Free Republic

The number of drug overdose deaths has soared by 73% in the city over the last five years, data released Tuesday by the Health Department show. There were 937 accidental fatal ODs in 2015 — up from 800 the year before, and from 541 in 2010. The rate of people dying from drug overdoses jumped for the fifth-straight year, to 13.6 for every 100,000 residents — a 66% jump from 2010. …

De Blasio, Clinton cronies are carving up the city. Right, developer Bruce RatnerBy Micah Morrison In New York City, the controversy plagued Atlantic Yards development appears to be heading for trouble again. That could create problems for Mayor Bill de Blasio and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Allies of both Democrats have profited mightily from the project. For over a decade, Atlantic Yards has been at the center of heated disputes over power, profit and privilege in New York. Does the site serve the needs of the taxpayers who financed its development? Or is it primarily a giant boondoggle generating...

A millionaire Republican is seeking to challenge Democratic incumbent Bill de Blasio for the New York City mayoralty in the mold of Mike Bloomberg. Paul Massey, a real estate executive who recently moved to the city from Westchester County, launched a campaign website and filed the requisite forms Thursday with the Campaign Finance Board for the 2017 election, according to spokeswoman Jessica Proud. Board spokesman Matt Sollars said Friday afternoon that the board had not received Massey’s filing. Massey plans to self-fund the campaign with the help of donors, and will not participate in the city’s contribution-matching program, Proud said....

Just three weeks before NYU’s newest class moves into the area, a group of junkies and crackheads has turned a leafy pathway in Washington Square Park into an open-air drug den — and the NYPD is doing nothing about it. As many as 20 strung-out vagrants have taken over several benches in the park’s northwest corner, where they openly consume hard drugs just steps from the children’s playground, outraged neighbors said.

Did Black Lives Matter Just Oust NYPD’s Police Chief? Black Lives Matter protesters call for the New York City Police Department to be disbanded. Mayor Bill de Blasio awards them a scalp. One day after Black Lives Matter protesters attempted to occupy New York’s City Hall Park, one of their central demands was met. With the resignation of Police Commissioner Bill Bratton Tuesday, the group can claim a victory in its effort to transform policing in America’s largest city. (TWEET-AT-LINK) Although Bratton’s resignation had been rumored for some time and he and the mayor deny protests influenced the move, BLM...

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton will announce his impending resignation and be replaced by Chief of Department James O’Neill, sources told The Post on Tuesday. Bratton’s resignation will take effect in mid-September, sources said. Bratton has repeatedly said he would not serve past the end of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s current term, which ends next year, and he recently endorsed O’Neill as his preferred successor. O’Neill was promoted to chief of department in late 2014 to replace Philip Banks, who unexpectedly quit rather than be promoted to first deputy commissioner.

Mayor de Blasio is set to announce NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton's resignation on Tuesday, a city hall source told NBC 4 New York. The mayor added a noon news conference to his schedule late on Tuesday morning. According to the Dow Jones, which first reported the resignation, Bratton will be replaced by Chief of Department James O'Neill.

NEW YORK – Mayor de Blasio has had a tough year with an ongoing federal probe into his administration, resignation of his press secretary and public feud with Gov. Cuomo, but now voters are saying they're not happy with him either. In a new poll, 51 percent of voters disapprove of his job performance. While only 41 approve of his work. Quinnipiac University conducted a telephone survey with 1,310 New Yorkers from July 21 to 28. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points. This new poll is in line with the one Quinnipiac...

As the New York City homeless problem persists, passengers have been encountering crowds of people camped outside Penn Station. As CBS2’s Jessica Layton reported, Penn Station commuters said the city needs to do something.

Say goodbye to the late-night fries and gravy. One of the last classic Brooklyn diners is biting the dust — and soon they’ll all die off due to the state’s minimum-wage increase and other factors, restaurateurs and economic experts predicted Friday. The owner of the four-decade-old, 24-hour greasy spoon, Del Rio Diner in Gravesend, said his place is closing down because he can’t afford to pay cooks $15 an hour, along with rising rents and expensive Health Department inspection fees. …

The de Blasio administration rolled out new set of relaxed disciplinary reforms for schoolchildren on Thursday that even managed to roil a recent ally, the head of the teachers union. Along with the Department of Education, de Blasio announced a total ban on suspensions for students in kindergarten through second grade claiming the current disciplinary tactics disproportionately affect students of color and those with disabilities.

