Free Republic

PERU, N.Y. — They roam by night, picking cornstalks clean, making off with apple crops. They have almost no natural predators, but they have razor-sharp tusks and a seemingly bottomless appetite for plants and animals. Their population can triple in one year. They are feral pigs, and while they have long plagued parts of the Southern and Western United States, now they have become a problem in the peaceful Champlain Valley of New York, an agricultural heartland on the edge of the Adirondacks.

“U.S. taxpayers should not be put in a position where they are indirectly subsidizing the mass murder of Syrian civilians,” wrote the senators, led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). "We urge you to use all available leverage to press Russia and Russian entities to end their support of the Assad regime, and that includes ending all DoD business dealings with Rosoboronexport, which is within your authority as Secretary of Defense,” they wrote. “Continuing this robust business relationship with Rosoboronexport would undermine U.S. policy on Syria and undermine U.S. efforts to...

FOUR young people were arrested today after an Amish buggy collided with a US police patrol vehicle in Sherman, upstate New York.Police were responding to reports of an underage drinking party and deputies discovered several Amish buggies traveling north and taking up both lanes of traffic on Clymer Hill Road, The Jamestown Post-Journal reported.One of the buggies moved into the northbound lane to let the police vehicle pass, but another moved into the southbound lane and collided with the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Department patrol car.The impact caused the buggy to flip on to its side, trapping one of the passengers...

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday dismissed calls for a pro-President Barack Obama super PAC to return comedian Bill Maher’s $1 million donation following accusations of sexism over comments he’s made about 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and other women. The issue has received particular attention in the wake of a video from a pro-conservative women group calling out the “double standard” in the way Maher and Rush Limbaugh’s “slut” comment have been treated. Asked on ABC’s “This Week” whether Maher’s money should be returned, Schumer said no. “The bottom line is that Rush Limbaugh’s comments were just nasty...

Brooklyn civic groups are leading a charge to discover the exact burial place of over 200 Revolutionary War soldiers killed at the dawn of the United States and dumped near the Gowanus Canal. “These are the men who allowed America to come into existence — it’s a question that needs to be resolved,” said Marlene Donnelly, a member of the Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus,... “The Battle of Gettysburg has an entire field put aside to remember it — and this one, we just don’t remember,”... The grave concern is that development in and around the putrid canal, a...

UT faculty senate to consider extending benefits to employees' partners Wendy Bach pays more for health care for her family than most of her co-workers at the University of Tennessee do. The law professor moved here from New York City in 2010 with her partner of 19 years and their 8-year-old daughter. And while Bach's daughter is included on her employer health insurance, her partner is not. Instead, their family pays for a separate insurance policy for her partner, a longtime educator who hasn't been working since they moved to Knoxville.

Cops are hunting this brute who beat down and abducted a woman outside the Long Island Rail Road Ronkonkoma station Sunday morning, in a sickening assault that was caught on video. The man slugged the woman just after she got off the train at 7:40 a.m., knocking her down. Later, the suspect confronts the woman in the station’s taxi office, drags her outside and strikes her again.

QUEENSBURY — Warren County sheriff's deputies say a homeowner broke up a fight between his pit bull and another by shooting and killing the other dog. Charles Lombardo, of 50 Meadowbrook Road, was home with his son at 4:45 p.m. on Thursday when a dog barked in the front yard. The men went outside and saw their pit bull being attacked by another, deputies said. They tried to separate the dogs by yelling, kicking and striking them with a walking cane. Lombardo then went inside, got his 12-gauge shotgun and shot the dog attacking his. He then reported the incident...

ALBANY — It was not a good week for New York’s cities and counties. On Monday, Rockland County sent a delegation to Albany to ask for the authority to close its widening budget deficit by issuing bonds backed by a sales tax increase. On Tuesday, Suffolk County, one of the largest counties outside New York City, projected a $530 million deficit over a three-year period and declared a financial emergency. Its Long Island neighbor, Nassau County, is already so troubled that a state oversight board seized control of its finances last year. And the city of Yonkers said its finances...

(Crain's) — New City Bank, the South Michigan Avenue lender for which indicted Cook County Commissioner William Beavers is vice chairman, was closed today by state banking regulators. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. couldn't find another bank to take on the assets and deposits, and instead will pay back depositors up to the $250,000 limit at which the FDIC insures deposits. New City had $72.4 million in deposits and $71.2 million in assets as of year-end 2011. The bank was launched in 2003 by a group of local investors, including Mr. Beavers, a South Side alderman at the time. Mr....

