Free Republic

Angry residents and workers Sunday decried the hordes of hookers brazenly peddling themselves on a Queens street, where it was business as usual the day after The Post exposed the rampant illegal trade. “The police do nothing — nothing!” fumed Anna Garcia, 42, who works at a cellphone store along the seedy stretch of Roosevelt Avenue in Corona dubbed the “Market of Sweethearts” by the prostitutes. “Drugs, prostitution, alcohol — it’s terrible,” she said of the flagrant “underground” red-light district taking over the neighborhood filled with families with children.

President Hugo Chavez has ordered the "acquisition by force" of a landmark Hilton Hotel on Venezuela's Margarita island, the government's Official Gazette announced Tuesday. The facility, on the Caribbean resort island of Margarita in Nueva Esparta state, was targeted for state takeover less than a month after it was used to host the Africa-South America Summit. It is not the first time Chavez's government has checked into a Hilton and stayed for good. Caracas has already seized the Hotel Hilton in Caracas, rechristening it the Hotel Alba, a reference to the Venezuelan-led leftist regional alliance Alianza Bolivariana para las Americas...

The US-based Hilton hotel chain is "evaluating" the Venezuelan government's seizure of one of its hotels on the Caribbean resort island of Margarita, a spokeswoman told AFP on Wednesday. President Hugo Chavez ordered the "acquisition by force" of the landmark hotel Tuesday, according to Venezuelan officials. "At this time, Hilton Worldwide is evaluating how the Venezuelan government's action affects its interest in this hotel," said Karla Visconti, a Hilton Worldwide spokeswoman for the Caribbean, Mexico, and Latin America. In a brief statement Visconti said the hotel "remains a member of the Hilton system of hotels, and welcomes guests with the...

Caution: The following contains a report on activities many will find objectionable. Peter LaBarbera at Americans for Truth about Homosexuality announced today that a Washington, D.C., inaugural week event that originally was described in an e-mail as a "pig sex" orgy has been cancelled after concerned citizens complained to the Doubletree Hotel hosting the event. "A big 'Thanks' to each of you who called the Doubletree and its parent company, Hilton Hotels," said LaBarbera in a statement, "urging them to not allow this unbelievably depraved and unhealthy homosexual event to occur in public conference rooms." LaBarbera continued, "We learned that...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Blackstone Group said on Tuesday it would buy Hilton Hotels Corp. for about $26 billion in cash. Under terms of the deal, Blackstone will pay $47.50 for each Hilton share.

Norway and Cuba on Friday deplored the decision of a U.S.-owned hotel in Oslo to deny lodging to a Cuban delegation in compliance with U.S. trade sanctions against Havana. Norway's main trade union LO threatened to boycott the Scandic hotel chain, owned by the U.S.-based Hilton Hotels Corp., if it did not reverse its policy. The Scandic Edderkoppen hotel in Oslo refused to book rooms for a 14-member Cuban delegation planning to attend a travel fair in the Norwegian capital next week. "These actions from Scandic managers are totally unacceptable," deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johansen told Reuters by telephone. "In...

Corporate Hillton Apparatchiks have given credence to the old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished” by their not renewing Fran O’Brien’s renewable lease. Since October of 2003 Hal Koster, a two-tour Vietnam veteran and Jim Mayer, a combat injured Vietnam veteran and long time advocate for veterans and a small group of volunteers have been hosting a dinner each and every Friday night for the severely injured patients of Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Ward 57 and severely injured sailors and Marines at Bethesda Naval Medical Center and their families. This was begun as part of a promise to insure...

The steaks are great, of course. But it isn't the T-bones, the porterhouses or the rib-eyes that will be sorely, even painfully, missed when Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steakhouse loses its lease and closes its doors this month. The downtown D.C. restaurant, which has hosted a decade's worth of power lunches, political dinners and salacious hookups, is more poignantly known for its Friday night steak dinners for severely wounded soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. "It looks like they're kicking us out," sighed Marty O'Brien, son of the late Redskins offensive lineman Fran O'Brien, before closing the restaurant yesterday...

Hilton Hires TRUE Agency to Handle 2004 Diversity Advertising Campaign January 23, 2004 BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Hilton Hotels Corporation announced today that it has hired minority-owned TRUE Agency, Los Angeles to administer its 2004 Diversity advertising campaign. The focus of the 2004 Diversity campaign will be a continuing effort to increase awareness of the Hilton commitment to diversity; expose minority and female entrepreneurs to the Hilton Hotel Owner/ Franchise Development program; and attract minority-and-women-owned business to the Hilton Supplier Diversity Program. The assignment includes print and online creative advertising, as well as media planning and placement. "We're looking...