San Francisco Cartoons

San Francisco announces needle cleanup team amid crackdown on street littering

San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrel

The Mayor of San Francisco announced Monday the hiring of 10 workers who will clean up needles strewn in the streets.
San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell said the needle-cleanup team will focus solely on responding to resident complaints and remove needles and syringes from “hot spots” daily.
He told The San Francisco Examiner that city residents will feel the impact of the new team “without a doubt” and assured that “If they don’t, we will fund more.”
About 275,000 needles are collected every month by the Public Health Department and nonprofit organizations focused on providing syringes and safe disposal.
The mayor said discarded syringes are among the top litter complaints in the city with a growing problem of homelessness.
The city will give $750,000 to the AIDS Foundation, which will hire the new team of cleaners, Barbara Garcia, the public health director, said. The cleaners will begin their work sometime in June.
The new initiative is part of a larger effort by the mayor to fix the state of city streets. He recently vowed to combat the problems of tent camps, and stinky urine and trash across the city.
Farrell is expected to present a street-cleaning effort in his June 1 city budget proposal. Last week, the city board approved an additional $1.1 million funding increase for street cleaning, but Farrell said he will veto the proposal because he’s in favor of a comprehensive citywide plan, the Examiner reported.
"The trash, our homeless, the needles, the drug abuse on our streets, I've seen it all in our city and it's gotten to the point where we need to really change course," Farrell said in a recent interview.
"We've gone away from just being compassionate to enabling street behavior and that, in my opinion, is a shift that's unacceptable.”

Trump answers Netanyahu bombshell on Iran: ‘Not an acceptable situation’

President Trump called the Iran nuclear deal a “horrible agreement for the United States” in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bombshell allegations about Tehran's covert activity – but stopped short of saying whether he'd abandon the deal ahead of a looming deadline.
The president addressed the claims during a Rose Garden press conference Monday afternoon, moments after Netanyahu held a dramatic presentation revealing intelligence he says shows Iran is lying about its nuclear weapons program.
“That is just not an acceptable situation,” Trump said.
Trump said Netanyahu’s claims show Iran is “not sitting back idly."
"They're setting off missiles which they say are for television purposes," Trump said. He added: "I don't think so.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders responded, “The United States is aware of the information just released by Israel and continues to examine it carefully. This information provides new and compelling details about Iran’s efforts to develop missile-deliverable nuclear weapons. These facts are consistent with what the United States has long known: Iran had a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people. The Iranian regime has shown it will use destructive weapons against its neighbors and others. Iran must never have nuclear weapons.”
Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to exit the Iran deal, which was signed during the Obama administration. A crucial deadline for re-certifying the deal is on the horizon.
Netanyahu clearly intended for Trump to see his presentation, as he noted that Trump would soon make a key decision on the Iran deal.
“I’m sure he’ll do the right thing,” Netanyahu said.
On Monday, Trump suggested he could seek to negotiate a new agreement, something he discussed during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington last week.
“So we'll see what happens,” Trump said, when asked about the announcement. “I'm not telling you what I'm doing. [A lot] of people think they know. And on or before the 12th, we'll make a decision.”
The president made the comments during a joint press conference with visiting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
Trump said that overall, “what we've learned has really shown that I have been 100 percent right.”
Netanyahu said during his earlier presentation that new intelligence shows Iran lied about never having nuclear weapons and lied again by not coming clean under the terms of the 2015 deal. "The Iran deal ... is based on lies," he said.
The information was obtained within the past 10 days, Israeli officials told Fox News. Netanyahu said the files were moved to a "highly secret" location in Tehran, and contained materials spread over 55,000 pages and 55,000 files on 183 CD's.
"The nuclear deal gives Iran a clear path to producing an atomic arsenal," Netanyahu said Monday.
NETANYAHU SAYS IRAN ‘BRAZENLY LYING’ AFTER SIGNING NUCLEAR DEAL
Netanyahu's statement came on the heels of a missile attack in northern Syria that killed nearly 26-pro-government fighters, mostly Iranians, according to a Syria war monitoring group. Israel had no comment on the strike, but there was widespread speculation that Israel was behind it. Tehran has sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters to back Assad's forces in Syria's seven-year civil war.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Monday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the United States “had nothing to do with the strike last night.”
Mattis also said the evidence cited by Netanyahu on Monday did not come up during his discussions with the Israeli minister of defense last week. But he said parts of Iran nuclear deal “certainly need to be fixed.”
“The Iran Deal was and has always been a foreign policy debacle. But today’s stunning intel presentation from @netanyahu provides even more troubling context. All along it was built on a crumbling foundation of lies, deception, and naivete. This 'deal' should be shredded,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., tweeted.
Israel and Iran are arch-enemies, and Israel has said repeatedly it would not allow Iran to establish a permanent military presence in Syria. Iran, which is backing the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has accused Israel of carrying out another airstrike in Syria this month that killed seven Iranian military advisers and vowed revenge.

