Free Republic

The USS New York was scheduled to sail up the Hudson River Monday. The $1 billion ship was built in Louisiana with about 7.5 tons of World Trade Center steel melted down and used in the bow. As part of its journey, the ship is scheduled to stop when it nears ground zero, where first responders, families of Sept. 11 victims and the public have been invited to watch a 21-gun salute. Rosaleen Tallon, whose firefighter brother Sean Tallon died in the attacks, planned to be among them. "I think it's a really nice tribute," she said, adding that her...

Some NYC Freepers need to find these (&$! and give them what for. Get the puke bucket.

...gossip mills are beginning to gush and grind about increasingly muscular CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper and his muscle Mary man-friend Antoine "Ben" Maisani snatching up a very butch firehouse on West Third Street in New York City's Greenwich Village. These roiling real estate rumors of Misters Cooper and Maisani–who recently vacationed together in India –purchasing Fire Patrol House #2 seems to have first found legs a few days ago on the New York City-centric gossip site Gawker. Listing information for the four and some story firehouse shows it was listed at $4,750,000, measures a considerable 8,420 square feet, and...

Updated: The law firm Sidley Austin has rescinded an employment offer to a Harvard law graduate who has turned himself in to police for allegedly setting fire to a Sept. 11 memorial in Manhattan. The suspect, 26-year-old Brian Schroeder, is a 2009 graduate of Harvard Law School, the Harvard Law Record reports. He was a 2008 summer associate at Sidley Austin; a permanent offer of employment has been rescinded, Sidley Austin partner Bill Conlon told the ABA Journal. Schroeder turned himself in for the blaze at the Memorial Park chapel housing the remains of unidentified Sept. 11 victims on Saturday...

Reporting Lou Young NEW YORK (CBS) -- Democrat John Liu has won a decisive victory in the race for New York City Comptroller. The Queens Councilman has made history, becoming the first Asian-American elected to citywide office. They pretty much knew they were having a victory party at John Liu's headquarters in Midtown. In fact, you could see the optimism on the candidate's face when we caught up with him earlier tonight in Harlem. Liu was wrapping up his successful campaign for Controller at the side of the man who currently holds the office. And his is a big deal...

NBC reverses Bloomberg call Wow: This is looking to be a very long night for the billionaire-incumben-frontrunner in New York. With more than a third of the votes in, it's a one-point race. NBC called it for Bloomberg -- but just reversed that call. The New York Times continues to indicate that Bloomberg has won.

BNO News: Independent candidate Michael Bloomberg re-elected as Mayor of New York City, defeating Democrat Bill Thompson.

In an unusually overt step into politics by a religious leader, the Roman Catholic bishop of Brooklyn is urging voters, via robocalls, to support Vito J. Lopez, an assemblyman and the Brooklyn Democratic boss, whose hand-picked candidate is in a tough race for a City Council seat. The bishop, Nicholas A. DiMarzio, in a recorded phone call sent to every registered voter in City Council District 34, praised Mr. Lopez’s legislative service to the Catholic Church this summer. Mr. Lopez played a key role in defeating a bill that would have let adults file suit over childhood sexual abuse that...

School nurses mistakenly gave the swine flu vaccine to two students who didn't sign up for it - including a Brooklyn girl with epilepsy who wound up in the hospital. "I was outraged," Naomi Troy, 26, told the Daily News after her 6-year-old daughter, Nikiyah Torres-Pierre, had a possible allergic reaction to the shot. Officials at Public School 335 in Crown Heights called an ambulance to take Nikiyah to SUNY Downstate Medical Center when she fell ill following the arm jab. "My stomach was hurting, and I was itching," Nikiyah said after she was released from the hospital. The snafu...

NEW YORK – Meb Keflezighi became the first U.S. man to win the New York City Marathon since 1982 on Sunday, a victory that capped an outstanding day for American distance running. Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia captured the women's race, with two-time defending champ Paula Radcliffe falling back to fourth then grabbing her left leg in pain after finishing.

thelastcrusade.orgA soft-spoken and sedate Staten Island Muslim woman tried to slit her husband's throat as he lay sleeping in the middle of the night. Rabia Sarwar, 37, was enraged that her husband Sheikh Naseem, 41, asked her to eat pork and to wear non-Islamic attire, officials said. "It's time for you to die!" the Muslim woman screamed as she pounced on hubby and hacked at his neck with a butcher knife, sources said. He woke early Wednesday to find her straddling his chest and hacking at his neck with a knife. Naseem, a burly teacher at Susan Wagner High...

