Free Republic

Washington Comes Out: Ten percent of adults in the District of Columbia identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, nearly three times the national average. What makes the city such a gay-friendly place?

<p>Seattle voters have elected a socialist to city council for the first time in modern history.</p> <p>Kshama Sawant's lead continued to grow on Friday, prompting 16-year incumbent Richard Conlin to concede.</p> <p>Even in this liberal city, Sawant's win has surprised many here. Conlin was backed by the city's political establishment. On election night, she trailed by four percentage points. She wasn't a veteran politician, having only run in one previous campaign.</p>

Bill de Blasio overwhelmingly was elected mayor here Tuesday, becoming the first Democrat to lead New York in 20 years and ushering in an era of activist liberal governance in the nation’s largest city. In early returns Tuesday night, de Blasio was soundly defeating Republican Joe Lhota, a protégé of former mayor Rudy Giuliani. De Blasio campaigned on a mantle of progressive change following Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s 12 years in office, highlighting what he saw as “a tale of two cities.” The moneyed Manhattan elite have had their mayor, he argued, and now the 46 percent of New Yorkers...

A former medical center chief defeated a county sheriff to become the next mayor of financially troubled Detroit, though the job holds little power while the city is being run by a state-appointed emergency manager.

**SNIP** Whites lost their No. 1 status to Latinos in 19 suburban districts spread across the six-county area of Cook, DuPage, Will, Lake, Kane and McHenry. Blacks were displaced by Latinos as the leading group in nine other districts, including the city of Chicago. This year’s school report card shows that minorities make up nearly half the students in Illinois public schools. And, of those minorities, Hispanic students have eclipsed blacks over the last 10 years as the largest minority, 24 percent.

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Prof. Richard Vedder, the Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University. Cincinnati and Detroit are separated by barely more than 250 miles – a five-hour drive at worst, or under an hour by plane. Despite this proximity, many Cincinnatians would prefer to believe that Detroit’s horrendous fiscal situation couldn’t possibly hit their city. Not so fast. As the largest bankrupt city in America, Detroit has seen its population drop by more than half, unemployment soar to well over double the national average, and services decline. This is what happens to a locality...

Another Democrat Success Story— The 23,500 pensioners in Detroit are going to have to adjust their budgets. The city plans on cutting pensions by 84 percent. Doug Ross and Reuters reported: On Friday, city financial consultant Kenneth Buckfire said he did not have to recommend to Orr that pensions for the city’s retirees be cut as a way to help Detroit navigate through debts and liabilities that total $18.5 billion. Buckfire said it was clear that the city did not have the funds to pay the unsecured pension payouts without cutting them. “It was a function of the mathematics,” said...

Another concern of the ADA is female toplessness downtown, something not currently against the law, but which Council members have noted in meetings recently is a source of complaint from some downtown business owners. State Rep. Tim Moffitt introduced a bill to ban female toplessness (specifically nipples) in public, and Asheville City Council had earlier called for a change in state law to allow them to stop the annual topless rally. But the bill never advanced during this year's legislative session, and the so-called "nipple ban" became the target of some mockery.

A group of Milwaukee pastors and their supporters gathered Monday morning at a local coffee shop to implore city officials to sponsor a gun buyback program, which they say could remove weapons from the city's streets and reduce violence in their neighborhoods. "We are here today because we are fed up," said the Rev. John McVicker Sr., pastor at Christ the King Baptist Church. "There have been far too many senseless shootings in our city, many resulting in homicide." The pastors have asked the city to allot $50,000 in its 2014 budget to initiate a one-time, anonymous gun buyback, where...

<p>Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in prison for corruption, the apparent last step after a series of scandals destroyed his political career and helped steer a crisis-laden city even deeper into trouble.</p> <p>Kilpatrick, who served as mayor from 2002 until fall 2008, fattened his bank account by tens of thousands of dollars, traveled the country in private planes and even strong-armed his campaign fundraiser for stacks of cash hidden in her bra, according to evidence at trial.</p>

Detroiter Sleeps In Liquor Store With Shotgun To Prevent Robberies October 4, 2013 9:43 AM Steve Bahoura said he's been forced to sleep inside his east side Detroit liquor store with his shotgun to make sure he doesn't get robbed. (Credit: Mike Campbell/WWJ Newsradio 950) DETROIT (WWJ) - One Detroit business owner is taking matters into his own hands to make sure thieves leave his liquor store alone. Steve Bahoura, who has owned the Van Dyke Liquor Market since the 90s, said he deals with several break-ins each year and he’s tired of it. Most recently, Bahoura said someone broke...

