Free Republic

The Salvation Army on Tuesday settled a decade-old lawsuit that charged it with engaging in religious discrimination by requiring its government-funded social service employees to reveal their beliefs and to agree to act in accordance with the Christian gospel. As part of the settlement, approved by a federal judge in Manhattan, the Salvation Army will distribute to its New York employees who work in programs that receive government financing a document stating that they need not adhere to the group’s religious principles while doing their jobs, nor may they be asked about their religious beliefs. The Salvation Army, which is...

A Manhattan trader was killed Tuesday morning by a speeding Long Island Rail Road commuter train, marking at least the seventh suicide of a financial professional this year. Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, 47, a trader at Midtown’s Vertical Group, jumped in front of an LIRR train at 6 a.m. near the Syosset train station. He was declared dead at the scene. Reilly’s identity was confirmed by Salvatore Arena, an LIRR spokesperson, who said an investigation into the incident was continuing. Passengers on the west-bound express train told MTA investigators they saw a man standing by the tracks before he jumped in...

A Manhattan woman was charged with assault this week for allegedly brutally beating her three-year-old daughter after the toddler microwaved her cell phone and destroyed it. The woman had been taking refuge in a Hell's Kitchen shelter for battered women. Officers say that Krystle Reyes, 28, began assaulting her daughter around 5 p.m. on Thursday night. Fellow residents at the West 49th Street shelter say they heard the little girl screaming and called for help; officials found the little girl with a deep cut and bruising on her right eye, bruising to her right arm, red marks on her neck...

Liam Neeson says he’s “a little bit pissed off” at Mayor Bill de Blasio for wanting to shut down the horse-drawn carriage industry in New York City. The actor made the comment during a Wednesday appearance on “The Daily Show”. …

His parents still live there. He still keeps an office there. But it's not the same neighborhood he grew up in, and his feelings about newcomers now inhabiting once-blighted parts of America's most-populous city like Fort Greene slapped many people in the face after the famed director went into an expletive-laced rant during an African-American History Month lecture on Tuesday. Spike Lee on gentrification "I grew up here in New York. It's changed," Lee said at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, an art, design, and architecture school. "And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the South Bronx,...

“We can have police efforts focused on pedestrian safety without violating the civil rights of our citizens,” said Wong’s lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, who will file a notice of the lawsuit on Monday, naming the city, NYPD and unidentified officers as defendants. Wong maintains the traffic signal was green when he stepped off the curb at the southeast corner of 96th St. and Broadway to cross, but it may have turned red by the time the octogenarian reached the other side, where an unidentified cop stopped him and demanded to see his identification. Wong speaks only Cantonese and Spanish, but understood...

A 24-year-old man punched a man in the nose in a possible “knockout” attack in lower Manhattan Wednesday, and was caught minutes later, police said. Laval Woods of Harlem is charged with felony assault in the 2 p.m. incident for allegedly sneaking up behind the victim, who is 74, on Fulton St. and hitting him. A bystander saved the victim from hitting the ground, said witness Misha Erwitt. PHOTO EXCLUSIVE: Laval Woods of Harlem is arrested for punching a man in the nose at about 2 p.m. in Lower Manhattan.

A candid picture series exposing the lives of New York City nannies reveals how a deep-rooted racial divide continues to permeate the industry. Photographer Ellen Jacob, 58, told MailOnline that she was inspired to start the project after noticing how it was often 'black women pushing white babies around' on Manhattan's affluent Upper West Side. After spending four years scouring the streets for willing subjects she discovered the majority of caregivers, aged 23 to 60, were immigrants living on the minimum wage with no sick pay, holidays or health benefits.

A photo of a Nativity Scene the Catholic League erected in New York’s Central Park in December 2009. (Photo courtesy of Catholic League) (CNSNews.com) – The New York City-based Catholic League has erected a life-size Nativity scene at the heart of New York’s Central Park, hoping the display will remind Christians in other cities that such displays are legal.   Placed at the corner of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, the Nativity stands prominently in front of the world’s largest menorah – the eight-armed candelabra used to mark the eight days of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.   First...

<p>A federal judgeon Wednesday backed the city's Department of Education, ruling that the display of the nativity scene, unlike Christmas trees and menorahs, was not secular and has no place in classrooms.</p> <p>Judge Charles Sifton in Brooklyn dismissed the lawsuit brought forth by Andrea Skoros, 34, of College Point, saying the city's holiday displays policy banning non-secular symbols from schools did not violate her right to free exercise of religion.</p>

Take note all ye cultural fascists out to annihilate Christmas: The Catholic League has a nativity scene on public property in New York City, right in Central Park. We deliberately put it on the corner of 59th and 5th so that New Yorkers taking the 5th Avenue bus downtown can’t avoid seeing it. Indeed, it’s impossible to miss. Next to it will be the world’s largest menorah, a religious symbol that some dunce lawyers still think is a secular symbol. “Every year we get a permit from the New York City Parks Department to display our life-sized crèche in Central...

Leave a Comment Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:Today we erected a life-size nativity scene in Central Park, on the corner of 59th and 5th; it will be up until January 3. Moreover, we did not surround it with secular symbols.Every year we get a permit from the New York City Parks Department to display our nativity scene. We choose Central Park because it is a public forum, a place where concerts, marathons and all sorts of festivities take place. We do not seek to display our crèche on public property adjacent to City Hall, because that is...

A group called American Atheists has posted a high-profile billboard in New York City's Times Square depicting Christianity as a “myth,” apparently mocking Jesus Christ on the cross. The group, which first launched its Christmas “myth” campaign in 2010, ramped up its campaign with a giant sign that features an image of Santa Claus, an equally large picture portraying a suffering Jesus on the cross, along with the phrase, “Keep the Merry — Dump the Myth!”David Silverman, president of the atheist club, claimed in a press release that his group thinks “a large population of Christians are actually 'atheists'...

He went from tokens to toking. “Subway vigilante” Bernie Goetz has turned to peddling pot, cops say, decades after he pumped five shots into four black teenagers, skyrocketing him to national fame and infamy. The gunman, who divided the city after shooting four black teens in 1984, was arrested in Manhattan after selling a small amount of marijuana to an undercover narcotics cop Friday evening, police said. Goetz, who will be celebrating his 66th birthday next Thursday, reportedly chatted up the undercover female officer at Union Square Park at about 5:30 p.m. and “asked her if she wanted to get...

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A small helicopter drone flying high above buildings on the East side of Manhattan crash landed just feet away from a businessman during the Monday evening rush hour. Video he recovered from a memory card in the crash debris shows the drone twenty to thirty stories above the busy streets and crowded sidewalks near Grand Central Station. The businessman reached out to Eyewitness News saying he thinks the 3-pound drone could have seriously injured him had he taken a direct hit. He called police who took a look at the drone video, but did no further...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Something stinks in upper Manhattan. Residents claim skunks have invaded Inwood and Washington Heights, roaming the streets surrounding Fort Tryon Park and stinking up the neighborhood. “I tell my friends down in midtown or Hells Kitchen that there’s a skunk problem up here and they don’t believe it,” resident Mark Bailey said. “They’re in front of every building…they’re not just in the parks, they’re all over.” [...]

Earth has gained 19,000 Manhattans of sea ice since this date last year, the largest increase on record. There is more sea ice now than there was on this date in 2002.

An attacker pummeled a bus passenger so hard he smashed the bones in his face after calling the victim a “cracker” in Manhattan – marking the second time in two days that people appeared to be randomly targeted in racial tirades against white people, authorities said. In the latest incident, the suspect passed a 31-year-old rider on the M60 bus riding through Harlem, on West 127th Street, between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive, around 2:45 p.m., Friday, when he shouted the racial slur and punched the victim in the face, breaking his nose and eye socket, cops said. The victim...

The annual "Empty Sky'' lights, symbolizing the fallen Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, went on tonight on the Manhattan skyline.

The driver, who went by the name Afroduck, was fast and proud of it, using a dashboard camera to capture his wild 26.5-mile journey around Manhattan in 24 minutes.