Free Republic

Does the NYPD guard churches during Lent or Advent? Doubtful. Jewish synagogues during Passover or Yom Kippur? Perhaps, but certainly not with anywhere near the show of force it will apparently display around mosques during Ramadan. From the New York Daily News:The NYPD Tuesday announced heightened security for the city's mosques during the upcoming Islamic holy observance of Ramadan.Local precincts will dispatch more officers on foot patrol and in squad cars to patrol the areas surrounding the mosques during the month-long religious observance that begins on Monday."Collaboration with the public is a vital ingredient in our efforts to keep...

Representative Charles B. Rangel has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns, according to a lawyer for the congressman and documents from the resort.

Rep. Charles Rangel paid no mortgage interest on a beach resort property for about 15 years, a lawyer for the powerful House committee chairman said Friday. Davis said Rangel failed to report rental income from the resort property on his taxes, but didn't realize it was necessary because of the way the deal was structured.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – House Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, failed to report $75,000 of income from a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, his attorney said on Friday. The Democratic congressman, who has represented New York City's Harlem district for 38 years, plans to file an amendment to his previous tax returns and likely has no federal tax liability on the investment, lawyer Lanny Davis said. Rangel probably owes nothing to the federal government because of depreciation and foreign tax credit, but he may owe a few thousand dollars to the state...

Media Mob has learned that The New York Times will make an announcement later today that it plans to cut the number of sections it has in the paper during some days of the week and it will fold in the Metro Section and Sports section into other sections of the newspaper. According to newsroom sources, the Metro Section is moving into the A-section and the Sports section will move into the Business section for some portion of the week. The move is being made to save money on printing. According to one newsroom source, neither metro editor Joe Sexton...

IT'S SAFE TO SAY that Democrats awoke yesterday with a serious case of Post-Palin Depression. "Electrifying!" said U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Palin's poised and feisty speech that had Republican conventioneers swooning. "Reaganesque!" jubilant supporters said about Palin's rare ability to deliver a shiv to the jugular with folksy charm and perfectly timed humor. Never mind the lies, distortions and spin in her speech. Never mind the absence of substance. She pre-empted the Democrats' theme of change by presenting John McCain and herself as rebels and reformers. She neutralized her own vulnerability on inexperience by skewering Obama's admittedly thin background....

Now you see it, now you don't. A Queens truck driver took a move from the magician's playbook, making his license plate seemingly disappear as he drove through a toll plaza without paying the $40 fee, the Port Authority said Wednesday. Orlando Payano's tractor-trailer had a cable running from the license plate to the dashboard cigarette lighter when PA police stopped it recently on the Staten Island side of the Goethals Bridge, authority spokesman Steve Coleman said. A tug on the lighter flipped the plate underneath the big rig's belly - and beyond the range of surveillance cameras used to...

Dear Readers of the Sun: This morning I write to you about the future of The New York Sun, which is in circumstances that may require us to cease publication at the end of September unless we succeed in our efforts to find additional financial backing. The managing editor, Ira Stoll, who is one of the founding partners in the paper, and I have shared this news with our colleagues, and we would like our readers as well to be aware of the situation. -SNIP- Certainly, launching this paper in the months immediately after September 11, 2001, was an optimistic...

At the Giants halftime last night in the Meadowlands, a "Stand Up for Cancer" presentation was made by three people from the 50 yard line: Steve Tisch, partner in the ownership of the Giants, a radiant and gorgeous Christie Brinkley, and Jeff Zucker.Tisch was roundly booed (because of the personal seat licenses which the Giants have instituted for the new stadium which will open in 2010). Chritie came on next and was warmly greeted by the 77k fans.But when Zucker was announced and began to speak, the fans booed him almost as vigorously as they did to Tisch. Why? The...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   New York Primary Elections, Tuesday, September 9!   Friday, August 29, 2008   Tuesday, September 9 is Primary Election Day in the Empire State.  Please be sure to vote Freedom First.For candidate ratings and endorsements, please call the NRA-ILA Grassroots Division at (800) 392-VOTE (8683) or visit www.NRAPVF.org.  For more information about voting in New York, please click here.  Remember to Vote Freedom First on Tuesday, September 9! Find this item at: http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=4152

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin touched on a lot of issues Wednesday night. One of the most emotional was her message for families with special needs children. When Palin introducer her son Trig, who has Down syndrome, to the nation Wednesday night, she touched the hearts of millions nationwide. "Children with special needs, inspire very, very special love," Palin said. "For years you've sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters and I pledge to you if we're elected, you'll have a friend and an advocate in the White House." On Thursday, CBS 2...

Dear Readers of the Sun: This morning I write to you about the future of The New York Sun, which is in circumstances that may require us to cease publication at the end of September unless we succeed in our efforts to find additional financial backing. The managing editor, Ira Stoll, who is one of the founding partners in the paper, and I have shared this news with our colleagues, and we would like our readers as well to be aware of the situation.

When Rudy Giuliani addresses the Republican National Convention as expected Wednesday night, it might be his last big moment in the political spotlight. It doesn't have to be. With New York State's gubernatorial race coming up in 2010, Giuliani has a rare chance to make up for his mistakes since leaving office. Instead of just making money, Giuliani can make a difference by helping to revive the GOP as a truly national party. More importantly, he has the chops and the experience to reform Albany and deliver New Yorkers the smarter, more responsive, more effective government they deserve. Before we...

The nine people convicted in the Newsday circulation scandal were each sentenced Friday to 5 years' probation and up to $125,000 in fines, escaping potential restitution totaling $5.9 million and up to 20 years in prison. Those sentenced - in what federal prosecutors said was the end of their investigation - included Louis Sito, a former top Newsday executive who ran the newspaper's day-to-day business operations, and Robert Brennan, former vice president of circulation. Sito also served as vice president of Hispanic media at Tribune Co., which owned Newsday and the Spanish language Hoy, also implicated in the scandal. The...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Republicans revamped their convention plans for a second day, dropping former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as keynote speaker Tuesday night while trying to determine President Bush's role in the political pageantry celebrating John McCain's candidacy for president. In Giuliani's speaking slot were former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, one of McCain's rivals for the Republican nomination, and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate in 2000 and now a McCain supporter. Republicans say the two will talk about McCain's life and their friendship with him. Whether Bush will address delegates...

He Graduated Without Honors. Senator Obama's life story, from his humble roots, to his rise to Harvard Law School, to his passion as a community organizer in Chicago, has been at the center of his presidential campaign. But one chapter of the tale remains a blank — his education at Columbia College, a place he rarely speaks about and where few people seem to remember him. Contributing to the mystery is the fact that nobody knows just how well Mr. Obama... performed as a student. The Obama campaign has refused to release his college transcript... The Obama campaign declined to...

Detectives were eyeing the daughter of a murdered 100-year-old Long Island woman as a person of interest in her slaying - but they also had other potential suspects, a police source said. Jessie Burke - who reached the century mark on Aug. 7 - was found dead Sunday, shot once in the head inside a million-dollar Sag Harbor home that she shared with her 76-year-old daughter, Jean. Jean told cops that she last saw her mother alive about noon, and that she arrived home about an hour later to find her shot dead in her recliner.

The military translator from Queens sat beside his mother in a wheelchair in a hospital room on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Thursday. His right leg was encased in a black boot, affixed with Velcro straps from his swollen toes to his knee. What was left of his left leg, which had been amputated at the knee, was wrapped in a snug elastic rubber stocking on which the word “stump” had been scrawled. The man’s name is Syed Shah and he was grievously wounded in July in a bomb attack on a military convoy in Afghanistan, where he had been...

If the first woman ever nominated Vice President by a major political party left the door open to voting for the second such woman EVEN if she was in the opposing political party, would that be newsworthy? Well, on Saturday, Geraldine Ferraro told NPR that she hasn't decided who she's going to vote for in November, while also stating that whatever Sarah Palin doesn't know about foreign policy "she will learn very quickly - she seems smart enough."

HYPERAGGRESSIVE Sen. Chuck Schumer really outdid himself last week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver... Schumer lied to Paterson about the circumstances under which he upstaged the governor by denying him his agreed-on role of introducing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton... "Chuck had agreed to turn the microphone over to Paterson when Hillary showed up at the New York delegation breakfast, but then he hogged it for himself ... "Chuck lied about what happened, and the governor knows he lied." Added another prominent delegate, "Chuck was out of control. "He was elbowing people on the floor of the convention, pushing...

Agriprocessors, the Brooklyn-based company that is the nation’s largest kosher meat producer, is well known for the labor troubles at its meatpacking plant in Iowa — federal agents detained 389 of its workers as illegal immigrants in May, and labor officials in Iowa have accused it of employing 57 under-age workers. But Agriprocessors is also having labor troubles closer to home, with the company asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn a vote to unionize at its distribution center along the Brooklyn waterfront. If successful, the company’s appeal could have repercussions at companies across the country: it is trying...

On July 1, California entered fiscal 2009 without having enacted a state budget. Nothing new in that: Budgets have been late in 16 of the past 20 fiscal years. The cause was also not unusual: There was a budget gap, generated partly by the slump in housing, partly by the absence of enormous stock-market profits and partly by the ongoing boom in state spending. Nothing new in that, either. Meanwhile, the productive, private part of California's economy has been cyclical for decades, while the unproductive government part keeps growing, and spending money it doesn't have. The size of the gap...

He battled the Viet Cong and infiltrated the Black Panthers, but ex-cop Athelston Kelson turned to crime after a yearlong struggle with liver cancer left him a beaten man, friends say. The 59-year-old NYPD hero and decorated Vietnam vet was arraigned yesterday, accused of being "the Bling Bandit" who raided banks across New York City and Long Island. "The cancer was really getting to him," said a former colleague. "He refused to fight it. He said that he didn't want chemotherapy, that he didn't want to put poison in his body. ". . . He helped so many people, in...

 For 20 years, Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel has owned a beachfront villa in a sun-drenched Dominican Republic resort, yet has only sporadically declared income on the property in federal filings. While the villa was rented to paying guests for the past two years, for instance, Rangel reported no income from it in 2006 and 2007, The Post has learned. As a congressman, failure to fully list all income and investments can result in civil penalties or criminal charges. The powerful Ways and Means Committee chairman, a Democrat, owns "casita" No. 412 on the Caribbean Sea at the Punta Cana...

DENVER - Hillary's got to be seething. Picking political unknown Sarah Palin for the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket is opening old wounds for Barack Obama and the Democrats, a top adviser for Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday. "There is much we don't know about Governor Palin," former Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said. "But at least in the short term, it will shake up the race, and leave some asking why Senator Obama didn't pick Senator Clinton to be his veep." Clinton's reaction was congratulatory - if perfunctory. "We should all be proud of Governor Sarah Palin's historic...

A city transit worker who was initially deemed to have been acting in self-defense when he fatally stabbed a man this year — a man who was apparently trying to help him fend off an attack — has been indicted on a murder charge, the police said on Friday. The worker, Maurice Parks, 40, appeared briefly in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Friday, but his arraignment was postponed because he had not yet retained a lawyer. He was being held without bail. Mr. Parks had just finished his late-night shift as a subway motorman on Jan. 10 and was...

Crown Heights will see its first-ever Straight Pride Parade this weekend. So how do the homos feel? By Jaime Jordan Reggae artists on the Taking Care Of Our Own Productions (myspace.com/tcooo) label are planning a Straight Pride Parade for Sunday 31 at 10am, starting at Church and Flatbush Avenues in Crown Heights and continuing down Bob Marley Avenue. It was organized in response to accusations made by gay activists, specifically Peter Tatchell, founder of the activist group OutRage!, that certain reggae songs, including Stapler’s “Hit Them Hard,” incite violence against gays. “The issue is not homophobia,” explains Tatchell. “It is...

The two candidates were once friends, with one crediting the other for bringing him into Republican Party leadership. But the competition for the Republican nomination for a Congressional seat on Staten Island has produced a level of rancor that has left the two candidates bitterly sparring and the party in disarray. In the last week, Dr. Jamshad I. Wyne, the finance chairman of the Republican Party on Staten Island and a candidate for Congress, accused his rival in the primary, former Assemblyman Robert A. Straniere, of trying to persuade him to make illegal contributions to Mr. Straniere’s failed 2001 campaign...

The virus that causes AIDS is spreading in New York City at three times the national rate — an incidence of 72 new infections for every 100,000 people, compared with 23 per 100,000 nationally — according to a study released on Wednesday by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The findings, based on a new formula developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that 4,762 New Yorkers contracted H.I.V. in 2006, the most precise estimate the city had ever offered. But the city stressed that because the method of estimating infections was new, it...

NEW YORK, NY (August 27, 2008) - Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the first-ever binding and enforceable agreement requiring a major national energy company to disclose the financial risks that climate change poses to its investors. Cuomo’s agreement with Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) (“Xcel”) comes as many power companies, including Xcel, are investing in new coal-burning power generation that will significantly contribute to global warming emissions. “This landmark agreement sets a new industry-wide precedent that will force companies to disclose the true financial risks that climate change poses to their investors,” said Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. “Coal-fired power...