With the leaves turning and the mayoral race down to its final paces, William C. Thompson Jr., the Democratic candidate, sketched out a liberal policy agenda Friday, saying he would fight to repeal laws that allow landlords to charge market rents for regulated apartments. He promised to appoint pro-tenant members to the Rent Guidelines Board to oppose higher rents and pro-rider members to the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to oppose raising fares. He said he would keep subway station agents on the job, and try to place all rent-regulated middle-class apartments that are part of the Mitchell-Lama program...

2 Foster Children Killed, 3 Others Seriously Injured After Van Crossed Yellow Lines Suspect Allegedly Removed Middle Row Of Seats, Had Children Sit On Floor QUEENS (CBS) -- A Queens woman behind the wheel of a minivan that crossed the yellow lines and crashed into another van on Monday, killing two foster children inside the van, was charged with manslaughter Tuesday, and sources tell CBS 2 drug paraphernalia was found inside her vehicle. Police say Sheila Bethea, 45, was driving a Mazda minivan with six passengers – five foster children between the ages of 5 and 15 and a 43-year-old...

The New York Times: The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said. VIDEO AT LINK

By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York’s City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office. Newly released campaign records show the mayor, as of Friday, had spent $85 million on his latest re-election campaign, and is on pace to spend between $110 million and $140 million before the election on Nov. 3. That means Mr. Bloomberg, in his three bids for mayor, will...

There aren’t many churches in Christendom where the person sitting next to you is likely a star of stage, screen or television. St. Malachy’s Church, located on 49th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, founded in 1902, is a little jewel box of a church and an essential and important aspect of New York City’s theatrical community.Because of its location in the midst of the Theatre District — and the number of actors who have graced its precincts — it has come to be known as the Actors’ Chapel. Prior to 1920, St. Malachy’s was a working-class Irish-Italian parish....

Everybody knows New York City is an expensive place to live. But the United Nations wants to know if affordable housing is so tough to come by that it actually violates human rights. The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said. The United Nations Human Rights Council appoints a rapporteur, or independent...

Note: Photo and video included. SNIPPET: "Ahmad Wais Afzali, 53, is charged with tipping off Najibullah Zazi that New York City police detectives were after him. Afzali is also accused of lying about it to federal agents. The Imam remains free on bail." His lawyer says the indictment is "merely a tired rehash of the same discredited allegations."

SNIPPET: “DENVER — A Colorado man whose son is accused of plotting a terror attack in New York City is scheduled to go to trial in December on a charge of lying to investigators. A federal judge on Tuesday scheduled a 10-day trial for Mohammed Wali Zazi starting Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court in Denver.”

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Alex Rodriguez has done something remarkable in every game of his charmed October. CC Sabathia is settling for every time he takes the mound. Together, they’ve got the New York Yankees within one game of a return to the World Series. Rodriguez homered in the third straight game of his outstanding postseason, Sabathia pitched eight resilient innings of five-hit ball on short rest, and the Yankees beat the Los Angeles Angels 10-1 Tuesday night to take a 3-1 lead in the AL championship series.

Morton Sloan feels besieged. Over the last several years, the Bronx-based entrepreneur has watched the property taxes on the ten Morton Williams supermarkets he runs in the city swell by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Increasingly aggressive city inspectors now linger in those stores for hours, writing costly citations for items that clerks accidentally mislabel. Some of Sloan’s suppliers say they’ll no longer deliver to New York City because of the Department of Transportation’s frequent parking-ticket blitzes. It gets worse: a new Bloomberg-administration program that encourages fruit and vegetable vendors to set up on street corners has left him scrambling...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is back on the trail, this time stumping for his successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The failed Republican presidential candidate is talking up the billionaire mayor Sunday in areas of Brooklyn and Queens where he is still well-liked. ------------------------------------------------ Maybe Rudy will put in a good word for Arlen Specter while he is up on that stump!

