Free Republic

Watertown father admits guilt for smashing up head shop Watertown, NY -- A Watertown man has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge for smashing up a head shop after his adult son overdosed on bath salts from the store. Dan Avery, 49, pleaded guilty Friday in Jefferson County Court to a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree criminal mischief. He was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay $638 in restitution for the damage he did to Tebb's Headshop in Watertown. Avery was charged in July with a felony count of third-degree criminal mischief and criminal possession of a...

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority shut down service of its shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central on Sunday night, and briefly had 4, 5 and 6 trains bypassing the station after a bomb scare halted activity to the transit hub, according to MTA officials. The NYPD would not comment on whether or not there had been a bomb threat in the station, and initially referred all inquiries to the MTA. At 9:40 p.m. a spokeswoman for the MTA subway system confirmed that the Times Square shuttle had been shut down, and 4, 5 and 6 trains were skipping the station...

A ‘Second Amendment Rally’ is being held in Albany this Thursday the 28th, and will feature National Rifle Association President David Keene, and various other speakers opposed to new gun legislation passed last month in New York state. The Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2013 currently hails as the single most restrictive assault on Second Amendment rights in the country, and was forced through the legislative process without public review – a tactic that even Governor Cuomo admits was the only way to enact the law. As a counter to the massive Second Amendment support being demonstrated...

NEW YORK -- The historic cobblestone streets and 19th-century mercantile buildings near the water's edge in lower Manhattan are eerily deserted, a neighborhood silenced by Superstorm Sandy. Just blocks from the tall-masted ships that rise above South Street Seaport, the windows of narrow brick apartment buildings are still crisscrossed with masking tape left by their owners before the storm. Store interiors are stripped down to plywood and wiring. Restaurants are chained shut, frozen in time, saddled with electrical systems that were ruined by several feet of salt water that raced up from the East River and through their front doors....

An Army veteran in New York is facing up to seven years in prison for possessing five empty 30-round ammunition magazines. Nate Haddad told WGRZ-TV he was parked on a road last month waiting to meet someone interested in buying them off him when police approached. According to the station, the magazines were for an AR-15 rifle, the same type of weapon Haddad once carried in combat. Magazines over 10 rounds have been illegal in New York since 1994, unless they were manufactured before the law went into effect. Haddad says he thought his were legal, until he found out...

Did you hear the big news from the world of small business? Jewish delis are closing in both Los Angeles, and New York City. The trend has been a long time in the making, especially in New York City where Jewish delis’s used to number in the thousands and now total less than one hundred. Yet the Los Angeles Times reported this “news” just this past week, and the details that the report included – and the details that were ignored– point to some far greater problems. The article, written by Journalist Tiffany Hsu, notes that the decline of the...

ALBANY LOBBYING FOR "NY SAFE ACT" (Day of Action) Governor Cuomo and our legislature passed the "NY SAFE ACT." It will reduce gun violence in our state. Predictably, it is under attack by the National Rifle Association and allied groups. :::We are joining with the SEIU 1199 to lobby in Albany. This free bus trip will last from 8:00 to 4:30 with breakfast and lunch included. Meet up at 250 S Clinton St. Park in the M Lot at the corner of W Fayette and S Clinton Sts. (Parking in that lot may be validated. No sure yet.) Show your...

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) predicted Sunday that Republicans would eventually accept Democrats’ combination of closing tax loopholes and spending cuts to replace sequestration. Schumer characterized the GOP’s plan to offset the across-the-board cuts with other spending cuts and no new revenues as out of step with a majority of voters. The Senate Democratic Policy Committee chairman said Republicans’ preferred path caters to special interests and the wealthy. “I think that the Democrats have the high ground both substantively and politically, and we will win on this issue. … I believe that just like on the ‘fiscal cliff,’ Republicans will come...

Andrew Cuomo, who has been unafraid to make a splash during his time as governor of New York, is doing it again. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the Democrat is set to push for a bill that would reduce the state’s restrictions on late-term abortions, allowing for the procedure when the woman’s health is at stake rather than just, as current law states, when her life is in danger — a significantly lower threshold...

