Free Republic

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio offered free access to some of his city’s famed cultural destinations on Thursday in a bid to coax illegal immigrants to join an identification card program aimed at helping them do ordinary things like sign a rental lease. Among the perks offered by the Democratic mayor were free or reduced-price admission to places like the Bronx Zoo, New York City Ballet, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Carnegie Hall for all of next year. New York is joining other U.S. cities with large immigrant populations including Los Angeles and New Haven, Connecticut, with municipal ID...

<p>NEW YORK — A company that promised sightseer tours to the Bronx that included a New York City "ghetto" has stopped the bus rides under protest from an outraged neighborhood.</p> <p>Real Bronx Tours, which took mostly European tourists from Manhattan to see life in the South Bronx "from a safe distance," issued a statement this week saying it would immediately cease all tours there.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) -- A man who was mauled by a tiger at the Bronx Zoo is facing arrest after telling investigators he wanted "to be one" with the 400-pound beast, police said Saturday. David Villalobos also claimed that despite his serious injuries, he was able to pet the tiger before zookeepers came to his rescue, said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.

Snakes alive! - the cobra has been found. The Bronx Zoo's escaped snake was snared in the House of Reptiles on Thursday, six days after she slithered out of her enclosure. "We found our snake and we're very happy," Jim Breheny, the zoo's director, told the Daily News. The fanged fugitive was spotted coiled in a corner around 9 a.m., during one of three daily sweeps by a half-dozen zoo workers. Using special tongs and hooks, they easily apprehended the deadly Egyptian cobra, which is now under observation. "We knew it was going to be a game of patience. We...

A highly venomous Egyptian cobra that went missing at the Bronx Zoo was found Thursday after nearly a week on the lam in the reptile house, zoo officials said. The approximately 24-inch snake was found coiled in a dark corner of the reptile house, about 200 feet from where it had escaped from a holding cage outside the exhibit into a space described by officials as a labyrinth of pipes and equipment.

NEW YORK – A poisonous Egyptian cobra that escaped from her enclosure at the Bronx Zoo was Monday taking in the sights of New York City -- if her Twitter account was to be trusted. Pranksters have seized upon the tale of the 20-inch-long (50cm) snake that escaped from her enclosure at the reptile house on Friday and has not been seen since, and have set up an @BronxZoosCobra Twitter account.

Charlie Sheen and Lady Gaga have some new competition on Twitter. On Monday, a 20-in. Egyptian cobra escaped from the Bronx Zoo in New York City. The creature–or someone close to it, since snakes can’t type–launched a twitter account under the name BronxZoosCobra. The account had more than 80,000 followers as of 6 p.m. today. The followers included Meghan McCain and Rachel Maddow. Some of the snake’s musings so far: –According to the rules of Twitter, I think I’m supposed to announce a multi-city comedy tour now. Right @ConanOBrien & @CharlieSheen? –On top of the Empire State Building! All the...

It's deadly, and it's out there, waiting. That might sound like the trailer for a campy monster flick, but it's a real concern at New York's Bronx Zoo, where officials and staff are scrambling to find a deadly Egyptian cobra that slithered away from its home last Friday and hasn't been seen since. The zoo's Reptile House remained closed Monday as a precaution while workers searched for the runaway reptile, a zoo spokeswoman confirmed to FoxNews.com. While the roughly 20-inch-long Egyptian cobra -- armed with a massive dose of lethal venom that it injects into its victims -- has been...

WILD-FIRED BY THE ZOO By SALLY GOLDENBERG April 24, 2009 -- Situation wanted: Will work for hay. Layoffs in the city have spread from the piggy traders on Wall Street to the animals at the Bronx Zoo. The institution is closing four exhibits and shipping hundreds of creatures to zoos and aquariums around the country, officials told the City Council Cultural Affairs Committee yesterday.

WHEN New Yorkers went to the Bronx Zoo on Saturday, Sept. 8, 1906, they were treated to something novel at the Monkey House. At first, some people weren’t sure what it was. It — he — seemed much less a monkey than a man, though a very small, dark one with grotesquely pointed teeth. He wore modern clothing but no shoes. He was proficient with bow and arrow, and entertained the crowd by shooting at a target. He displayed skill at weaving with twine, made amusing faces and drank soda. The new resident of the Monkey House was, indeed, a...

Maxine, Patty and Happy are in their mid-30s and likely to live a very long time. But someday, their deaths will precipitate the end of their habitat - the elephant exhibit at the Bronx Zoo. The three female Asian pachyderms are in good health, but the zoo will not replace them after they die, said Steve Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo. Once the Bronx Zoo closes its elephant exhibit - whenever that may be - New York City will be left with no pachyderm exhibits. The elephant exhibits at the Central Park and...