Commentary: Watch Out for Rent-Control Madness

People Moving

For the latest example of why “local control” is no kind of governing principle, I present readers with the example of Proposition 33 — a rent-control measure that Californians will consider on the November ballot. Its supporters — a who’s who of left-wing activist groups and mainstream progressive organizations such as the California Democratic Party — claim that the measure merely allows local governments to impose rent controls tailored to local conditions.

Indeed, the so-called Justice for Renters Act features this simple text: “The state may not limit the right of any city, county, or city and county to maintain, enact or expand residential rent control.” If voters approve the initiative, it would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Control Act. That 1995 law responded to concerns by landlords at the growing movement by local governments to impose some of the strictest rent-setting laws in the nation.

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Man Wrongly Convicted of Murder Under Kamala Harris: ‘I’m Going with Donald Trump’ in 2024

Jamal Trulove

A man who was wrongly convicted of murder in San Francisco when Vice President Kamala Harris was serving as the city’s district attorney, and who later received more than $13 million in a settlement after he was acquitted following six years in prison endorsed former President Donald Trump in his bid for the White House in 2024.

Trulove endorsed Trump in a video posted to YouTube on July 28, explaining that he previously supported the Biden-Harris ticket during the 2020 election in a bid to preserve his entertainment career.

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Kamala Harris Once Ran Jobs Program That Kept Criminal Illegal Migrants Out of Prison

Kamala Harris

As the district attorney for San Francisco, Kamala Harris ran a city program that kept criminal illegal immigrants out of prison by training them for jobs they could not legally have.

Harris, who served as San Francisco district attorney from from 2004 to 2011, lead an initiative called “Back on Track” while serving as the city’s top prosecutor, according to a 2009 article from the LA Times. The program was intended to help felons get their convictions expunged, but Harris at the time said she didn’t know illegal immigrants were also being selected by her office.

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CBP’s Operations ‘Plaza Spike’ and ‘Apollo’ Intercept Cartel Drug and Weapons Trafficking Across U.S. Borders

Illegal Firearms

As a result of intensifying efforts by multiple law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced in a series of statements that record amounts of illicit fentanyl and other dangerous drugs, as well as hauls of illegal weaponry have been seized.

Through two programs dubbed “Operation Plaza Spike” and “Operation Apollo,” officials say that as of June in FY 2024, over 15,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized, exceeding the total amounts from the previous eight fiscal years combined. Despite a 17 percent decrease in nationwide drug seizures from May to June, CBP notes that significant quantities of drugs and firearms continue to be intercepted at the border.

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San Francisco Considers Proposal to Pay Welfare Recipients Who Stay Sober

Homeless Person

The far-left city of San Francisco, California is considering a measure to give payments to welfare recipients who test negative for various drugs, in order to combat the city’s rise in drug use.

As the Daily Caller reports, the “Cash Not Drugs” program was jointly introduced by Mayor London Breed (D-Calif.) and Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey (D-Calif.). The program would issue payments of $100 a week to residents whose drug tests come back negative. In order to be eligible, residents must be on a form of welfare such as the County Adult Assistance Program (CAAP), must have a form of substance abuse disorder, and must voluntarily submit to weekly drug tests.

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Ellison Faces Scrutiny for Use of San Francisco Firm on Lawsuit Against Energy Companies

Keith Ellison

A trio of Republican lawmakers are asking Attorney General Keith Ellison to provide the public with more details on his office’s contract with a San Francisco-based law firm hired to aid in an ongoing climate change-related lawsuit against three major oil companies.

Sens. Mark Koran and Andrew Mathews, and Rep. Jim Nash sent Ellison a detailed letter last week that claims the law firm, Sher Edling, LLP, has received more than $13 million from special interest organizations outside of Minnesota to help fund its climate litigation efforts, including the one ongoing in Minnesota. And they want Ellison to provide the public with “a complete accounting of who is providing financial support for Sher Edling’s work on the Minnesota case.

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California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Could Spell Trouble for Public Schools

Kids being served lunch at school

Two policies backed by Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom could place serious strain on California’s already fiscally unhealthy public schools.

