Free Republic

A multi-colored symbol of inclusiveness flapped in the breeze above city hall Thursday night, when several dozen people turned out for the raising of the rainbow flag in celebration of the city’s seventh-annual Gay Pride Week. “I pray we begin this week in celebration knowing that each of us is special and knowing that God loves each one of us,” the Rev. Janyce Jackson, a member of Newark’s LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) Advisory Commission, said during a ceremony in the city hall rotunda. . . Julien Neals, the city’s business administrator, described the pride he felt in...

Amtrak announced a $151 billion improvement plan on Monday that includes 37-minute trips from New York to Philadelphia at speeds approaching 220 miles per hour (354 km per hour). However, the U.S. passenger railroad will need substantial financial support from both state and federal governments to make its ambitious plan to transform rail travel in the Northeast a reality. The railroad predicted that super-fast train trips along the East Coast could be a reality by 2040. Travel times from New York to either Washington or Boston—both about 200 miles (350 km) in distance—would also be slashed, to 94 minutes, the...

The Associated Press has called the 10th Congressional District primary race for Newark City Councilman Donald Payne Jr. Payne Jr. out-raised, outspent, and in the end, out-campaigned fellow City Councilman Ron Rice and State Sen. Nia Gill, his two biggest challengers in a heated race to succeed his father, U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Sr., who died in March after a battle with colon cancer. Payne won in the 10th District, which carries parts of Essex, Hudson and Union Counties. The seat was vacated when his father, Rep. Donald Payne Sr. died in March after a battle with colon cancer. Now...

Winston Churchill captured what this presidential election is about when he observed “the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” It’s why the young black Democrat mayor of Newark, NJ, Cory Booker, got high level repudiation from the Obama campaign, including from the president himself, when he insolently suggested that Bain Capital, the investment firm once headed by Mitt Romney, might actually do positive things. Booker, an Obama campaign surrogate, went off script on Meet the Press when he refused to justify a campaign attack ad...

"I'm a surrogate for the Obama campaign," said Newark Mayor Cory Booker during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, "I'm not about to sit here and indict private equity ... I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of the record of Bain Capital, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses."Many a conservative commentator seized on Mayor Booker's pronouncement as a sign of weakness - that some within Obama's camp see the discussion of economic matters as a losing...

Newark mayor Cory Booker may have been reduced to filming “hostage videos” in which he apologizes for throwing sharp spikes of reason and temperance beneath the madly spinning wheels of the Obama re-election bus, but the Booker Insurgency continues to grow. Harold Ford Jr., formerly a Democrat congressman from Tennessee, was welcomed to the ranks on Monday. Ford was no small-time back-bencher. He took a credible shot at wrestling House leadership away from Nancy Pelosi, and served as leader of the Democratic Leadership Council - a now-forgotten artifact of an earlier time, when there really were “moderates” in the Democrat...

NEWARK — Newark Mayor Cory Booker was taken to a hospital tonight for treatment of smoke inhalation he suffered trying to rescue his next-door neighbors from their burning house. "I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed," Booker said in recounting the fire. Booker told The Star-Ledger he also suffered second-degree burns on his hand. The fire started in a two-story building on Hawthorne Avenue in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood, shortly before the mayor arrived home after a television interview with News 12 New Jersey. Five people were taken to the hospital for treatment: the mayor,...

Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark carried a woman out of a burning house and was treated for smoke inhalation on Thursday night. Mr. Booker arrived to his home in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood to find a neighbor’s house on fire, said Anne Torres, a spokeswoman. The Fire Department had not yet arrived, she said, and Mr. Booker went inside with two members of his security detail and rescued one woman. The mayor was treated at a hospital and released at 11:30 p.m. “Everyone is O.K.,” Ms. Torres wrote in an e-mail. < snip > The mayor told The...

There have been some great feuds in the history of the world: Mary Queen of Scots and the Queen of England. Bugsy Moran and Al Capone. The Hatfields vs. the McCoys. But do any of these really beat what’s going on in Newark right now between the mayor and the owner of the New Jersey Devils?