“That is just not an acceptable situation."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday ratcheted up the Trump administration's rhetoric against Iran and offered warm support to Israel and Saudi Arabia in their standoff with Tehran.
"The United States is with Israel in this fight," Pompeo said.
The 2015 deal gave Iran relief from crippling sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Netanyahu has been a leading critic of the agreement, saying it fails to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability and welcoming Trump's pledges to withdraw from the deal if it is not changed.
Both Trump and Netanyahu say the deal should address Iranian support for militants across the region and Iran's development of long-range ballistic missiles, as well as eliminate provisions that expire over the next decade.
On Monday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the time when Iran's enemies can "hit and run" is over.
"They know if they enter military conflict with Iran, they will be hit multiple times," he said, according to his website. He did not specifically refer to the latest attack in Syria.
Trump on Monday also floated the idea of holding his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Koreas.
"There's something that I like about it because you are there, you are actually there," Trump said. "If things work out there's a great celebration to be had on the site, not in a third-party country."
A Trump-Kim meeting would be the first U.S.-North Korean leadership summit in more than six decades of hostility since the 1950-53 Korean War. Trump has previously said that five locations were being considered, but on Friday said the choice had been narrowed to two or three.
Monday was the first time he'd publicly specified potential locations for the meeting, slated for May or early June. He added that the Southeast Asian city state of Singapore was also in the running.

Rapper with ties to Snoop Dogg issues 'Crip alert' for Kanye West

A California rapper on Sunday ordered local gang members to attack Kanye West over his support for President Donald Trump.
Daz Dillinger, a cousin of legendary rapper Snoop Dogg, issued a “Crip alert” for gang members in an Instagram video.
"We are in one boat and they’re killing all of us. He jumps over there and says 'Master, I'm your side,’” he said about West in the now-deleted clip, TMZ reported. "I'm with you master Trump. Burn all these n------."
“Yo national alert, all the Crips out there, y’all f--- Kanye up,” Dillinger continued, referring to the infamous Crips gang in California. “Better not ever see you in concert; better not ever see you around the LBC; better not ever see you around California.”
The rapper went on to mention the city where West lives, saying: “Stay in Calabasas, ya hear me? ‘Cuz we got a Crip alert for Kanye … All the Crips out there — you see him, bang on his ass, f--- his a-- up. ”
The backlash shortly followed with numerous people expressing concern about the rapper ordering violent gang members to attack West. Dillinger reportedly also made other messages directed at West over Sunday and Monday.
Other rappers also weighed on the topic, according to Page Six. “What the f--- is going on,” 50 Cent wrote on Instagram. “Daz Told the crips to f--- Kanye up…Crips Vs Kardashian’s…get the strap.”
Snoop Dogg’s cousin responded to backlash on Monday, posting on Instagram: “FREEDOM OF SPEECH FUC KANYE THIS CRIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP THE REVOLUTION IS ON NOW [sic].”
Late Monday evening he also posted another video, captioned: “Stick and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt me.”
Dillinger is a well-known rap artist who is still releasing music together with his cousin Snoop Dogg.
Snoop Dogg has been also critical of West showing support for President Trump, mocking him in multiple Instagram posts, including a fake tweet from former President George W. Bush saying “Kanye West does not care about black people.”

Mueller's questions for Trump leaked to NYT, in latest unexplained disclosure from Russia probe

A lengthy list of questions for President Trump from special counsel Robert Mueller has been leaked to The New York Times, marking the latest in a string of apparently deliberate disclosures from the ongoing probe into Russian involvement in the U.S. presidential election.
The paper, saying only that it had "obtained" the questions without specifying how, called some of the questions "tantalizing" and suggested they reveal that Mueller may have uncovered pre-election outreach by Trump's campaign to Russian officials.
The questions also reportedly cover Trump's motivations for firing FBI Director James Comey a year ago, as well as his reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal from the Russia investigation.
In one question obtained by the Times, Mueller asks what Trump knew about campaign staff, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, reaching out to Moscow.
Leaks in the Mueller probe have been suspected for several months, leading The New York Post to ask last year if Mueller is "playing politics with his prosecutions."
The news of the indictments of Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, for example, came in media reports days in advance. Although some commentators have praised Mueller for clamping down on leaks, Republicans have sharply criticized the disclosures seemingly coming from within Mueller's ranks.
Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, the leader of the House’s top investigative committee, slammed Mueller in October for allowing the news media to learn that he and his legal team had charges in their Russia investigation.
“In the only conversation I’ve had with Robert Mueller, I stressed to him the importance of cutting out the leaks,” Gowdy, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and the violations of the law would violate the law.”

Although Mueller's team has indicated to Trump's lawyers that he's not considered a target, investigators remain interested in whether the president's actions constitute obstruction of justice and want to interview him about several episodes in office. The lawyers want to resolve the investigation as quickly as possible, but there's no agreement on how to do that.
Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow declined to comment to The Associated Press on Monday night, as did White House lawyer Ty Cobb.
Mueller has brought several charges against Manafort, but none are for any crimes related to Russian election interference during the 2016 campaign. And he has denied having anything to do with such an effort.

“It’s kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and the violations of the law would violate the law.”

The queries also touch on Trump's businesses and his discussions with his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, about a possible Moscow real estate deal. Cohen's business dealings are part of a separate FBI investigation.
One question asks what discussions Trump may have had regarding "any meeting with Mr. Putin," referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Another question asks what the president may have known about a possible attempt by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel with Russia before Trump's inauguration.
Additional questions center on Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his discussions on sanctions against Russia with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller's investigators.
"What did you know about phone calls that Mr. Flynn made with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in late December 2016?" reads one question. Another asks if there were any efforts to reach out to Flynn "about seeking immunity or possible pardon."
Flynn was fired Feb. 13, 2017, after White House officials said he had misled them about his Russian contacts during the transition period by saying that he had not discussed sanctions.
The following day, according to memos written by Comey, Trump cleared the Oval Office of other officials and encouraged Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn.