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Walgreens Closing 5 San Fran Stores, Citing ‘Organized Retail Crime’

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Walgreens Closing 5 San Fran Stores, Citing ‘Organized Retail Crime’

Walgreens will close five more San Francisco stores, a company spokesperson confirmed Tuesday, citing ongoing organized retail crime as the reason. 

The closures are as follows:

  • 2550 Ocean Ave. will close on Nov. 8 and will transfer prescription files to 1630 Ocean Ave.
  • 4645 Mission St. will close on Nov. 11 and will transfer prescription files to 965 Geneva St.
  • 745 Clement St. will close on Nov. 15 and will transfer prescription files to 3601 California St.
  • 300 Gough St. will close on Nov. 15 and will transfer prescriptions to 2145 Market St.
  • 3400 Cesar Chavez St. will close on Nov. 17 and will transfer prescriptions to 2690 Mission St.

“Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” said Walgreens spokesperson Phil Caruso. “Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average. During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.”

The drugstore chain hopes to relocate employees from closing stores to other nearby locations.

San Francisco Board of Supervisor Ahsha Safai of District 11 said he was “devastated” by the loss of the store on Mission Street on Twitter, writing “I am completely devastated by this news – this Walgreens is less than a mile from seven schools and has been a staple for seniors, families and children for decades. This closure will significantly impact this community.”

Safai told SFGATE that though the store on Mission Street had added an off-duty police officer as store security in recent months, it was “too little, too late for this store.” He said he has been in touch with Walgreens and that the shoplifting was having an impact on the company’s bottom line, as well as impacting the safety of its employees and customers. “This is a sad day for San Francisco,” Safai said. “We can’t continue to let these anchor institutions close that so many people rely on.”

Walgreens closed a location at 790 Van Ness Ave. in October 2020 after an increase in crime, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, citing a loss of up to $1,000 in stolen merchandise every day. (SFGATE and The San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently of one another.) The rampant shoplifting was often brazen and carried out in broad daylight — that month ​​Inside Edition was filming a segment about the increase in crime in the drugstore when they caught a man jumping over the front counter to do that very thing. 

California law dictates that theft of less than $950 in goods is penalized as a nonviolent misdemeanor.

Read more on SF Gate

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Video: Rhode Island Teacher Warns CRT ‘Absolutely Everywhere’ In Schools

“It’s in the plot narratives; it’s in the characterization; it’s in the imagery, it’s in the art projects, the history class, the English classes.”

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Video: Rhode Island Teacher Warns CRT ‘Absolutely Everywhere’ In Schools

A middle school English teacher in Providence, Rhode Island has warned that critical race theory, which teaches children they should feel guilty for being white, is “absolutely everywhere” in schools in the area and that it is causing “great harm and racial divide and hostility between children.”

Ramona Bessinger described to RT host Steve Malzberg how she has been barred from giving classes for speaking out against her school district’s “radicalized” CRT “culture”, noting that there used to be “lots of diversity [and] lots of multicultural materials” in the curriculum, but now its essentially all CRT.

“We’re not teaching critical race theory. It’s implicit in the culture,” Bessinger explained, adding “It is implicit in all the reading materials. It is implicit in all the projects that the kids are doing.”

“It really has to stop,” she urged, adding “It’s in the plot narratives; it’s in the characterization; it’s in the imagery, it’s in the art projects, the history class, the English classes.” 

“It is in the language that we are told to use in our professional development,” the teacher further warned, adding. “It is absolutely everywhere.”

“Just to speak to the fact that our libraries are being dismantled and books are being moved into archaic basement rooms around the school or flat-out thrown out,” Bessinger emphasized, adding “there’s a whole shift taking place and we really need to pay attention to this.”

She ominously added, “I don’t believe we’re going to recognize our country if this is allowed to take place because the culture is changing from within our schools and it’s changing rapidly.”

“Once they turn children against you and kids start believing this narrative that you are somehow racist, then it’s over,” she further warned.

Leftists are adamant that CRT is not being taught in schools, as the following video highlights. However, as Ramona Bessinger points out, it doesn’t have to officially be on the curriculum to exist in schools.

Source: Summit News

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Large LA crowd protests against vaccine mandate

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Large LA crowd protests against vaccine mandate

Thousands gather outside Los Angeles City Hall Monday to protest the mandate for all city workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by Dec. 18.

The vaccine requirements for city workers are meant to increase vaccination rates and stave off another deadly COVID-19 surge as the virus continues to circulate and the more-transmissible delta variant spreads.

The group Firefighters 4 Freedom organized the rally, dubbed “A March for Freedom,” saying it will be attended by firefighters, police officers, electrical workers, sanitation workers and city government employees.

Aerial video from Sky5 showed a large crowd of people gathered in the area of 200 Main St. around 11 a.m., many carrying “thin blue line” and “thin red line” flags, and signs including ones saying “stop the mandate.”

Retried LAPD Detective Moses Castillo was attending the rally.

“I’m here to show support for the men and women in law enforcement, the firefighters, those working in sanitation… who are here not so much against being vaccinated, or the vaccine, but they’re against being forced to do so by our local government,” Castillo explained.

John Knox, of Firefighters 4 Freedom, called the mandates unconstitutional.

That’s an overreach on the government’s part, because it’s not your right to tell me what I do with my health care, what I put into my body,” Knox said.

A flyer for the rally calls for participants to speak out against both local mandates and federal ones.

The Biden Administration last week announced that Americans working at companies with 100 or more employees will need to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4, or get tested for the virus weekly.

In L.A., Mayor Eric Garcetti warned that city employees who don’t get vaccinated by Dec. 18 “should be prepared to lose their job.”

The L.A. City Council in August passed an ordinance requiring all city employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, unless they are granted an exemption for medical or religious reasons.

The deadline for L.A. workers was initially set for an earlier date, but was extended by the city council to give unvaccinated workers more time to comply.

The ordinance states that the requirement is meant to protect the city’s workforce, and the public that it serves, against COVID-19, which was responsible for 26,750 deaths countywide.

The Los Angeles firefighters union last week voiced their opposition to the city’s mandate, saying officials should allow firefighters to choose between getting the shot or tested weekly.

Members of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City President Freddy Escobar warned that the L.A. Fire Department is already facing staffing shortages that could worsen as a result of the mandate, the L.A. Times reported.

Read more on KTLA

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11/3: AZ Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake Leads AZ Election Integrity Rally

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11/3: AZ Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake Leads AZ Election Integrity Rally

Arizona Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake will host a rally tomorrow at 6 p.m. tomorrow in Glendale, Arizona and we will hear from some of the Patriots who have led the fight for the truth.

Get tickets, here.

Appearances or videos will be made by Candidate for Arizona Secretary of State Mark FinchemLiz Harris, Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers, Arizona State Senator Sonny BorrelliChristina Bobb, Mike Lindell, Congressman Paul Gosar, and more!

Lake has a message from a “very, very special someone”, named President Donald J. Trump.

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