The virus that causes AIDS is spreading in New York City at three times the national rate — an incidence of 72 new infections for every 100,000 people, compared with 23 per 100,000 nationally — according to a study released on Wednesday by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The findings, based on a new formula developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that 4,762 New Yorkers contracted H.I.V. in 2006, the most precise estimate the city had ever offered. But the city stressed that because the method of estimating infections was new, it...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The ranks of unemployed workers soared more than 20 percent in 25 New York counties in the first half of 2008, even in wealthy suburbs around New York City such as Westchester and Nassau, a report said Thursday. < > New York's economy is dependent on the fortunes of the Wall Street finance industry, so the state's tax collections have plunged with the profit-drought now withering banks and brokerages. Democratic Gov David Paterson recently persuaded the legislature to cut $427 million of spending and prune the three-year deficit by $2 billion to $24.4 billion. < >

The principal of an Islamic boarding school on Buffalo’s East Side has been forced to resign after allegations that he was sexually involved with one of his students and that he claimed to have taken her as a second wife. Evidence suggests Mohammed Ibrahim Memon, a father of seven, persuaded Sajidah Khan, then 21, to marry under Islamic law as a pretense to sleep with her.

Candidate for 26th Congressionial district sees possibility of secession due to Mexican immigrants WASHINGTON — Congressional candidate Jack Davis, in a speech earlier this year, warned that increasing immigration from Mexico could lead to a new civil war between northern states and Mexican-influenced Southern states that may want to secede from the United States. “In the latter part of this century or the next, Mexicans will be a majority in many of the states and could therefore take control of the state government using the democratic process,” Davis said in the speech. “They could then secede from the United States,...

Tania Hollander, 36, became the fourth and likely last person to plead guilty in the sex scandal that exposed Ashley Alexandra Dupré as former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer’s high-priced call girl. The scandal led to Spitzer’s resignation and launched Dupre to national prominence. Hollander's lawyer described her as a minor character in the scandal, but she could face up to five years in jail. Hollander, 36, of Rhinebeck, N.Y worked as a booker for the Emperors Club VIP, the high-priced New Jersey-based call girl ring that eventually hired Dupre. Hollander told the court she began looking for work early...

Following the withdrawal of the British army from Boston on 17th March 1776, Washington in the expectation that Howe would attack New York which was held for the Congress marched much of his army south to that city. In fact the British had sailed north to Halifax in Nova Scotia. It was not until the summer of 1776 that Howe launched his attack on New York. The British fleet reached the entrance to the Hudson River on 29th June 1776 and Howe landed on Staten Island on 3rd July. The Congress declared independence the next day. Reinforcements began to arrive...

ROSENDALE, NY—Controversial upstate New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey has been ordered to town court to answer a charge that he struck a constituent during a July event. Democrat Hinchey, who represents Ithaca and much of the state’s Southern Tier, has been directed to appear in Rosendale Town Court on September 9 to answer a charge of Harassment Second Degree. According to the Kingston Daily Freeman the charge stems from an altercation between Hinchey and a local member of the National Rifle Association: Paul Lendvay, 46, of Rosendale, the chairman of the Catskill Regional Friends of the National Rifle Association, had...

In a bid to correct what he called a “knowledge deficit” among New York City public school students, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced on Monday a pilot program that would overhaul the way children in 10 city schools are taught to read. The program, devised by E. D. Hirsch Jr.’s Core Knowledge Foundation, is being paid for with $2.4 million in private donations raised by the Fund for Public Schools. Called the New York City Core Knowledge Early Literacy Project, it will run for three years, following kindergartners at the 10 schools through the first and second grades. The...

The co-author of the popular travel adventure book "100 Things to do Before You Die" has died. Dave Freeman passed away on Aug. 17 after a fall in his Venice home, the 47-year-old writer's father confirmed to the Los Angeles Times. The "100 Things" theme inspired countless readers to do things like attend the Academy Awards and travel to exotic locales.

The New York Times Co. (NYT) said Tuesday that its advertising revenue for July fell 16.2%. Total revenue from continuing operations decreased 10.1% compared to the year-earlier period, while circulation revenue slipped 0.5%. The newspaper publisher said ad revenue from About Group grew 14.6% during the month. Shares of New York Times closed Monday at $12.88.

