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NEW YORK (CBS) --Audrey Johnson Was Longtime Companion Of Former Sixers Star World B. Free The longtime companion of a former NBA star was killed in Brooklyn while trying to stop an assault outside her family's home. The shooting happened right in front of 149 Clifton Place in Bed-Stuy. Police said 51-year-old Audrey Johnson had just come back home when she heard about a confrontation on the sidewalk in front of her home. She came outside to see what what happening. Her niece, Jeromeka Johnson, told CBS 2HD that the victim, who lives in East Orange, N.J., had returned to...

November 14, 2009Exclusive: Decision to Try 9/11 Masterminds in New York a Slap in the Face to All Americans Pam Meister In an act that further makes a mockery of the Islamist threat that faces us, the administration has decided that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Gitmo detainees will be sent to New York City to stand trial in a civilian federal court for their role in the 9/11 atrocity. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, prosecutors will seek the death penalty.   No word yet if Lynne Stewart has offered to be on the defense team.  ...

Dear Republicans, Thanks for making clear that "home of the brave" refers only to US liberals, since we aren't pissing our pants at the thought of Gitmo inmates on US soil. Hugs and kisses, kos

The Queens woman who mutilated her father and burned his penis on the stove has been taking a cooking class in jail. Brigitte Harris, who faces up to 15 years in prison for killing her dad when she is sentenced on Friday, also has been biding her time on Rikers Island by reading vampire novels and mysteries. In a jailhouse interview with the Daily News, the soft-spoken, crucifix-wearing woman said she never intended to murder her father, Eric Goodridge. "Thinking back now, I definitely would have tried to put my resources into getting him put in jail," she said. "But...

Would Obama have helped Thompson? A Times expose explains how it never happenedBill Thompson didn't have Michael Bloomberg's big bucks, his renown or any real help aside from his own political muscle, but he made the mayoral race awfully close. Imagine if he had someone like, oh, President Barack Obama, backing him up. Early on, Bloomberg saw to it that the president wouldn't come to Thompson's aid -- not in the unequivocal sense, anyway, reports The New York Times . Sure, Obama offered a limp endorsement a few weeks before Election Day. But he didn't stand by Thompson, hands pumping,...

Reporting Lou Young NEW YORK (CBS) -- Democrat John Liu has won a decisive victory in the race for New York City Comptroller. The Queens Councilman has made history, becoming the first Asian-American elected to citywide office. They pretty much knew they were having a victory party at John Liu's headquarters in Midtown. In fact, you could see the optimism on the candidate's face when we caught up with him earlier tonight in Harlem. Liu was wrapping up his successful campaign for Controller at the side of the man who currently holds the office. And his is a big deal...

School nurses mistakenly gave the swine flu vaccine to two students who didn't sign up for it - including a Brooklyn girl with epilepsy who wound up in the hospital. "I was outraged," Naomi Troy, 26, told the Daily News after her 6-year-old daughter, Nikiyah Torres-Pierre, had a possible allergic reaction to the shot. Officials at Public School 335 in Crown Heights called an ambulance to take Nikiyah to SUNY Downstate Medical Center when she fell ill following the arm jab. "My stomach was hurting, and I was itching," Nikiyah said after she was released from the hospital. The snafu...

2 Foster Children Killed, 3 Others Seriously Injured After Van Crossed Yellow Lines Suspect Allegedly Removed Middle Row Of Seats, Had Children Sit On Floor QUEENS (CBS) -- A Queens woman behind the wheel of a minivan that crossed the yellow lines and crashed into another van on Monday, killing two foster children inside the van, was charged with manslaughter Tuesday, and sources tell CBS 2 drug paraphernalia was found inside her vehicle. Police say Sheila Bethea, 45, was driving a Mazda minivan with six passengers – five foster children between the ages of 5 and 15 and a 43-year-old...

