Free Republic

The ‘iDIVERSE’ program bars white and Asian researchers from applying.. The University of California, Los Angeles, medical school was hit last week with whistleblower allegations that its admissions office has for years discriminated on the basis of race, in violation of California law, by holding black and Latino applicants to lower standards than their white and Asian counterparts. The allegations triggered an email message from the dean of the medical school, Steven Dubinett, who denied the claims and said that students and faculty "are held to the highest standards of academic excellence." He subsequently told an obscure Los Angeles Times...

A former college professor has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison over a string of arson fires in Northern California in 2021 as fire crews were battling the second-largest fire in the state’s history. Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, of San Jose, pleaded guilty in February to three arson counts in connection to fires in the Shasta National Forest and near the Dixie Fire in the Lassen National Forest. The Dixie Fire burned over 1,500 square miles after igniting on July 13 and destroyed over 1,000 homes. Maynard was accused of setting fires behind firefighters battling the...

Dollar Tree has saved 170 shops that were set to be shuttered by rival 99 Cents Only after it went bankrupt.It is a boost for budget shoppers in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Texas - who have been mourning the loss of the popular chain.Dollar Tree announced on Wednesday that it had bought rights to the leases for the stores.At the same time, it has paid for the 99 Cents Only's 'intellectual property,' meaning it has the option to keep some stores open under the brand or even open new ones using it.West Coast-based 99 Cents Only had a cult following...

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that 5.8 million fentanyl-laced pills have been confiscated throughout California since January by the state’s Counterdrug Task Force in collaboration with local and federal law enforcement agencies. As state officials celebrate consistently increasing confiscations of the synthetic opioid, though, experts say that the seizures will likely not affect the illicit drug market significantly. Over the last three years, the number of fentanyl-laced pills confiscated statewide has increased dramatically. In 2021, only 1.5 million pills were seized statewide. That number jumped almost sevenfold to 10.3 million pills seized in 2022, and then more than doubled...

Randi Weingarten's American Federation of Teachers defends pro-Hamas campus occupations as 'peacefully demonstrating' The American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten claimed that anti-Israel protesters on college campuses were simply "peacefully demonstrating." The American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten claimed that anti-Israel protesters on college campuses were simply “peacefully demonstrating.” The Tuesday statement from the AFT came in response to a hearing last week from the House Education and the Workforce Committee where leaders of Northwestern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California, Los Angeles, were grilled regarding their response to campus anti-Israel encampments. ”AFT members...

A Democrat California state senator working to prolong the time pedophiles spend behind bars is fed up with members of her party for not being fully on board. On May 23, lawmakers were considering legislation that would make it a felony to buy or solicit a minor for commercial sex, the New York Post reported Thursday. While speaking on the State Senate floor during the meeting, State Sen. Susan Eggman (D) said, “I’d like to say, as a progressive, proud member of this body for the last twelve years, I’m done. I’m done with us protecting people who would buy...

Pro-Hamas protestors were at it again, this time setting fire to the Israeli embassy in Mexico City, with some reports of injuries, puzzling quite a few observers. According to the Jewish Chronicle:Rioters on Tuesday set fire to the Israeli Embassy in Mexico during a protest ostensibly against the Israeli military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.Masked protesters threw stones at security forces who had created a barricade preventing access to the diplomatic mission in the Mexico City’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.Around 200 people participated in the “Urgent Action for Rafah” demonstration, dozens of whom attempted to break down...

It's no surprise that San Francisco is run by a bunch of insurrectionists. How many of us secretly believed that the city was only barely American in the first place? There is even a Nelson DeMille book in which the ultra-conservative baddies plan on nuking San Francisco because it was full of anti-American zealots. It's hard to argue with their reasoning about S.F., but I would never endorse nuking any city, no less one as beautiful as the City by the Bay. Still, you wouldn't expect the city fathers (mothers? Nonbinary caregivers? Degenerate lawmakers? What should I call them?) to...

A Southern California woman who was previously arrested on suspicion of kidnapping a child from a Target store was arrested again Tuesday on similar charges. The suspect was identified as Yara Vanessa Pineda, 27, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Officers responded to Seoul International Park on the 3200 block of San Marino Street in the Koreatown neighborhood at around 5:14 p.m. Witnesses said Pineda had approached several children at the park and picked them up before letting them go after being confronted by their parents. The woman was reportedly seen fighting with the parents as well. Witnesses recalled...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) argued that there’s never a wrong time to recognize a Palestinian state but Hamas shouldn’t be involved in it and while the ICC shouldn’t arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we should have something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Co-host John Berman asked, “Do you think this shows that terrorism pays?” Khanna answered, “No, it doesn’t. We should recognize a Palestinian state. That has been the United States’ policy, a two-state solution, 143 countries at the United Nations voted for it. Nelson Mandela called for...