California’s new minimum wage law, which took effect Monday, guarantees a wage of at least $20 an hour for workers at fast food chains with 60 or more locations across the country, The Associated Press reported. The new law, however, does not apply to food service workers in the state’s public schools, forcing them to compete in a more expensive labor market just as schools are preparing for an increase in demand for food workers due to the state’s new universal free lunch program.

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Commentary: Supreme Court Takes on California’s Uber-Disclosure Laws Aiming to Crack Down on ‘Dark Money’ Ads

San Francisco City Hall

When you watch a political ad, often you’ll see a disclaimer of who the ad was paid for by, usually a political action committee, but what about the donors to the committee? Or the donor’s donors?

That’s the bridge that a San Francisco campaign finance law seeks to cross — now being challenged at the U.S. Supreme Court in No on E v. Chiu — and to prohibit an incredibly common practice in campaign finance, which are donations from anonymous sources.

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California Fast Food Workers Face Layoffs as State’s $20 Minimum Wage Goes into Effect

Auntie Anne's employees

All fast-food employees, regardless of age, will see a $20 an hour minimum wage in California, while the federal minimum wage is between $4.25 and $7.25, depending on age and length of time working.

California fast-food chains are laying off workers, raising prices and deciding against opening new stores as the state implements a minimum wage that is more than 175 percent higher than that required by the federal government.

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San Francisco to Vote on Measure to Drug-Test Welfare Recipients

San Francisco

The far-left city of San Francisco will soon be voting on measures that could reverse liberal policies when it comes to crime, drug use, and homelessness, in what would mark a stunning rebuke of progressive policies in the Democratic stronghold.

As reported by Fox News, when Californians go to vote on Tuesday in the “Super Tuesday” primaries, San Francisco residents will be able to vote on several ballot measures including Proposition F and Proposition E.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Do Leftists Now Believe Leftism Doesn’t Work?

It is hard to destroy a naturally beautiful city like San Francisco, with ideal weather and stunning infrastructure inherited from far better earlier generations.

Yet San Francisco continues its much-publicized and self-inflicted doom loop. The productive classes still flee the increasingly crime-ridden city and its self-induced pathologies. The city is eroding not because of the doomsayers and not because of what people say about San Francisco, but because of what San Franciscans have done to San Francisco.

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Teacher Who Exposed School’s ‘Woke Kindergarten’ Program Put on Leave

The San Francisco-area elementary school whose test scores dropped following implementation of the so-called “Woke Kindergarten” program suspended the teacher who exposed the controversial program.

On Thursday, the teacher who blew the whistle on the program was “summoned […] to a video conference” during which he was told to “turn in his keys and laptop and not return to his classroom […] until further notice,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

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States File Brief in Lawsuit to Force VA to Cover Gender Affirming Surgery

Doctors performing surgery

A group of states filed a friend of the court brief supporting a transgender veterans group that filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs seeking gender-confirmation surgery for 163,000 transgender veterans.

The Transgender American Veterans Association lawsuit, filed last month, seeks an order that the Department of Veterans Affairs act on the group’s 2016 rule-making petition for gender-confirmation surgery.

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San Francisco Facing Deadliest Year Ever for Overdoses

The far-left city of San Francisco is set to have its deadliest year on record in terms of drug overdoses, further emphasizing the coastal city’s struggles with rising crime, homelessness, and drug abuse.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the California city recorded 692 accidental overdose deaths from January to October of 2023, as reported by the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner last month. By the end of the year, that total is expected to top 800, surpassing the previous record of 720 deaths in 2020.

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Starbucks Shutters Seven Stores in Crime-Ridden Parts of San Francisco

Starbucks plans to close seven stores located in downtown San Francisco in October, a spokesperson for the company confirmed.

The corporation looked into “several factors” when it decided to close the seven locations, and added that it would continue to invest in San Francisco through its 40 other company-owned locations in the city, a Starbucks spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Although the company declined to comment on whether crime was a factor that led to its decision, all seven of the closing locations — Mission & Main, Geary & Taylor, 425 Battery, 398 Market St, 4th & Market, 555 California and Bush & Van Ness — are situated in or near the city’s troubledTenderloin district, a Starbucks store map showed.

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San Francisco Homeless Camps Hit Highest Number in Three Years

The number of homeless camps that have sprouted up all across San Francisco is now at the highest point since 2020.

