Free Republic

One of the biggest champions for gun control in the Empire State, State Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, is advocating taking over the National Rifle Association from the inside. After broaching the subject in a round table discussion with U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, who is a fan of anti-gun legislation at a national level, Kruger repeated it for clarity to the New York Daily News. “Perhaps if we all join, we could take over that group and start a new (gun control) platform,” Krueger said. “I think we outnumber the people who are members of the NRA and are so...

A Molotov cocktail was thrown at 2 Chabad Yeshiva students from Israel while visiting New York City on Friday afternoon, COLlive.com was told. The bochurim were part of a group that took the Subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan to perform the weekly Mivtzoim rounds, helping Jewish business owners and clients to do a Mitzvah. Yisroel and Yosef, both 19-year-olds who asked that their surname not be mentioned, were walking on W 37th Street near Ninth Avenue when one of them felt "an agitation." "A firebomb was thrown at them," said a brother of one of the students. "It exploded and...

The great and terrible Chick-fil-A has come to Babylon. I’m pretty sure that’s a quote from Ghostbusters, right before the “dogs and cats living together” bit. Yes, the mighty and controversial, but undisputed King of chicken has come at last to New York City, and despite any past enmity, the city is thrilled and the residents are lined up for blocks to get the precious. Being from the south, Chick-fil-A has long been a passion of mine. If you’re wondering, I order the classic as is. I put a little mayo and mustard on it. I escape to euphoria. And...

A high profile marriage of an Iranian American doctor to actress Gina Davis was already reported (Link). But news now reveals that John Kerry's son-in-law is also an Iranian-American doctor. The news comes out shortly after Kerry faced staunch opposition from right wing pro-Israeli Republicans to his nomination as Secretary of State. In 2009 Dr. Vanessa Bradford Kerry, John Kerry’s younger daughter by his first wife, married Dr. Brian (Behrooz) Vala Nahed, an Iranian-American physician.

IT was snowing in Maine on Jan. 9. I’d been to the dentist’s the day before. The staff there were pleasant enough when I changed genders 12 years ago. “We’ll just change your forms,” the receptionist had said, cheerfully. “It’s no problem.” That day, Papi Edwards, 20, a transgender woman of color, was shot to death outside a hotel in Louisville, Ky. If you’d told me in 2000, as a transgender woman just coming out, that I was a person of privilege, I’d have angrily lectured you about exactly how heavy the burden I’d been carrying was. It had nearly...

NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a security guard has died after a man walked into a federal building in Manhattan and opened fire. The guard, identified by his union as Idrisa Camara, died shortly after the shooting Friday evening. Police say the gunman walked through a side entrance of the building that houses an immigration court and other government offices. Chief James O'Neil says the gunman later shot himself in the head. He was found dead in the building. A law enforcement official identified the shooter as Kevin Downing, of Fort Lee, New Jersey.

After a whirlwind weekend campaigning in Iowa, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump took a break from the race on Monday to report for jury duty in a Manhattan courtroom. “Is his helicopter going to land here?” a wily New York judge, who did not give her name, joked to the Guardian. She confirmed that the crowd outside the courthouse where she works was unusually large, even compared to the crowds that greet other celebrity courtroom guests. The judge assessed the scene, then settled down with a hot coffee across the street to watch the spectacle, which included about 100 reporters...

Items are often lifted by privileged shoppers who somehow feel they deserve more. “They’d pay for one of the things they were still holding but drop something extra in their shopping bag, like their own version of a free gift,” said the Sephora insider. At Anthropologie, some upper-middle-class women buy $400 kaftans and $500 clogs — and then “accessorize” for free. “We were taught that our prime shoplifters were women and girls who were regular shoppers at ­Anthro,” said one ex-employee, who every night would find piles of security tags in the fitting rooms that were taken off apparel that...

On his blog, the suspect said he's on a mission to find an Asian wife and his many rejections in approaching Asian women in the city have led to his game “Bash Asian Women in the Nose.” The man wanted for attacking four Asian women in Manhattan may be a suicidal artist and blogger who’s confessed to the crimes — claiming that he’s playing a game called “Bash Asian Women in the Nose,” police sources said Thursday. “I had to do it,” Tyrelle Shaw, 25, wrote on his blog “Mr. Talented.”

Theory of a founding father's African ancestry Friday, July 23, 2004                                              By LAWRENCE AARONAS MUCH as I thought I knew about Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, nobody ever told me he was black. Yes. You heard it here first, folks.And you'll think about it from now on every time you take out a $10 bill.Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow is the latest one to explore the theory.I was totally blown away by that information when a friend casually mentioned Hamilton's link to two significant anniversaries - the 250th anniversary of Columbia University, originally Kings College where he was schooled, and...