Mayor de Blasio and wife Chirlane McCray called the Black Lives Matter movement a “force for good” that has changed the “national discussion,” as the pair defended the group on Monday from criticisms by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who blasted it as too intent on protesting against cops rather than engaging in productive dialogue.

Firefighters and medics will take their first “Trans 101” course on Tuesday, learning the correct way to interact with transgender people — and even getting a lesson in what LGTBQI actually stands for, a city official said. The two-hour sensitivity training was launched in March by the city Commission for Human Rights after Mayor de Blasio signed an executive order allowing people to use any public bathroom or locker room they identified with, regardless of their sexual anatomy.

On June 28, 1969, patrons at a gay bar in New York City's West Village neighborhood decided they had finally had enough after yet another police raid. As the NYPD attempted to enforce a law making it illegal to serve alcohol to "homosexuals," the resistance of the bar patrons turned into an uprising - the Stonewall Uprising - an event now widely credited with sparking the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the U.S. Now, nearly 50 years later, that same location - where members of the community stood up to government injustice - has been designated a new national monument...

The NYPD is supporting gay pride with a new rainbow colored patrol vehicle. The SUV was apparently painted for the city’s gay pride parade Sunday in Manhattan and carries a message of support for Orlando in the wake of the country’s largest mass shooting incident earlier this month.

Cops shut down a lane in the Lincoln Tunnel so a visiting businessman could be escorted through it at the behest of a major de Blasio fundraiser, federal prosecutors charged Monday. Modal Trigger Jeremy ReichbergPhoto: Reuters The outrageous move was revealed as part of damning criminal indictments unveiled Monday against four NYPD officers and the shady “fixer’’ who allegedly arranged it. The stunning arrests marked the first time cops have been charged in the sweeping 3½-year corruption investigation rocking the department and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office, which is being probed for its fundraising. Federal prosecutors allege that the civilian...

Cops shut down a lane in the Lincoln Tunnel so a visiting businessman could be escorted through it at the behest of a major de Blasio fundraiser, federal prosecutors charged Monday. [Snip] Federal prosecutors allege that the civilian behind the closure, Borough Park businessman Jeremy Reichberg, and his real-estate-investor pal Jona Rechnitz, spent more than $100,000 on police bribes between 2012 and 2015. "They got, in effect, a private police force for themselves and their friends — effectively they got cops on call," Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing at least a half-dozen federal, state, and local investigations into his fundraising, accompanied by ugly headlines and the lowest approval ratings of his tenure. Last week’s arrest of Norman Seabrook, the powerful head of the city's corrections officers’ union, on federal corruption charges in a case involving a de Blasio fundraiser, only crystallized what more and more New York Democrats are starting to believe: With next year’s election looming on the horizon, the progressive mayor is becoming vulnerable to a primary challenge. While a few prominent local politicians are toying with the idea, it’s...

Politicians are known to kiss babies, rather than their peers. Tell that, however, to Bronx Borough President Democrat Rubén Díaz, who planted what appeared to be a totally spontaneous kiss on the cheek of Manhattan Borough President Democrat Gale Brewer this past June 9. In defense of Mr. Díaz, whom I interviewed last week in his Grand Concourse office, it could be argued that the kiss, widely viewed throughout the Internet, was more than appropriate for the event that ensued that day. Thousands of residents from both Manhattan and the Bronx had come to join Díaz and Brewer and several...

Scofflaws of New York, rejoice — the City Council has cleared the way for you to litter, loiter and pee in the street to your heart’s content. New legislation dubbed the “Criminal Justice Reform Act” was passed by lawmakers Wednesday, giving miscreants a get-out-of-jail-free card by eliminating the criminal penalties on a raft of quality-of-life crimes.