The Daily Caller reports that more people moved into homeless shelters in just the first six months of 2023 than during any other six-month period since 2021, according to information compiled by the San Francisco Standard. There are 523 homeless camps in the city as of July of this year, the highest total since 530 camps in October of 2020. Across these 523 camps, there are over 4,000 homeless people in San Francisco.

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Governments Across America Spend Millions to Put Homeless in Hotels

In states like California, Colorado, Washington and Arizona, cities this summer are spending millions buying hotels and converting them to shelters for the homeless.

In Los Angeles, there is a ballot initiative in 2024 to require hotels to use vacant rooms to house homeless people besides paying customers. The American Hotel & Lodging Association has objected to the proposal.

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Workers at Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco Told to Work from Home Due to Crime

The Department of Health and Human Services is telling hundreds of California-based employees to work from home for the foreseeable future due to rising crime in the area surrounding the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco.

The 18-story building also houses the Labor and Transportation separtment and the office of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

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Chinese Intelligence Arm Quietly Operates ‘Service Centers’ in Seven U.S. Cities

by Philip Lenczycki   A Chinese intelligence agency quietly operates “service centers” in seven American cities, all of which have had contact with Beijing’s national police authority, according to state media reports and government records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work Department (UFWD) — which at least one U.S. government commission has characterized as a “Chinese intelligence service” — operates so-called “Overseas Chinese Service Centers” (OCSCs) that are housed within various U.S.-based nonprofits. OCSCs were ostensibly set up to promote Chinese culture and assist Chinese citizens living abroad, according to Chinese government records. State media reports, Chinese government records and social media posts show that during a 2018 trip to China, U.S.-based OCSC representatives met with Ministry of Public Security (MPS) officials. During the meeting, state security officials demonstrated how they’re leveraging new technology to conduct “cross-border remote justice services” overseas. MPS is China’s national police authority and has been referred to as “China’s FBI” by China experts. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says MPS also conducts covert “intelligence and national security operations far beyond China’s borders,” including “illicit, transnational repression schemes” on U.S. soil. In April 2023, the DOJ charged two men for allegedly opening a secret police station…

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Commentary: What a Difference a Real District Attorney Makes

Chesa Boudin, named after cop-killer Joanne Chesimard, and son of Weather Underground terrorists Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, was elected district attorney of San Francisco in November 2020. Criminals were happy with the outcome.

“Chesa Boudin threw a monkey wrench into the city’s criminal justice system,” recalls Richie Greenberg, San Francisco resident and business consultant. “Amid a series of high-profile cases, his promise to release repeat criminals and to allow quality of life crimes to go unpunished, San Francisco descended into a scofflaw paradise.”

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Commentary: Iowa Senator Joni Ernst Says It’s Time to Hit the Brakes on Biden’s Boondoggle Gravy Train

If you paid a contractor to build a house and you agreed to a price and timeline, but the builder blew through the timeline and racked up the price tag, you’d be pretty upset. I bet you’d demand accountability, maybe even a discount.  

Well, when it comes to the federal government and your tax dollars, President Biden seems to be okay with projects that bust the budget, fly past the deadline, and are completely derailed.

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Commentary: What to Do About American’s Decline

Twenty-first-century America was on a trajectory of gradual decline — until it began to implode.

Was the accelerant the COVID-19 pandemic and unhinged lockdowns? Or was the catalyst the woke revolution fueled by the 2020 summer of exempted rioting, looting, arson, and violence? Or was it perhaps the deranged fixation on removing Donald Trump from the presidency and destroying the rule of law in the process? Or all that and more?

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Americans Continue to Flee Crime-Ridden Blue Cities for the Burbs and Red States, New Census Data Shows

Americans once again fled large cities for suburbs and Republican-led states in massive numbers from June 2021 to June 2022, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Census data.

More than 800,000 people in total left the country’s large metropolitan areas, compared to 1.2 million the year before, in an ongoing trend sparked by the pandemic, according to the WSJ. Ten of the nation’s 25 largest metropolitan areas saw population loss, and most of the top cities that saw population gains were located in red states.

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Semiconductor Convention Moving to Phoenix from San Francisco in 2025

Recognizing Arizona’s growing semiconductor sector, North America’s “premier microelectronics exhibition and conference” is coming to town.