Newark Residents Miffed Over Bill from Whitney Houston's FuneralBy Connor Simpson | The Atlantic Wire – 20 hrs ago Newark residents are being left to pick up the bill for Whitney Houston's funeral, and, surprisingly, they aren't happy about it. The demands of the high-profile funeral attendees have left the city of Newark with a $187,000 bill for police overtime. Police acted as barriers between fans and the proceedings on the day of the funeral of the Newark native who drowned in February. Nearly 200 officers were posted to the New Batist Church on the day of the funeral.

NEWARK — Call him a "high-class, highfalutin huckster and hustler?" Well then, you can just forget about those Springsteen tickets. A day after Newark Mayor Cory Booker lashed out at Devils managing partner Jeff Vanderbeek — accusing him of exploiting the city — the mayor said the team owner turned down his request for seats to next month’s sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert at the Prudential Center.

A Newark man died after a tussle with a former high school wrestler he tried to rob early Saturday, NBC New York has learned. Law-enforcement sources told NBC New York that 30-year-old Gian Davis approached two men near Bloomfield Avenue at about 1:15 a.m. and asked for change. When the men said "no," he then asked to borrow a cell phone, grabbed it and tried to run off with it, sources said. One of the men lunged to get the phone back and Davis put him in a headlock, according to sources. Then, sources say the other man, a former...

For twenty years – long before 9/11 – the danger of terrorists armed with surface to air missiles shooting at passenger planes has been the secret fear of many top political leaders. In the late 90s, a terrorist network was nabbed trying to bring them into Newark Airport, but the airline industry and the government have done nothing to equip passenger airplanes with any defense against these always deadly missiles. Now Barack Obama has committed the ultimate sin: He has let 20,000 surface-to-air missiles escape from military depots in Libya. According to ABC News “U.S. officials had once thought there...

The cost of stealing from passengers...former supervisor with the Transportation Security Administration has been sentenced to more than two years in prison after pleading guilty to taking bribes from a TSA officer who was stealing from passengers. ... Raimi stole between $10,000 and $30,000 in cash from travelers going through a Terminal B checkpoint at Newark Liberty International Airport last Fall.

Only a banner right now.

NEWARK — The choice between a "virtual strip search" and a "grope" was strictly academic Wednesday for most holiday travelers flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport. The majority of Newark’s full-body scanners were idle throughout much of the day, depriving most passengers of the chance to opt out of the controversial screening procedure even if they had wanted to. All in all, Thanksgiving eve was a non-event at Newark Liberty, reflecting the relative calm reported at airports around the country. "Things have gone very, very smoothly,"

Headline on Fox: U.S. investigating whether multiple suspicious packages originating in Yemen and found aboard international cargo flights in Newark, Philadelphia and England are part of a terrorist dry run for a mail bomb attack. Authorities Investigating Several Suspicious Packages That Originated From Yemen

BREAKING: 2 UPS Planes Isolated At Philadelphia International Airport October 29, 2010 9:56 AM From Jessica McWilliams PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Authorities have isolated two cargo planes are Philadelphia International Airport following a report of a suspicious package. Local and federal authorities are investigating a suspicious package aboard a cargo plane that landed at Philadelphia International Airport at about 9 a.m. Friday. A second UPS plane was isolated near the UPS terminal before take off. Authorities say a crew member aboard an inbound UPS plane from Paris, France notified authorities on approach about a suspicious package. The crew member described a...

ROMULUS, Mich. SNIPPET: "Delta Air Lines Inc. spokesman Kent Landers said flight 1721 left the Detroit airport in Romulus at about 7:30 p.m. Friday and returned about an hour later. He said the passenger was removed from the plane. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said the female passenger wasn't arrested but wouldn't be allowed back on the plane."

MYFOXNY.COM - Things are getting so bad in Newark that the mayor has ordered the government to stop buying toilet paper. It's part of Newark Mayor Cory Booker's belt-tightening plans that include reducing most city workers to a 4-day work week and shuttering city pools. Booker estimates that the pool closures alone would save $250,000. He also says that no gas will be purchased for municipal vehicles that are not deemed critically important. Police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers would not be affected by the furlough plan. City workers were already bracing for furloughs starting in August. The number of...