Occupy Wall Street in New York City could run out of funds in the coming weeks.

Occupy Wall Street in New York running low on cashBy Michelle Nichols | Reuters – 9 hrs ago NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Occupy Wall Street group in New York is running low on money and on pace to run out by the end of the month, raising questions about the future of the movement that sparked a wave of nationwide protests against economic injustice six months ago. Donations to the group, which raised about $500,000 within weeks of setting up camp in a park near Wall Street on September 17, have slowed and with plans for an American Spring...

ITY OF NEWBURGH – Residents and family of a 22-year-old man killed by police officers shouted down police and Newburgh officials during a news conference on Friday. Newburgh police Chief Michael Ferrara said four officers chased Michael Lembhard inside 55 Liberty St. late Wednesday night, planning to take him into custody on an arrest warrant. Lembhard struggled with the officers, broke free and grabbed a 12.5-inch kitchen knife, Ferrara said. He threatened to kill himself and then suddenly lunged at officers with a knife, Ferrara said. Two opened fire. Before Ferrara finished, people in the crowded City Hall chambers began...

NEW YORK - A New York imam has declared that he will start a campaign on April 22 to make the April 26 birthday of the Muslim prophet Muhammad a national holiday celebrated by Muslims and people of other faiths.Mohammad Abdul Qayyoom, head of the Muhammadi Community Center in Jackson Heights in the NYC borough of Queens, published a copy of the petition via the center's Facebook page to be signed by other religious leaders. The interfaith initiative asks for an establishment of April 26 as a federal holiday, "so that we can enjoy this day like the joy of Christmas.""One good thing [about]...

Every so often, a story comes along that is so outrageous, all one can do to soothe the rage is to laugh. And shed a tear. That’s the case in Buffalo, New York. There – for years – teachers in the government education system have enjoyed free plastic surgery procedures, courtesy of taxpayers. Teachers don’t pay a dime and the entire cost is borne by the school district. So a school district that recently announced it is operating with a $42 million deficit paid $5.9 million last year for teachers to get boob jobs, tummy tucks and facelifts. I’m sure...

(CNN) -- A U.S. district judge ordered New York City to pay $128 million in to firefighters who allege the city used an entrance exam that deliberately sought to keep African-Americans and Latino Americans off the force. The judge also ordered the FDNY to hire 293 black and Latino applicants. "It has been in the city's power to prevent or remedy the need for damages proceedings for a decade, and it has not done so," U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garufis said in his ruling on the class action lawsuit. He called it the "consequences of the city's decision to...

Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has described 2011 as “the most difficult year in [Planned Parenthood’s] history.” Well, welcome to 2012. The Alliance Defense Fund, in conjunction with the Susan B. Anthony List, released its summary report on publicly available federal and state audits that identify waste, abuse, and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood and state family planning programs and reveal systemic misuse of nearly $100 million taxpayer dollars. The audits speak for themselves in detailing Planned Parenthood’s misuse of the money that’s been funneled to state family planning programs and Planned Parenthood affiliates. Ten state...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Eric Holder says he's disturbed by what he's read about the New York Police Department conducting surveillance of mosques and Islamic student organizations in New Jersey. Holder says the Justice Department is reviewing the matter.

The community is rallying behind a longtime Chinatown newsstand operator who the city wants to displace over a technicality. Community Board 3 members, state and city officials and local residents joined together last week to ask the city’s Department of Transportation to cease its efforts to boot the newsstand from its current location on the southwest corner of Bowery and Pell St. The newsstand’s owner, Marilyn Louie, inherited the stand at 18 Bowery from her father in 1982, after the World War II vet passed away. Louie said she was recently told by D.O.T. officials that her stand is a...

Monday night I had the honor of attending a tribute to the late Andrew Breitbart held in Hell’s Kitchen. I’m not sure what I was expecting from the evening, but what happened is something that can’t quite be put into words, although I’ll try my best. Over the course of three hours, over a hundred people filtered into a cramped, slightly raucous Manhattan bar that-as one of my friends remarked at the time-Andrew himself might have enjoyed. After all, he spent more than a few pages of Righteous Indignation cataloguing the extracurricular activities he engaged in while matriculating at a...