Free Republic

Mayor Bill de Blasio paid tribute to Colin Powell, who died Monday from COVID-19 complications, saying the Harlem-born first black secretary of state exemplified the best of the Big Apple and made New Yorkers “very proud.” “General Powell served this nation with just tremendous distinction,” he said Monday morning during his daily press briefing, held remotely in City Hall. De Blasio noted Powell’s “absolute classic New York City story” of being born to Jamaican immigrants, growing up in Harlem and The Bronx and graduating from Morris High School before attending City College of New York. “Just an absolute great example...

LAKE ORION, Mich. - He was a stern-faced sniper — and a soft-hearted Marine who handed out candy to kids in Iraq. He was a warrior who wrote poetry about life and death. He was featured in Michael Moore's antiwar documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," portrayed as an overzealous Marine recruiter who targeted poor kids. But Staff Sgt. Raymond Plouhar was far more complicated than that. And it was that complicated man who died in Iraq in late June, as he served with some of the same men he had recruited years ago. It was that complex man who was buried Friday,...

14-year-old Inland middle school student who killed himself after telling his mother he might be jailed for joining a student walkout is being held up as a symbol by some who support immigrant rights. "He was just fighting for his rights," Louise Corales said of her son, Anthony Soltero, after a standing-room-only Palm Sunday Mass for the teen at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Ontario. "He would be proud that we are here now to honor him because he is a hero." Then she leaned weeping into the arms of her husband, Victor Corales, as Anthony's father, Jaime Soltero,...