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A Texas megachurch connected to a pastor who has openly questioned the benefits of modern medicine has been forced to host vaccination clinics after 21 members of the congregation contracted measles. The outbreak started when a person who contracted measles overseas visited Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, located about 20 miles north of Fort Worth, Texas. Officials with area health departments said those affected by the outbreak range in age from 4-months to 44-years-old. All of the school-age children with measles were homeschooled, and the majority of those who were infected had not been vaccinated. 'If it finds a...

In between bowls of chicken poodle soup and deciding to provide air cover for al-Qaeda in Syria, our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, found time to meet with mayors from our crumbling major cities. From Justin Sink of The Hill: *** "President Obama told a collection of big-city mayors Tuesday at the White House that he would continue to use executive actions to combat gun violence plaguing major cities. In the meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder and the mayors of 18 cities from across the nation, Obama discussed commonly applicable strategies to reduce youth violence. 'He also vowed to...

This week, I published a profile of Booker,  who is likely to be the next junior senator from New Jersey, after sitting down with the Newark mayor for a long interview in a Union, New Jersey  diner. Yesterday, while I was out reporting a story about how Maine’s governor hates words,  the National Review suggested that Booker likes them a little too much. It depicted Booker as a fabulist and accused him of inventing a drug dealer named T-Bone, who served as a fixture in his early political stump speeches.This is an old complaint, first lodged by the Newark Star Ledger,...

It's a question he has been asked in the past, but this time it came amid a campaign for the U.S Senate. In a profile that appeared in the Washington Post on Monday, Newark Mayor Cory Booker was asked about the persistent rumor that he is gay. "People who think I'm gay, some part of me thinks it's wonderful," Booker told the interviewer, "because I want to challenge people on their homophobia. I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I'm gay, and I say, 'So what does it matter if I am? So be it.'" When asked about the...

The problem of poverty now can be equated to racial injustices at the time of the March on Washington 50 years ago, Newark Mayor Cory Booker said Sunday. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders were fighting against issues like income inequality as well as racial inequality, the Democrat said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Something clearly I learned from the generation before me and the civil rights movement is that the power of the people is greater than the people in power," said Booker, who's running for Senate in New Jersey. "The challenge I often see in...

Turns out the Brick City is not all hard. Named the most unfriendly city by readers of a travel magazine earlier this month, Newark took a punch. But courtesy of two of its denizens — and a few dozen of their friends — pugnacious Newark showed it can take one on the chin, and follow up with a righteous combination of ingenuity and spirit.

NEWARK — Newark Mayor Cory Booker has easily prevailed in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, the Associated Press projects.

Travel mag Conde Nast Traveler asked its readers to name (and shame) the friendliest and unfriendliest cities in the US and across the world. The "unfriendliest" winner in both categories was deemed to be Newark, New Jersey, which one reader say they would not recommend for anything except as "a cheaper/less busy airport to fly into while visiting other cities." Other winners and losers: -- The next four unfriendliest cities in the US? Oakland, New Haven, Detroit, and Atlantic City, which one voter calls a "pale shadow of Las Vegas." -- Globally, Islamabad, Pakistan; Luanda, Angola; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Lome,...

EXCLUSIVE Cory Booker pocketed “confidential” annual payouts from his former law firm while serving as Newark mayor. Booker, the front-runner in New Jersey’s Senate race, received five checks from the Trenk DiPasquale law firm from 2007 until 2011. During that time, the firm raked in more than $2 million in fees from local agencies over which Booker has influence. “This was a settlement buyout for my interest in the firm,” the mayor told The Post at a campaign stop in Jersey City yesterday. “I had an equity stake, and we had a negotiated settlement.” Booker worked at the West Orange...

The conference room in the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters of LinkedIn was packed with the stars of Silicon Valley. Top executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter gathered around a table; the billionaire Sean Parker looked on from a back row. The guest of honor: Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark. "He's part of this tide," said Gina Bianchini, an entrepreneur who was at the meeting, in May 2009. "It feels like he's one of us." Mr. Booker personally has obtained money for the start-up, called Waywire, from influential investors, including Eric E. Schmidt, Google's executive chairman. A year after...

