, which last year sold for $17.5 million. The property’s overgrown lawn, mossy shingles, smashed windows and missing doors suggest it’s been many years since anyone called it home. It's...

Two days ago we introduced you to "the rich kids of Vancouver" for whom the most important decision in any given day is whether to spend half a million dollars on a new Lamborghini or on an investment such as "two expensive watches or some diamonds."From left, Loretta Lai, Chelsea Jiang and Diana Wang attended a receptionat a Lamborghini dealership last month in Vancouver, British ColumbiaWe now introduce you to someone who may be one of these rich kids' dad. Or rather was, because Gang Yuan, a 42-year-old mining tycoon is no longer alive. His corpse was found chopped into...

‘My heart started racing’: Kayaker has insanely close encounter with whale in Vancouver’s English Bay Instagram user johnnyvanuck had a close encounter with a whale on Monday — and has the video to prove it.

“Housing in Vancouver is insane — it was insane when I left and it’s more insane now.”That’s from 33-year-old Kevin Oke, co-founder of LlamaZoo Interactive who left Vancouver for Victoria two years ago because he couldn’t afford to buy a home in his native city even while earning a generous salary as a lead designer at a video-game company whose clients included Atari and Ubisoft Entertainment SA.  Kevin isn't the only one leaving. Vancouver added only 884 net new people age 18-24 last year according to Statistics Canada, and many observers worry the soaring cost of housing will eventually strip the...

The ‘McBarge,’ a floating McDonald’s abandoned for nearly 30 years, is set for a secret Super Size makeover. The restaurant, which cost almost $9 million to build, was originally part of Expo 86, a World’s Fair held in Vancouver in 1986. The original plan for the barge was to move it to a new location after the expo ended. However, the restaurant lost its novelty and was abandoned. The site, formerly known as Friendship 500, is only accessible by boat. Photos of the structure shared on Reddit last week went viral, resurfacing national interest in the barge. Howard Meakin, president...

The foot is the 13th to wash up on B.C.'s coastline since 2007 and 10 of those feet have been identified as belong to seven people. The coroner says that in all of the cases where feet have been identified either accident or suicide was involved. Sooke RCMP and the Coroner are investigating. It is too early to say if the situation is suspicious, police said. Disembodied feet come ashore occasionally on B.C.’s coast.

VANCOUVER -- Police said they were looking for a suspect after more than a dozen Syrian refugees were pepper sprayed late Friday night in Vancouver. The attack happened outside the Muslim Association of Canada Centre during a "welcome night" event for newly-arrived Syrian refugees. City police said a crowd of men, women and children had gathered outside the MAC centre when a man wearing a white-hoodie apparently rode by on a bicycle and sprayed 15 to 30 people. Witnesses said several of those who were hit started coughing and complaining of burning eyes. Police said that a number of people...