One of Madonna's New York neighbors says the superstar's loud music and frequent dance sessions are causing a commotion. Karen George, of Manhattan, lives above Madonna in a building on Central Park. She said in a lawsuit filed Friday against the building's co-op board that the Material Girl is using her apartment as a rehearsal studio, forcing neighbors to endure "blaring music, stomping and shaking walls," for up to three hours each day.

The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with al Qaeda that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant thought to be the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told the Associated Press. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as the 24-year-old man hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city's mass-transit system, the two intelligence officials said. Intelligence officials declined to...

Congressman Charles Rangel has let New York down with his financial sacandals. New York waited for decades to gain the kind of congressional clout that Rep. Charlie Rangel has wielded as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and now he has let the home team down. Big time. To say that Rangel has become damaged goods is to engage in understatement. His Republican adversaries are taking full advantage of Rangel's many transgressions to make him a walking, talking symbol of Washington hubris for all of America to scorn. Unfortunately for him and for his Democratic colleagues - and,...

Muslims have hit the streets of Queens in order to do what they do better than anyone. Play the victim card, to be specific the race card. I am still waiting for one reporter to have the guts to ask Muslims what race is. When I start doing my own reporting next year, I will gladly ask them. Muslim advocates charge NYPD is racial profiling in Queens raids tied to alleged Zazi terror plot BY HENRICK KAROLISZYN AND SAMUEL GOLDSMITH DAILY NEWS WRITERS

It was the most lukewarm and indirect of endorsements, delivered in the conditional tense, and coming from a presidential spokesman, no less. But for William C. Thompson Jr., the Democratic nominee for mayor, the surprising comments Friday made by Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s press secretary, that Mr. Obama would support “the Democratic nominee” was tantamount to a life preserver in his uphill battle to unseat Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. --snip-- The comments prompted Mr. Thompson, the city comptroller, to quickly issue a statement titled “Yes We Can in New York City: President Barack Obama Supports Bill Thompson for Mayor.” And...

Members of the New York City Muslim community suggested Saturday they were being unfairly targeted in a terror plot probe, as a friend of the probe's prime suspect said the scrutiny has put his "life on hold." Several people speaking Saturday afternoon at a news conference cautioned authorities against profiling Muslims in their probe of an alleged bomb plot with links to Al Qaeda. The suspect, Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant who worked in Denver and New York City, is being held without bond in New York. The friend, Naiz Khan, befriended Zazi 10 years ago at a mosque.

NEW YORK (CBS) -After facing one of the most serious terror threats since the 9-11 attacks, Department of Homeland Security officials are slashing a big chunk of anti-terror funding to New York City.Local lawmakers say the cut could put American lives at risk.Just weeks after Najibullah Zazi was nabbed in an al-Qaida terror plot to explode dirty bombs here, the feds have inexplicably slashed Big Apple terror funding designed to build a network of sensors to uncover nuclear or radioactive devices in a 50 miles radius of the city. "To me this is beyond comprehension that less than a month...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― A courageous neighbor makes the ultimate sacrifice; a Good Samaritan, stabbed to death, while trying to stop a man with a dagger during a violent assault. Neighbors say the Good Samaritan, his wife and 2-year-old son had moved into a building in upper Manhattan from a shelter in Brooklyn just a few months ago. They say Marco Betancourt was always helping his neighbors at their building on 162 W. 144th Street. That's why they weren't surprised to hear that Betancourt lost his life, selflessly trying to stop one neighbor from stabbing another, his mother's boyfriend, with...

An Afghan immigrant accused of plotting a terror attack in New York City contacted accomplices there while making a cross-country drive from Denver, raising concerns among investigators that he was sending instructions to purchase more bomb-making chemicals, officials familiar with the case said. Terrorism investigators are trying to determine whether suspect Najibullah Zazi sent instructions to associates as he drove from Denver to New York last month, according to law enforcement officials. Such instructions could explain a critical missing piece of the high-profile terrorism case: why authorities could not find actual explosives.