NEW YORK - A man wanted in the attack of a gay couple in the Chelsea section of Manhattan (NYC) last month has been arrested. Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin, 41, turned himself into police Tuesday. He faced a judge on two counts of felony assault and two counts of attempted felony assault. A judge set bail at $75,000. The May 5 assault at a Dallas BBQ on West 23rd Street was caught on video. The scary and wild attack unfolded as stunned diners looked on, some yelling "Stop!" A man is seen slamming a chair onto a gay couple then running off....

Nine graffiti artists who spray painted creations across the world-renowned 5Pointz building filed a lawsuit Friday in Brooklyn federal court, seeking unspecified damages from the owner who whitewashed away their artwork. [Snip] The aerosol artists say they are owed substantial cash damages because Wolkoff painted over their al fresco works. [Snip] The iconic buildings had more than 350 works of visual art on the walls — inside and out — when Wolkoff destroyed them, the lawsuit said. The colorful, eye-catching creations were torn down for good last summer.

Manhattan writer Suzanne Corso, 46, was once a card-carrying member of the 1 percent — until her financier husband lost their $100 million nest egg in the 2008 fiscal meltdown. Here, the mother of one, who has just published her third novel, “Hello, Hollywood,” tells The Post’s Jane Ridley her very New York story of survival. My 6-year-old daughter doesn’t think twice about calling room service from our luxury residential hotel to order a $25 cheeseburger for herself. It’s November 2005 and we’ve been living in an 11-room suite at the Ritz-Carlton on West Street for a little more than two years. And...

A New York man who sought help from a fortuneteller to fix a romantic relationship says she scammed him out of more than $700,000. Now the allegations have the Manhattan psychic, Priscilla Delmaro, and another person facing charges of grand larceny. The 32-year-old Brooklyn man told police he consulted Delmaro in August 2013 who told him that evil spirits were keeping him from a woman he claimed to love and wanted to be with who did not share his same affections, The New York Times reported ( http://nyti.ms/1dU288a ).

A crane hauling an air conditioner into the top floor of a 30-story building dropped the heavy load Sunday morning, smashing parts of the building and injuring 10 people. Workers were loading the shipping container-sized machine into 261 Madison Ave. when a rigging strap holding the air conditioner broke, a city official familiar with the ongoing investigation told the Daily News. The chiller sheered the building as it fell. Debris rained down on Madison Ave. around E. 38th St. Part of the 30-story building's facade near the roof was bashed open.

NEW YORK, - A Saudi real estate magnate is reportedly under contract to purchase the second-most expensive condo in New York City, for the price of $95 million. The towering unit, located at 432 Park Ave. in Midtown Manhattan -- the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere -- was placed under contract in 2013 but has yet to close, various news media reported. The buyer is said to be Fawaz Al Hokair, a Saudi real-estate magnate worth a reported $1.37 billion. Developers Macklowe Properties and CIM Group, as they do with all other buyers, declined to confirm Hokair's presence...

Witnesses told The Post that tourists snapped pictures on their cellphones of the gruesome aftermath. In the past year or so, there's been a spate of suicides among financial-services employees. Financial firms have been trying to do more to improve the lifestyles of their employees, especially younger ones.

Murders are way up so far this year in Manhattan, The Post has learned. Sixteen people were killed around the borough between the first of the year and Sunday. Over the same period last year, the figure was 11. That’s an increase of about 45 percent. Shootings in the borough have also soared. There have been 50 “shooting incidents’’ since Jan. 1, compared with 31 in the same time period in 2014 — an increase of about 38 percent. Some of these “incidents’’ involved more than one victim. The number of shooting victims nearly doubled, from 33 to 61. ....

Silda Wall Spitzer, who knows a thing or two about moving onward and upward from a cheating husband, is hosting a women-only Manhattan fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton. Silda, along with Wall Street queen Alexandra Lebenthal, Heidi Miller, tech entrepreneur Geraldine Laybourne and Maroon Capital’s Ann Davlin, is hosting the “just for women” event for Hillary on June 1. Tickets cost $2,700 for the two-hour event...

A Brooklyn teacher who was arrested in 2011 on charges of drugging and raping a middle school student is demanding that the city let her keep her teaching job, according to a new lawsuit. Claudia Tillery, 45, argues in papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court that she was acquitted of all criminal charges in April 2014 and the Department of Education’s hearing officer improperly used sealed evidence, DNA tests and the prosecutor’s testimony to toss her from the teaching post she's had since 1996.