Tonight on stage in Denver Hillary Clinton, one of the most accomplished practitioners of the fine art of political deception, will pull off the biggest stunt of her career so far. In her speech to the Democratic convention Mrs Clinton will have warm words for Barack Obama. She will pledge herself to work for his election in November. She will urge her campaign supporters and the millions who voted for her in the primary to bury their differences and throw their support behind the nominee. She will, no doubt, describe herself as humbled. Don’t believe a word of it. There...

The Democratic National Committee is returning a $100,000 donation from embattled Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel made at his birthday fundraiser, saying it goes against a Team Obama ban on PAC money... Rangel presented the donation to DNC chairman Howard Dean at the gala at Tavern on the Green a few weeks ago. "The DNC no longer accepts PAC money," Rangel...been battling a wave of negative press and GOP slams on his four rent-stabilized apartments.

New York and 11 other states are suing federal environmental regulators over greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries, the New York attorney general's office said on Monday. The suit, led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, charges that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the federal Clean Air Act by refusing to issue standards, known as new source performance standards, for controlling global warming pollution emissions from oil refineries. Note: Other states in the suit are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. New York City and Washington D.C. also joined in...

ALBANY - Newly completed Re publican polls show John McCain running "neck and neck" with Barack Obama in several Democrat-leaning legislative districts on Long Island, in Westchester and upstate, according to surprised GOP operatives. Republicans aren't at a point of predicting that McCain will win heavily Democratic New York, but they say his better-than-expected showing means a higher GOP vote in November, and thus extra help in the crucial battle for control of the state Senate. "McCain is doing much better in several areas than a lot of people expected, and that's obviously good for us," said one of the...

All that talk last week about energy at Sen. Harry Reid's alternative fuels summit in Las Vegas sure got New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired up. Not "coal-fired" up, mind you. But fired up with that seemingly endless supply of clean energy long preferred by politicians: hot air. On Tuesday at the National Clean Energy Summit at UNLV's Cox Pavilion, Mr. Bloomberg vowed to make New York City the "No. 1 city in the nation" when it comes to producing green power. He laid out a vision that included wind turbines off the coast of Long Island and atop...

WJACTV Johnstown (PA) reports: Shanksville, PA -- Firefighters said it was one of the largest fire companies in the country meeting one of the smallest Saturday night, when 1,000 motorcycles from New York City rolled into the Alleghenies with a steel beam from the World Trade Center in tow. New York firefighters made the 311-mile trek to Shanksville by bike to give the 2-ton 14-foot long beam to the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Company... Read the rest or view the video by clicking here. At 7:00 a.m. yesterday morning, the Fire Family Transport Foundation launched from Floyd Bennett Field on Long...

WNBC News in New York City reports that the NYPD, working with Suffolk Country police and the FBI, have concluded there are no terrorism ties to be concerned about in connection with their discovery that a man, described only as an Egyptian engineer who entered the U.S. on a Sudanese passport, has designed an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of carrying more than 600 pounds of explosives. The engineer was assisted by a small group of men whom investigators surveilled as they drove a white van onto a tarmac, jumped out, and ground-tested the drone. There was no observation of the...

There will be a show of Democratic unity this afternoon in an effort to topple a longtime Republican state senator from Queens. One of the Democratic candidates, Albert J. Baldeo, will be withdrawing from the race and endorsing City Councilman Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. Two years ago, Mr. Baldeo was a little-known lawyer in Queens who came within 2 percentage points, about 900 votes, of defeating the longtime Republican incumbent, State Senator Serphin R. Maltese. And Mr. Baldeo achieved that with no support from the party organization in Queens and largely with his own money. But this year, Mr. Baldeo’s...

A predator drone being built by an engineer on Long Island sparked a large counter-terrorism investigation across the New York area, officials tell WNBC.com. Police said they had stumbled upon overnight testing of the drone at a little-used airstrip in Calverton, Long Island. The investigation began in February of last year, when investigators first learned testing of the drone was underway. Officials said the drone was being designed to carry more than 600 pounds of explosives. "It could be in the air for 8-10 hours and there's potential harm if it is carrying a large amount of toxic material," NYPD...

The New York City area is at "substantially greater" risk of earthquakes than previously thought, scientists said Thursday. Damage could range from minor to major, with a rare but potentially powerful event killing people and costing billions of dollars in damage. A pattern of subtle but active faults is known to exist in the region, and now new faults have been found. The scientists say that among other things, the Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones. The findings are detailed in the Bulletin of...