SEMI, an industry association with members across the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, announced Tuesday it would hold SEMICON West 2025 in Phoenix after holding the conference in San Francisco for the last five decades. 

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San Francisco’s Reparations Proposal Would Give $5 Million Each to Qualifying Black Residents

The City of San Francisco is considering a reparations plan that would give $5 million lump sum payments to each eligible black person, according to its 2022 draft plan.

Recipients are required to be 18 or older, to have identified as black or African American on public documents for at least ten years and to meet at least two qualifications from a list of possible relationships one may have with incidents such as drug-related incarceration or slavery, according to the proposal. The proposal also recommends that the city formally apologize for past wrongdoings, establish a new city office to execute the plan and create a committee to “ensure equity and continuity in the implementation of relevant policy initiatives.”

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San Francisco Has More than 130 Gender Options for Its Guaranteed Income for Transgender People Program

There are more than 130 gender, sexual orientation and pronoun options listed on the San Francisco’s Guaranteed Income For Transgender People (GIFT) program application.

Under the GIFT program, 55 San Francisco residents who earn less than $600 monthly and identify as one of the many genders listed will receive $1,200 per month. Aside from woman and man, some of the genders eligible for the money include “genderfuck,” “boi,” “sistergirls” and “butch.”

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San Francisco Fires Long-Time Elections Official to Meet Its Racial Equity Goals

The San Francisco elections commission decided last week to not renew director John Arntz’s contract, not because he failed to fulfill his duties, but because they wanted to hire a minority replacement, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The city commission voted to not renew Arntz’s five-year deal and instead will hire an independent recruiter to assess applicants for the position along with Arntz, should he choose to reapply, according to the SF Chronicle. Arntz, who was hired in 2002, did not receive a new contract because the commission wanted to carry out San Francisco’s “racial equity” plan that aims to maintain a “high level” of racial diversity in every government position.

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San Francisco Launches Guaranteed Income Program for Transgender Community

San Francisco city officials announced Wednesday they would launch a new guaranteed income program for the city’s transgender community.

The program, dubbed the Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT), will provide 55, low-income transgender city residents with $1,200 each month for up to 18 months. The pilot program is the first of its kind for trans individuals in the city, though San Francisco has launched several other programs in recent years.

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Homeless People Sue Liberal City for Taking Their Belongings, Kicking Them Out of Public Spaces

Multiple homeless individuals and the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city of San Francisco, California, Tuesday for allegedly arresting people lacking available shelter and destroying belongings, without providing affordable housing options.

The city has subjected homeless people to “ongoing criminalization and property destruction practices,” according to the lawsuit. It contends San Francisco has violated Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment protections by threatening, citing, arresting and removing homeless individuals from public spaces and infringed on Fourth Amendment rights by illegally confiscating and destroying possessions.

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San Francisco Spends Millions to House and Then Evict Its Homeless

San Francisco, California, has spent millions of dollars housing the homeless before spending more to evict them, again, according to recent documents obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Since 2019, the city has spent over $160 million every fiscal year on “permanent supportive housing” – i.e. single-room-occupancy hotels (SROs) across the city – as part of Mayor London Breed’s administration’s response to the city’s homelessness crisis, according to the documents obtained by the Chronicle.

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Chris Carr Calls Out George Soros for Installing Partisan District Attorneys

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) called out billionaire and Open Society founder George Soros for his financial support of progressive district attorneys, a move that has resulted in crime spikes across the nation.

“George Soros has spent tens of millions to elect prosecutors who care more about coddling criminals than about protecting families. Now the Soros family is funding my Democrat opponent because they know I’ll stand up for YOU, not criminals,” Carr wrote on Twitter Tuesday.

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Commentary: The Criminal Order Beneath the ‘Chaos’ of San Francisco’s Tenderloin

The epicenter of the political earthquakes rattling San Francisco’s progressive establishment is a 30-square-block neighborhood in the center of downtown known as the Tenderloin. Adjacent to some of the city’s most famous attractions, including the high-end shopping district Union Square, the old money redoubt of Nob Hill, historic Chinatown, and the city’s gold-capped City Hall, it is home to a giant, open-air drug bazaar. Tents fill the sidewalks. Addicts sit on curbs and lean against walls, nodding off to their fentanyl and heroin fixes, or wander around in meth-induced psychotic states. Drug dealers stake out their turf and sell in broad daylight, while the immigrant families in the five-story, pre-war apartment buildings shepherd their kids to school, trying to maintain as normal an existence as they can.