METUCHEN – GOP Senate candidate Steve Lonegan opened his main headquarters here this morning, bashing Obama Democrats, dismissing Newark Mayor Cory Booker as a "failed mayor," and lustily embracing the movement conservative wing of the Republican Party. “You pick a mentor when you go to the U.S. Senate,” the Republican front-runner told a roomful of backers. “My two choices are Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.” Proudly pro life and pro gun, Lonegan said he couldn’t wait to see the look on the face of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on the occasion of Lonegan’s inaugural escort at the Capitol Building....

A business owner shot and killed a robber Monday in Newark. Around 3:20 p.m., the suspect walked into an unidentified business in the 500 block of Central Avenue in Newark with a loaded gun and a backpack, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and Newark police. The suspect announced a robbery, and ordered the owner to fill the backpack with money and gold. The suspect said he would shoot the owner’s family members if the owner did not comply, authorities said. But the owner fought back. He pulled his own gun, and shot the suspect. The suspect was taken...

A US Airways flight with 34 people aboard was forced to make a dramatic belly landing at Newark International Airport last night. Terrified passengers managed to escape the plane unharmed after the plane's pilot - named by witnesses as Edward Powers - performed a heroic emergency landing. Video footage of the turboprop twin-engine plane coming down on the runway showed a dramatic shower of sparks flying from its underbelly as it scraped across the tarmac, however, miraculously no fire was started.

A former shipping terminal operator has sued the International Longshoremen's Association on claims that President Harold Daggett and some other union officials and members are organized crime associates who forced the company off the Newark and Brooklyn docks after it refused to play their waterfront games as reported by Steve Strunsky for The Star-Ledger: "one of the allegations in the suit by American Stevedoring is that ILA leaders told the company's chairman, Sabato Catucci, in August 2011 that if he refused to pull up stakes and leave the port he would be carried out 'in a box.'" The Mafia allegedly...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker made a statement on HBO's Real Time Friday that should please gun rights advocates across the fruited plain. Despite being for stronger gun laws, Booker said, "Legal gun buyers are not causing murders in Newark and Chicago and other places" … CORY BOOKER, NEWARK MAYOR (D-N.J.): To me, the data should drive our decision making. So I know, I’m not afraid of people having guns who are law abiding citizens. In the analysis of gun murders and shootings in my city, I could only find one in the entire time I’ve been mayor...The guns that are...

Cory Booker has filed a statement of organization for his U.S. Senate run according to documents posted on the Federal Election Commission website. The actual papers provide little detail about how much money the mayor of Newark has raised, but the papers, filed on January 8 are the first official step towards a run in 2014. His treasurer is listed as Judith Zamore.

Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker says the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), which spent $80.4 billion in fiscal 2012, is “not a government handout.” “I hope and understand that people are getting a better recognition that this is a program that really helps America, helps families in need,” Booker said on Friday, while describing his fourth day of living on a SNAP budget. "It’s not a government handout,” he said. “If anything, it’s a safety net that helps people through difficult times and bridges them towards stability.” …

Stopping veteran Dem retirements is top priority for Reid, SchumerBy Alexander Bolton - 11/25/12 06:00 AM ET One of the highest immediate political priorities for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democratic political guru Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is to persuade veteran colleagues not to retire in 2014. Democratic sources identify four senators as most likely to retire: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Another possible veteran retirement is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has yet to announce his decision. But Democratic aides expect him to run...

NEWARK — A behind-the-scenes political maneuver by Newark Mayor Cory Booker to fill a vacant council seat with his choice led to a near-riot in city hall tonight, with dozens of residents rushing the council stage and police responding with pepper-spray. After weeks of jockeying for Rep. Donald Payne’s successor, Booker made an unprecedented personal appearance to cast the deciding vote with his council allies for Shanique Davis Speight, a longtime ally of power broker Stephen Adubato, over the angry objections of residents. "In the absence of a quorum, I have an obligation to sit in," Booker said, though he...

In a sweeping pastoral statement to be made public today, the leader of more than 1 million North Jersey Catholics urges them to vote “in defense of marriage and life,” and warns that the passage of same-sex marriage laws might lead to a government crackdown on their religious freedoms. Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said the statement on gay marriage was not timed to coincide with the November election, now little more than a month away, and that he was not calling on Catholics to vote for a particular candidate. But he said they should examine the “full spectrum” of...