California Advancing Bill AB 2642 That Would Take Away Your Ability To Question Elected Officials State Rep Bill Essayli “This State law would — allow bureaucrats at the State and County level to sue you, members of the public, when you voice your concerns to them.” “Federal law doesn't allow election officials to sue under the Voting Rights Act. Only the Department of Justice is authorized to initiate legal action against private individuals. This state law would change that, and it's going to allow bureaucrats at the state and county level to sue you, members of the public, when you...

Each Memorial Day, 805 Patriots, a patriotic group active in western Los Angeles County and in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties—Area Code 805--organizes a parade of cars, trucks and motorcycles festooned with flags that proceeds westward along Southern California’s Pacific Coast Highway. On Memorial Day, May 27, 2024, the convoy traveled from Venice, a Los Angeles neighborhood, to Point Mugu, 40 miles to the west, in Ventura County.

California Democrats are racing to reverse a new $25-an-hour healthcare worker minimum wage law going into effect at the end of the week after the governor’s office estimates it would cost the state $4 billion annually. The news of the costs isn’t new. In fact, it was projected by legislative analysis and ignored by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), who signed the law in October. Now, as it gets ready to go into effect, lawmakers are looking for ways to delay it. California’s budget deficit has grown in years and now stands at a hefty $45 billion. Newsom’s office projects the...

Many have seen their hours reduced—or have lost their jobs entirely.California now leads the nation in imposing dumb wage laws. The state just raised the hourly minimum wage for fast food workers to $20. Gov. Gavin Newsom said, "We saw the inequities….We had a responsibility to do more." Unions pushed for the higher minimum, and in Democrat-run states, unions usually get what they want. CNN announced, "Half a million California fast food workers will now earn $20 per hour." Gullible leftists at the Center for American Progress claim, "A higher minimum wage would boost millions of families out of poverty...

WINTERS – Gavin Newsom was asked to comment about Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction being overturned on Thursday, and the California governor didn't mince words. "Harvey Weinstein is a stone-cold predator. He's a rapist, twice convicted. Not once, twice," Newsom said on Thursday. New York's highest court overturned the disgraced Hollywood producer's rape conviction on Thursday and ordered a new trial. The New York Court of Appeals said the judge in the Weinstein case made several improper rulings, preventing the now 72-year-old from getting a fair trial. Jennifer Siebel, Newsom's wife, testified in a different trial in Los Angeles in...

California could be a much nicer place to live if some of the progressives who run the place would stop trying their best to make everything more expensive. California has had blackouts and despite this came close to shutting down its last nuclear reactor. In 2022, Gov. Newsom finally had second thoughts on that after the Biden administration offered a boatload of money to reverse course and keep the last reactor running. But despite moments of lucidity, the state and the governor seem determined to set the state's next energy crisis in motion. Last year the state passed a bill...

Detectives in Fontana, California, told Thomas Perez Jr. that his father was dead and that he killed him. Neither was true.The California town of Fontana will pay $900,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit after police falsely accused a man of murdering his father, interrogated him for 17 hours, threatened to have his dog euthanized, and withheld medication from him, eventually leading the distraught man to give a false confession and try to commit suicide in the police station. His father was alive the whole time. The case, first reported by the San Bernardino Sun, is a particularly deranged...

In @GavinNewsom California child molesters are emboldened by his weak on Pedos laws to post 100s of advertisements near schools on utility polls. Because of the eagle eye & persistentance of Lemon_Grove_Volunteers on Instagram & repeated calls to the San Diego Human Trafficking…

OAKLAND, Calif. - Shoppers at some Bay Area Safeway stores will no longer have the option to use self-checkout kiosks. The grocery chain confirmed to KTVU that it's getting rid of the self-checkout machines at several stores, although they wouldn't specify which ones. Safeway officials said they're removing the kiosks because of problems with theft – too many customers steal items when they go through the self-checkout. "Operational changes have been made at select stores throughout the Bay Area given the increasing amount of theft," according to Safeway's statement. "Self-checkout kiosks have been removed at a few stores. Like other...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis used a highly derogatory term towards the LGBT community as he reiterated in a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops that gay people should not be allowed to become priests, Italian media reported on Monday. La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, Italy's largest circulation dailies, both quoted the pope as saying seminaries, or priesthood colleges, are already too full of "frociaggine", a vulgar Italian term roughly translating as "faggottness". The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment. La Repubblica attributed its story to several unspecified sources, while Corriere said it was backed up...