The city insists the water is safe, but people can't get over the colorResidents on Manhattan's East Side are staying far away from their tap water after it started flowing with an unusual color, despite the city's insistence the water is safe. On Thursday, residents and businesses began noticing brown water from their sinks and taps. Nearly a dozen hydrants in the area were also unlocked and gushing discolored water. The city's Department of Environmental Protection said the discoloration happened when construction of new water mains forced them to reverse flow, stirring up sediment. The DEP said the brown in...

An ambulance was summoned to the Summit Medical Center abortion clinic in Detroit, Michigan, yesterday, and rushed an African-American woman to the hospital. This is the second such incident at this abortion clinic since March. Pro-life activist Emmanuel Lugermo ignored orders by the clinic security guards not to photograph the incident. His pictures show a woman on a gurney in obvious distress. Witnesses on the scene said she was trembling or shaking. Reginald Sharpe, an abortionist with a long and sordid history, was on duty at the time of the emergency. Sharpe was known to have killed a patient in...

<p>Reduce the obesity rate in New York City? Fat chance!</p> <p>More New Yorkers than ever are living large, despite Nanny Bloomberg’s war on sugary drinks and fast foods, statistics obtained by The Post reveal.</p> <p>The city’s obesity rate among adults has skyrocketed 25 percent since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, city Health Department figures show.</p>

In some cash-strapped Chicago schools, no resource can be taken for granted -- not even toilet paper. Nicholas Sposato, alderman of Chicago’s 36th ward, recently held a toilet paper drive for the schools in his community.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel condemned a Thursday night shooting on Chicago’s South Side that wounded 13 people, including a three-year-old boy. “Senseless and brazen acts of violence have no place in Chicago and betray all that we stand for,” said Obama’s former chief of staff in the first of a series of tweets Friday morning. “The perpetrators of this crime will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Emanuel added. Witnesses said several gunmen fired at least 20 shots at a group on basketball courts, according to NBC News’s Chicago affiliate. The station said...

IN THE 1983 movie Dr. Detroit, the flamboyant lead character goes on a rampage warning of trouble to come. “I am talking about scorched earth, no survival, wholesale destruction…body-bags and fire!” he yells. That’s pretty much what has happened to Detroit over the last three decades. Its population has shrunk by half to below 700,000. The wait for police response is five times the national average, and only 8 percent of crimes are solved. Roughly a third of the city’s 140 square miles is either unoccupied or dilapidated. About 40 percent of its tax revenue is directed to retirement or...

Even the most dangerous cities in America can have relatively safe neighborhoods, as there is more variation in crime within most cities than between cities. But using exclusive data developed by NeighborhoodScout, and based on FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in America, we here report those specific neighborhoods in America that have the highest predicted rates of violent crime per 1,000 neighborhood residents of all. Violent crimes include murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. These neighborhoods are the epicenters of violence in America, where social issues are likely to ignite into violence and spread.

Using Census data, we've figured out that half of the United States population is clustered in just the 146 biggest counties out of over 3000. Here's the map, with said counties shaded in. Below the map is the list of all the counties, so you can see if you live in one of them. See link for list of names.

Los Angeles’ new mayor has vowed to help stanch the flow of film and TV production jobs out of Hollywood, starting with the appointment of a film czar at City Hall. But to make a real difference, Eric Garcetti needs to convince skeptical state pols to combat the lure of rich tax incentives from outside California. Two days after this year’s Oscars, Hollywood’s councilman Eric Garcetti, then running for mayor of Los Angeles, staged a media event at Sunset Gower Studios. Only a smattering of reporters and photographers showed up, perhaps because the gathering was to address “runaway production,” a...