WORK ON THE MOST EXCITING ELECTIONS IN NYC! (Working Families Party) Paid positions are available now to work on the most exciting campaigns this year. Work for progressive Democratic candidates, leading up to the elections on November 4th (those who perform at a high left will be kept on staff full-time to work on electoral and issue-based campaigns). Qualifications:You must have a passion for socio-economic justice, a desire to learn, and strong communications skills. You will participate in both office and in-the-field trainings. Must be available to work weekdays from 1:30 - 9:30. Description: You will be talking to voters...

Bake sales are banned in NY city schools BY JENNIFER MEDINA NEW YORK TIMES NEW YORK — There shall be no cupcakes. No chocolate cake and no carrot cake. According to New York City's latest regulations, not even zucchini bread makes the cut. Trying to limit how much sugar and fat students put in their bellies at school, the Education Department has effectively banned most bake sales, the lucrative if not quite healthy fundraising tool for generations of teams and clubs. The change is part of a new wellness policy...

Rep. Charlie Rangel ducked reporters’ questions about his ethics troubles and heard a nasty catcall from a passerby during a Manhattan news conference this afternoon. Rangel, the dean of New York’s congressional delegation, appeared outside the 96th Street-Broadway subway station on the Upper West Side to discuss the federal stimulus package’s impact on city transit projects. A media throng was itching to ask about the House ethics probe that has prompted Republicans to call for his ouster as Ways and Means chairman, but Rangel said he would not take questions on other subjects. At one point, a passerby in a...

La Semana Hotel, New York City ** I'd rather take a nap at the Macy's bathroom than this place I had just arrived in New York City, exhausted and out of breathe and wasn't going to be in Brooklyn 'til later that afternoon to spend a few nights with some friends, and so I went on the web to find a few hotels in the city for a hotel by the hour rate...to get the essentials done...take a short nap, shower, get myself cleaned up. Holy crap! This place is a complete hell-hole! Broken glass mirrors, cracked tiles, the door...

In a lengthy story today titled “The case against Charlie Rangel,” New York Post reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein examine “forty years of tax evasion, misdeeds and contempt.” Most interesting is their account of how Rangel tapped into a housing program for poor people to renovate his Harlem brownstone into six units, one of which continued to be his residence. It’s the same building cited by NLPC in a September 16 Complaint to the Ethics Committee. On his financial disclosure forms, Rangel reported little or no rental income for eight years (1993-2001) from the six units, even though public...

Maybe when City College of NY is done building Charlie Rangel's favorite Pork project, the $1.95 million, federal earmark funded Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service one of the first courses they could teach is "Playing Fast and Loose with Ethics 101." This past year, Americans have gotten to see the true nature of Congressman Rangel. He may have been a public servant for almost 40 years, but throughout that time he has found ways to enrich his favorite constituent, Charlie Range. In September of 2008 he admitted a failure to report $75 thousand in taxes. What has followed...

Olympic history was made Wednesday morning, but it wasn't the kind New York City backers were hoping for. In the fourth round of voting, the International Olympic Committee chose London, England, as the host of the 2012 Olympic Games, making London the first city to be selected to host the Games on three occasions. New York City was eliminated on the second ballot of an unusually competitive contest. Paris had been considered the front-runner heading into Wednesday's voting. video at link

Sol SternSchool of Crock The Bloomberg administration and the UFT have increasingly joined forces on the schools. 30 September 2009 In 2002, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg convinced the state legislature to give him control of the city’s schools. He argued that the old Board of Education had become “dysfunctional” and thus incapable of producing significant academic improvement. The board’s seven voting members were separately appointed by six different (and often competing) elected officials. That meant, Bloomberg maintained, that “no one was in charge” and no one could be held accountable for the school system’s dismal performance. But Bloomberg...

Over the past several months, I have heard numerous calls for Congressman Rangel to resign, I 100% agree with those calls, however, in recent days I have heard some ponder why Rangel is still in the United States Congress, that is why I am writing this article. Congressman Charles Rangel, first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970, representing New York's fifteenth congressional district like a lord with ultimate power. Over the past several months, it has been revealed that Rangel, who is the head of the all-power House Committee on Ways and Means (deals with tax...