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Commentary: The Recall of San Francisco D.A. Boudin Reveals Democrats’ Rift with Minority Voters

As the dust has settled in the days since a political earthquake hit California with the landslide recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a distinct voting pattern has emerged.

Precinct-by-precinct voting maps show minority voters backing the recall in much higher numbers than college-educated, affluent white progressives, with very few exceptions. It’s not difficult to understand why, California political analysts across the spectrum tell RealClearPolitics. Minority communities suffer more when crimes rates are soaring than insulated wealthier neighborhoods with more protections and money for security.

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Commentary: San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s Recall Shows How the Criminal Justice Reform Movement Doesn’t Work

Two and a half years ago, pre-COVID and before surging crime and fentanyl overdoses gripped San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s left-wing lineage seemed a perfect fit for the liberal bastion by the bay.

Likewise, California Rep. Karen Bass was a barometer of Los Angeles’ transformation into a sprawling progressive metropolis. A former Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman, Bass was a top contender to become Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020 and was considered a likely contender for a statewide office.

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Far-Left San Francisco District Attorney Recalled in Landslide

With seven states holding their primaries on Tuesday, perhaps the biggest upset came out of San Francisco, California, where incumbent District Attorney Chesa Boudin (D-Calif.) was successfully recalled in a landslide.

As reported by Axios, Boudin’s recall could mark a significant turning point in the rise of progressive prosecutors getting elected to district attorney positions all across the country, often with the backing of far-left billionaire George Soros. Boudin, like other far-left district attorneys, was accused of being soft on crime since he took office in 2020. His tenure was marked by a spike in crime throughout San Francisco, particularly brazen robberies of various convenience stores in broad daylight, as well as assaults, an increase in public drug use, and a rise in homelessness.

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San Francisco Spent $160 Million Only to Have Homeless People Die in Rat-Infested Hotels

A housing project based out of old hotels in San Francisco became the site of overdoses, rampant crime, violence and unsafe living conditions, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.

The hotels are the main components of the city’s $160 million permanent supportive housing program, which failed in its goal of helping residents gain enough stability to find independence and their own housing, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A quarter of the tenants tracked by the government after exiting supportive housing in 2020 died.

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New Poll Is Bad News for a Californian Left-Wing DA Facing Recall

A new poll showed San Francisco voters overwhelmingly back the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Roughly 68% of likely primary voters said they would vote to recall Boudin, including 64% of registered Democrats, according to a poll conducted by EMC Research. Nearly three out of four voters had an unfavorable opinion of Boudin, and 61% agreed he was “responsible for rising crime rates in San Francisco, especially burglaries and thefts.”

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Michigan’s Second Largest City Declares Racism a ‘Public Health Crisis’

Grand Rapids, Michigan’s second-largest city and the hub of the more conservative western side of the state, declared racism as a “public health crisis.”

The Grand Rapids city commission approved a resolution that read in part, “We know that racism is deep and pervasive throughout many systems and policies impacting health. Examples include health care, public education funding structures, criminal justice and sentencing, housing, and wealth-building opportunities.”

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San Francisco Board of Education Votes to End Merit-Based Admission Due to ‘Racism’

The San Francisco Board of Education voted on Tuesday to replace its long-standing merit-based admission system with a random lottery, accusing the former of being racist, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Included in the board’s jurisdiction is Lowell High School, which is widely considered one of the most prestigious public high schools in the nation. The resolution passed by the board claims, without evidence, that merit-based admission “perpetuates the culture of White supremacy and racial abuse towards black and Latinx students.” This is despite the fact that currently over 75 percent of Lowell’s students are already non-White students.

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Biden Executive Order Could Force American Taxpayers to Fund San Francisco’s Hotels for Homeless Program

An executive order signed by Joe Biden last week may force Americans to fully fund programs in San Francisco and other cities that provide housing for the homeless.

San Francisco reportedly spends between $15 million to $18 million per month to house more than 2,200 people in about 25 lodging establishments—some of them luxury hotels.

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