Note: Photo and video included. SNIPPET: "Ahmad Wais Afzali, 53, is charged with tipping off Najibullah Zazi that New York City police detectives were after him. Afzali is also accused of lying about it to federal agents. The Imam remains free on bail." His lawyer says the indictment is "merely a tired rehash of the same discredited allegations."

SNIPPET: “DENVER — A Colorado man whose son is accused of plotting a terror attack in New York City is scheduled to go to trial in December on a charge of lying to investigators. A federal judge on Tuesday scheduled a 10-day trial for Mohammed Wali Zazi starting Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court in Denver.”

Carmen Huertas Accused Of Driving Drunk With 7 Girls In Car; Daughter Pleaded With Woman To Slow DownSuspect Asked Children To 'Raise Your Hands If You Think I'm Gonna Crash' NEW YORK (CBS) - She promised another parent that the children would be in good hands. She even joked about it. But what happened next was no joking matter. Now a young girl is dead, a mother is under arrest, and families are devastated after a tragic accident on Manhattan's Upper West Side. A woman stands next to her critically-injured daughter's hospital bed Monday, hoping and praying she will make...

WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee announced on Thursday that it had expanded its investigation into a series of questionable financial dealings made by Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York. The move comes a day after House Democrats defeated a Republican attempt to force the removal of Mr. Rangel, a Democrat, from the chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee pending the outcome of the investigation. The move seemed intended to show that the ethics committee was conducting a serious and wide-ranging investigation, listing the number of witnesses the committee had interviewed (34) and the number of...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― A courageous neighbor makes the ultimate sacrifice; a Good Samaritan, stabbed to death, while trying to stop a man with a dagger during a violent assault. Neighbors say the Good Samaritan, his wife and 2-year-old son had moved into a building in upper Manhattan from a shelter in Brooklyn just a few months ago. They say Marco Betancourt was always helping his neighbors at their building on 162 W. 144th Street. That's why they weren't surprised to hear that Betancourt lost his life, selflessly trying to stop one neighbor from stabbing another, his mother's boyfriend, with...

The victim, Rose Morat, is now 103, still vigorous as she greeted reporters on Tuesday, hours before the man accused of attacking her and two other women [on March 4, 2007] was convicted of robbery, burglary and assault in State Supreme Court in Queens. ..." The defendant, Jack Rhodes, 47, was found guilty at the end of a four-week jury trial before Justice Gregory L. Lasak. Mr. Rhodes was accused of mugging Ms. Morat on March 4, 2007, in the lobby of her building. The attack was captured on security videotape and widely disseminated, making Ms. Morat something of a...

Homeland Security: Provisions of the law that spared New York another 9/11 are set to expire Dec. 31. So why do Democrats want to gut this law and remove the immunity telecom companies have for helping protect America? To borrow a British expression from World War II, it was a very near thing. The capture, arrest and indictment of 24-year-old Afghan immigrant Najubullah Zazi before he could set off bombs made from store-bought chemicals prevented a tragedy of potentially devastating proportions. It wouldn't have happened if the critics of Patriot Act had their way. The capture of Zazi was made...

A credible source claims the embattled left-wing advocacy group ACORN is poised to announce massive staff layoffs but an ACORN spokesman denies this is the case. A credible source close to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now revealed that the activist network intends to lay off all staff members operating out of its New Orleans headquarters. All information provided by the source to this reporter in the past has turned out to be correct. However, ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson of the public relations firm The Advance Group in New York City said the source was incorrect. In...

New York area FReepers!Please support fellow CONSERVATIVE Evan Sayet as he ventures into the belly of the beast! From nycundergroundcomedyfestival.com:Evan Sayet's "Right To Laugh" (Conservative Comedy Show) -- TWO SHOWS!!Wednesday, October 7th -- 8:30 PM (Comic Strip LIVE) Thursday, October 8th -- 7:00 PM (Broadway Main Room) After a career that included headlining as a stand-up comic, writer of late night television programs like‚Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher‚ and writing and producing screenplays (Diamonds in the Rough‚) and documentaries (Dodo‚winner of Best Comedy/Documentary 2007 New York Independent Film Festival), Evan was compelled by the events of 9/11 to step...

Sept. 30: The Empire State Building lit in red and yellow to honor the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. NEW YORK — New York is seeing red over the decision to turn the city's highest beacon — and one of America's symbols for free enterprise — into a shining monument honoring China's communist revolution Wednesday night.

John Liu easily won last night's runoff election for city comptroller and Bill de Blasio routed rival Mark Green in the public advocate contest -- victories that handed a major boost to the Working Families Party in its first foray into citywide races. Both races produced clear winners within 30 minutes of the polls closing at 9 p.m. A mere 228,000 ballots were cast, a record low. COMPLETE ELECTION RESULTS:Liu, who will oversee the city's $80 billion pension system, cruised into history as the first Asian-American to win a citywide election, beating Brooklyn Councilman David Yassky, by 56 percent to...

The Army vet who emerged as the No. 1 suspect in a vicious fatal stabbing outside the main post office is believed to have committed suicide in his girlfriend's Philadelphia apartment, The Post has learned. [snip] Earlier yesterday, authorities said they had begun to focus on McCaulla after a cop who served with him in the Army recognized him from photos taken outside the James A. Farley Post Office slaying scene. Surveillance cameras captured the bloody slaying and the moments before it, which Commissioner Ray Kelly described as a simple street altercation that turned deadly. "The killer is walking north...

The NYPD has since launched an internal investigation A local radio personality says he and two friends suffered an anti-gay attack in Hell's Kitchen over the weekend and police turned a blind eye to the incident. The NYPD has since launched an internal investigation and said today the Hate Crime Task Force is looking into the incident. One of the alleged victims, Blake Hayes, an on-air personality for WPLJ, said he and his friends were walking down 9th Avenue on Friday night when a man threw a lit cigarette at the group and called them "faggots." Hayes said a...

Cops are hunting [for] a knife-wielding suspect who stabbed a young dad to death after a seemingly minor altercation outside the main post office in Manhattan. Christopher Gutierrez, 20, bumped into his killer along Eighth Ave. near W. 33rd St. early Sunday evening and, after just a few words were exchanged, the man flew into a rage, police said. He twice plunged a knife into Gutierrez's chest - and then calmly walked away. Bleeding profusely, Gutierrez collapsed on the steps of the James A. Farley Post Office, police said. He died soon after. The victim's mom was devastated that her...

From the New York Slimes (Times) Sept 15, 2009... With 100 percent of the vote counted, unofficial results showed that Mr. Liu had captured 38 percent of the vote, just short of the 40 percent he needed to win outright. Mr. Yassky took 30 percent, and Councilwoman Melinda R. Katz of Queens finished third, with 20 percent. David I. Weprin, a councilman from Queens, was fourth. The results set up a contest between two men who, over the course of the campaign, projected sharply different images to voters. Mr. Liu, a former actuary and an immigrant from Taiwan, struck a...

The echoes from her stepfather’s death were haunting. Around midnight on New Year’s Day 1994, Scott S. Douglas jumped off the Tappan Zee Bridge hours after his wife, Anne Scripps Douglas, the heiress to a newspaper fortune, was found bludgeoned in her upstairs bedroom with head injuries from which she would die six days later. Mr. Douglas’s 1982 BMW was abandoned on the bridge, its engine still running, so the police searched the Hudson River. The decomposed body did not turn up for three months. On Thursday, his stepdaughter, Anne Morell Petrillo, 38, was believed to have leaped off the...

From the New York Slimes (Times) Sept 15, 2009... With 100 percent of the vote counted, unofficial results showed that Mr. Liu had captured 38 percent of the vote, just short of the 40 percent he needed to win outright. Mr. Yassky took 30 percent, and Councilwoman Melinda R. Katz of Queens finished third, with 20 percent. David I. Weprin, a councilman from Queens, was fourth. The results set up a contest between two men who, over the course of the campaign, projected sharply different images to voters. Mr. Liu, a former actuary and an immigrant from Taiwan, struck a...

DENVER – An Afghan immigrant wanted to carry out a massive New York City terror attack involving hydrogen peroxide bombs on commuter trains to coincide with the Sept. 11 anniversary before federal authorities foiled the plan, a U.S. prosecutor said Friday. U.S. prosecutor Tim Neff told a federal judge in Denver that Najibullah Zazi "was intent on being in New York on 9/11" for a possible terror attack. "The defendant was in the throes of making a bomb and attempting to perfect his formulation," Neff said. He called the evidence a "chilling, disturbing sequence of events." Neff ordered Zazi, a...

From the New York Slimes (Times) Sept 15, 2009... With 100 percent of the vote counted, unofficial results showed that Mr. Liu had captured 38 percent of the vote, just short of the 40 percent he needed to win outright. Mr. Yassky took 30 percent, and Councilwoman Melinda R. Katz of Queens finished third, with 20 percent. David I. Weprin, a councilman from Queens, was fourth. The results set up a contest between two men who, over the course of the campaign, projected sharply different images to voters. Mr. Liu, a former actuary and an immigrant from Taiwan, struck a...

Last Thursday GOP Sen. Stephen M. Saland announced he would introduce a resolution in the state Senate to try to freeze any member items earmarked for ACORN and its affiliate, the New York Agency for Community Affairs. Other Senate Republicans are calling for a state investigation of the group, and the Assembly has temporarily frozen ACORN member items until an investigation of the organization’s Brooklyn chapter by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office is complete. Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, cited 43 member items in the 2009-2010 budget that amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for...

The story in a nutshell: Bertha Lewis is the CEO of ACORN. In a review of Lewis’s contacts list, which was leaked to RedState, Bertha Lewis has the office, cell phone, home number, and private personal email address of Patrick Gaspard. Patrick Gaspard holds Karl Rove’s position in the White House and was Obama’s Political Director during the campaign. In addition to Patrick, Bertha has Patrick’s brother Michael in her rolodex. She lists Michael as working at the Advance Group. The Advance Group is ACORN’s lobbying organization. In other words, besides having Obama’s political director’s contact info, the political director’s...

A tangled web of ACORN affiliates amassed a real estate empire worth at least $50 million, owns or manages nearly 1,500 housing units and collects an estimated $5.7 million in rents, fees and profits from sales. The properties are controlled by an opaque collection of nonprofits, holding companies and development funds w/ generic names: 385 Palmetto Street Housing Development Fund or the Mutual Housing Association of NY, hiding ties to ACORN conglomerates.....the income supports at least 18 local ACORN affiliates largely based at 2-4 Nevins St, Brooklyn, an address ACORN shares with the left-of-center political entity--the Working Families Party. NY...

A New York City Muslim imam, who acted as a police informant, betrayed his handlers by tipping off a terrorism suspect... Ahmad Wais Afzali, of the New York borough of Queens, was among three men arrested during the weekend in connection with an alleged bombing plot... The documents show that Zazi, 24, of Denver, abruptly left New York and returned to Colorado after having wiretapped phone conversations with the imam, which the FBI alleges contained talk of how police were interested in Zazi... Zazi attended an al-Qaida terrorism training camp in Pakistan and was arrested in possession of notes detailing...

ACORN has quietly become one of the Big Apple's biggest owners of low- and moderate-income housing, amassing a real-estate empire worth at least $50 million, The Post has learned. New York ACORN and a tangled web of affiliates own or manage nearly 1,500 housing units across three boroughs and draw in an estimated $5.7 million in rents, fees and profits from sales. The properties are controlled by an opaque collection of nonprofits, holding companies and development funds. Many have generic names, like the 385 Palmetto Street Housing Development Fund or the Mutual Housing Association of New York, leaving no clue...

New York City Candidates Linked to Chinese, North Korean Regimes Matthew Robertson & Matt Gnaizda Epoch Times Staff & NTDTV Staff Sep 13, 2009 NEW YORK—At a rally on the steps of City Hall last week, New York residents expressed concern that two New York City political candidates—John Liu and John Choe—have connections with communist regimes. John Liu has been a city council member representing New York’s Flushing area since 2001. This year, he is running for city Comptroller—the position that oversees the city’s finances, including its $60 million budget. Spokesman for the Christian Democracy Party of China, David...

Video and Photo included. RevolutionMuslim.com: “Wahhabi to Have You Visit Us” SNIPPET: "The title of this post is a quote from Yousef al-Khattab at his wittiest. Here’s another favorite photo of Yousef." SNIPPET: "Here is a video from 4 September 09 of Yousef ‘preaching’ a ‘Ramadan’ message in NYC. This is radicalization in its rawest form. You’ll see people sitting down on the stairs across listening, then one will get up and grab a CD that has recorded lectures from Abdullah Faisal (RM.com’s spiritual advisor – and a firebreathing cleric in the UK who was amain inspiration of Jermaine Lindsay,...

The financial collapse of 2008 and the Great Recession have had, not surprisingly, a major adverse impact on the economy of the country's financial center, New York City. There have been over 40,000 job losses in the financial community alone and both city and state budgets are deeply dependent on tax revenues from this one industry. There has been much talk that New York might take years to recover—if, indeed, it ever can. But if one looks at the history of New York there is reason for much optimism. The city's whole raison d'être since its earliest days explains why....

Much to the chagrin of candidates like Mr. Gioia, the still relatively little-known 10-year-old party [Working Families Party] had dispatched a small army in the weeks before the primary, selling voters on its candidates in the mayoral, City Council, public advocate and comptroller races. Organizers knocked on 227,928 doors and talked to 62,112 voters, a party official said. On Tuesday, more than 350 workers were stationed throughout the city, most working for a day rate of $100. Their efforts resulted in the party’s best electoral showing yet. In the public advocate’s race, the Working Families endorsed Bill de Blasio, a...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release September 15, 2009 Statement by the Press Secretary on the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty The President has asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lead the U.S. delegation and deliver the U.S. national statement at the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), to be held on September 24 and 25 in New York City. Since...

Muslims groups here are pressing city officials to close public schools on two of the faith's holiest days, just as schools do for major Jewish and Christian holidays. But the groups have yet to persuade the man in charge of New York City schools, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Muslim groups have asked the city to cancel classes on Eid Ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid Ul-Adha, which marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. New York is one of many public-school systems now struggling with appropriate ways to recognize religious holidays for a diverse population. An...

I’m still debating whether I should waste your time with these guys (Revolution Muslim). In the end, I think that it’s always better to know the arguments of those who openly support al-Qaida here in the United States (in this case, from New York City)… I recommend that you just click play and let it play in the background while you read your morning paper.

Remembering is sacred. Yet Congress has created a National Day of Service and Remembrance to remember 9/11, an act that has shifted the emphasis from memory to activism. Painting park benches or tutoring in schools is not a worthwhile tribute to those lost on 9/11.

The son of a Queens pizzeria owner was shot and killed as he tried to defend his cancer-stricken dad from two robbers last night, police said. The victim, Gerardo Antoniello, 29, was shot in the back of the head as he wrestled with the two men who had attacked his father Romeo as he came home around 10 p.m. after closing his shop in Howard Beach, police sources said. Minutes before the attack, police said a young woman had rung the bell at the family’s home on North Conduit Avenue in South Ozone Park, and had asked Gerardo for directions....

Ladder 15's Matt Dugan Undergoes 2 Surgeries To Alleviate Brain Swelling Police Believe 3-Year NYC Firefighter Was Defending His Girlfriend During Confrontation NEW YORK (CBS) - Police were looking for two men Tuesday who attacked and severely beat an off-duty firefighter in lower Manhattan on Labor Day. At New York Downtown Hospital, fire trucks stopped and crews have gone in offering their best wishes to the family of 34-year-old Matthew Dugan, who had surgery to relieve blood clots and pressure on the brain. When asked for his thoughts on Matthew, one firefighter remained silent. Dugan was attacked around 1:30 a.m....

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has renewed his call for Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to resign as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “When it comes to the relationship between the American people and those they elect to serve them, trust is everything,” Boehner wrote in a letter to Rangel sent Friday. “This is especially true at a difficult time such as this for our nation, when Americans are looking to their government for leadership and solutions, and finding both in short supply. “For this reason, I am writing to again respectfully urge that you step aside as...

Students will get free vaccinations. Health clinics will turn into “flu centers” to relieve hospitals. Emergency room statistics will be reported on the Web every day. And schools will close only as a last resort. Girding for a second wave of the swine flu pandemic that has already killed more than 50 people in New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg outlined a strategy on Tuesday that was equal parts infection control and panic control. “It’s natural to imagine a worst-case scenario, but all signs at this point in time do point to an outbreak that will be much more...

It was an amazing scene just blocks north of Times Square Thursday morning as a yellow cab caught fire and exploded, but no injuries were reported and the driver escaped unharmed, fire officials said. The cab was parked at the corner of 53rd Street and 7th Avenue when a small fire erupted in the car around 9:30 a.m, fire officials said. The fire spread to the gas tank, causing the vehicle to explode. Huge plumes of gray smoke were seen billowing from the front of the burning car. The blaze frightened pedestrians and office workers in the area, but there...

Put down that coffee, and come out with your hands up! The owner of a Financial District tobacco shop was amazed to learn he was violating the law by offering his customers a free cup of joe while they legally puffed away on his cigars. Vince Nastri III, the third-generation owner of Barclay Rex -- where bankers, City Hall staffers, lawyers and detectives smoke while sitting in plush leather chairs or browsing in the walk-in humidor -- complained that the city is "trying to take away my livelihood over a cop of coffee." Health officials had no problem with all...

"Based on the $3.25 billion [in federal stimulus money] already allocated," The New York Times reports, "the city estimates that 30,776 jobs will be created by early 2011." That's a little more than $100,000 per job, a bargain compared to Obama administration estimates indicating that the cost per job "saved or created" will be more than twice that high nationwide. It's rather surprising that jobs would be so much cheaper in New York City, where everything else is more expensive. It gets better. Last month New York Gov. David Paterson said $33.1 million for highway and bridge repair in the...

He loves living in Manhattan, but he hates paying rent, so Jimmy Tarangelo has set up camp in a van by the river – a la that "Saturday Night Live" Chris Farley skit of so many years ago. Tarangelo hasn't always been the man in van. He used to live in a house in Staten Island with his wife, to whom he was married for 14 years. Then they got divorced, and when Tarangelo tried to buy her out it ended up costing more than he could afford. So he bounced. And moved all of his earthly possessions to a...

A New Jersey man with a lengthy rap sheet was indicted yesterday for preying on senior citizens in a months-long mugging spree through Greenwich Village and Chelsea. The oldest of Robert Stewart's victims was 91, prosecutors said. [snip] ...he accosted the 91-year-old man, whom he'd followed into a building on West 12th Street. He hit him in the head and took $400 from his wallet, investigators said.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg enjoys a cold one like any other New Yorker. And like any other New Yorker, he's bewildered by the city's ban on drinking in the park. "I never understood why we don't let you drink in the park," Bloomberg told Community Newspaper Groups, a chain of weeklies owned by News Corp., which also owns the Post. "I mean, you go to watch the Philharmonic, you can't have a bottle of wine." Asked about Brooklynite Kimber VanRy's legal battle over a ticket he received for drinking a beer on the stoop of his Prospect Heights home, the mayor...