Why hasn't Charlie Rangel stepped down?After documented reports of his sweetheart deals, influence peddling, unreported assets, and untaxed income, Charlie Rangel is still chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means. Can't anyone tell him to move aside? Francis Wilkinson Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Glenn Beck launched an attack against the Obama administration's "green jobs" director Van Jones in the last week of August. By Labor Day, Jones was FOX-kill. Compare that to the results achieved by The New York Times and The Washington Post, both of which have called for New York Rep. Charles Rangel to step down...

The NYPD has since launched an internal investigation A local radio personality says he and two friends suffered an anti-gay attack in Hell's Kitchen over the weekend and police turned a blind eye to the incident. The NYPD has since launched an internal investigation and said today the Hate Crime Task Force is looking into the incident. One of the alleged victims, Blake Hayes, an on-air personality for WPLJ, said he and his friends were walking down 9th Avenue on Friday night when a man threw a lit cigarette at the group and called them "faggots." Hayes said a...

NEW YORK (AP) — An Afghan immigrant pleaded not guilty Tuesday to plotting a terrorist attack on New York City using chemicals bought in beauty supply stores and was ordered held without bail. A lawyer for 24-year-old Denver airport shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi entered the plea in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn. Officials say he and co-conspirators bought products in Colorado containing hydrogen peroxide and acetone — key ingredients for homemade bombs. Prosecutors believe Zazi received explosives training from al-Qaida in Pakistan and may have planned to target mass transit in the New York City area.

Once upon a time, when you were just a kid, Mom or Dad probably read you "The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.” And years later maybe you read this 1942 classic by Hildegarde H. Swift to your own children.   Little Red was saved twice by children, once from being auctioned off and once from neglect. The story begins with the introduction of a little lighthouse sitting on the rocky Manhattan shore of the Hudson River.  “It was round and fat and red. It was fat and red and jolly. And it was very, very proud.”  The...

At the junctures of Manhattan’s Little Italy, Chinatown and Soho is a tiny jewel box of a chapel that many people would mistake for an Orthodox church.In actuality, St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Chapel is a community very much in union with Rome.Named for one of the three archangels whose feast is celebrated Sept. 29 in the Western Church, St. Michael’s is located in the heart of old New York. The tiny, peaceful church epitomizes the meaning of the word “serene.” The chapel is the home of the Byzantine-rite Community of the Holy Archangel Michael Russian Catholic Church. The Catholic Church...

-- from the 1912 edition of "Dame Curtsey's book of party pastimes for the up-to-date hostess," by Ellye Howell Glover: "Chapter X: Pastimes for October. For Allhallow Eve" Did you ever attend a Bête Noir party? Well, they are great fun. Of course, everyone knows that "bête noir" is the French for whatever a person detests or cordially hates. So all the guests appeared wearing what to them was their greatest horror. So, what would be an example of a "Bête Noir" costume? An unmarried girl of uncertain age convulsed the crowd when she appeared with a fringe of lemons...

I guess you might consider this a "vanity" post, but didn't know where to post it. Myself and five other gals are going to New York City for five days in Nov. for sight-seeing, shopping, Broadway shows, etc. Has anyone here ever bought/used the New York Pass and/or hop-on hop-off bus pass? None of us have been to New York City before (at least not in the last 30 years) and wonder if this is something we should purchase ahead of time, or is it a big rip-off? Thanks for any help you can offer.

An alleged al-Qaeda terror operative told investigators he received training in "weapons and explosives" from Osama Bin Laden's goons last year, according to documents released Sunday. Najibullah Zazi admitted he visited Pakistan's wartorn tribal areas for the training, documents said. Zazi, 25, was collared by the FBI late Saturday night in Aurora, Colo., along with his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi. Also arrested was Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, the imam of a mosque in Flushing, Queens.

The FBI arrested three men overnight on charges they lied to federal agents during an investigation of a terror plot against New York City that authorities say was "the real deal." Agents in Denver arrested Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year old airport shuttle driver, who authorities say appears to be the ringleader of the alleged plot. Also charged with lying to the FBI was Zazi's father, Mohammed Zazi. In New York, the FBI arrested the leader of a Queens mosque, Ahmad Afzali, who authorities allege had been a New York police department informant but "went bad" and tipped off Zazi, his...