Nathan Haddad, a former Army staff sergeant in New York, was selling his gun magazines when he was arrested for violating a state law prohibiting possession of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. He was arrested and charged with five felonies. This is the crime that David Gregory of NBC News committed in Washington a few months ago; Mr. Gregory was not prosecuted because he’s, umm, well, a celebrity. The district attorney for Jefferson County, N.Y., offered Sgt. Haddad, now a civilian employee at Fort Drum, N.Y., a deal that would require him to plead guilty to five Class...

A health insurance company headed by an old friend from Obama's days as a community organizer got a $340 million federal loan to establish Obamacare co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon despite having a chronic record of consumer and regulatory complaints. The New York-based Freelancers Insurance Company has been rated the "worst" insurer for two straight years by state regulators, and data compiled by a national insurance association show an extremely high rate of consumer complaints. The firm was founded in 2008 by Sara Horowitz, who worked with Obama before his career in elective politics to launch Demos,...

Hundreds of LIRR employees have allegedly exploited the overlap between the LIRR pension and the RRB disability program by pre-planning the date on which they would falsely declare themselves disabled so that it would coincide with their projected retirement date.These false statements, made under oath in disability applications, allowed LIRR employees to retire as early as age 50 with an LIRR pension, supplemented by the fraudulently obtained RRB disability annuity. From 1995 through 2011, more than 75 percent of LIRR employees stopped working and began receiving RRB disability benefits.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel declined to sign a letter circulated by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2007 calling upon then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to press Arab allies of the U.S. to recognize Israel’s right to exist “and not use such recognition as a bargaining chip for future Israeli concessions.” Seventy-nine Senators eventually signed the letter, which was sponsored by Schumer and by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Per gallon cost has risen every business day for a month. Consumers are taking another huge hit in 2013. First, the two percent Social Security tax hike began the year. Now, gas prices are soaring ever closer to $4 a gallon and have jumped 51 cents a gallon since Dec. 20. According to the Oil Price Information Service, the national average for a gallon of unleaded was $3.21.9 on Dec. 20, 2012. Today, that price is $3.73.0. While there has been a steady increase, prices shot almost 9 cents just over the weekend. ... It took the media some time...

Members of the New York State Nurses Association gathered at the Capitol on Saturday to protest the closure of community hospitals. The group also opposes a plan for an "experimental" for-profit hospital pilot program laid out in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget proposal. The protest, in front of the state Department of Health headquarters in the Corning Tower, comes on the heels of a vote earlier this month to close Brooklyn's cash-strapped Long Island College Hospital, which is run by SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and the news that Brooklyn's bankrupt Interfaith Medical Center will merge with another hospital. ... New York...

Actor Alec Baldwin allegedly called a black Post photographer a racial epithet, a "crackhead" and a "drug dealer" during a confrontation on an East Village street yesterday morning, prompting police to intervene. Baldwin had first been approached by a Post reporter while walking his dogs outside his East 10th Street pad at around 10:50 a.m. He was asked for comment on a lawsuit against his wife, Hilaria, involving her work as a yoga instructor. The “30 Rock’’ star grabbed the reporter, Tara Palmeri, by her arm and told her, “I want you to choke to death,” Palmeri told police, for...

MANY people became rightfully upset about bailouts given to big banks during the mortgage crisis. But it turns out that they are still going on, if more quietly, through the back door. The existence of one such secret deal, struck in July between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Bank of America, came to light just last week in court filings. That the New York Fed would shower favors on a big financial institution may not surprise. It has long shielded large banks from assertive regulation and increased capital requirements. Still, last week’s details of the undisclosed settlement...

Bloomberg is one of the nation’s most outspoken critics of the gun industry. As the founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, he’s become a fixture on national news shows and a leading campaigner for sweeping gun control measures that he says will make everyone safer. The massive city teachers pension fund responded to the horrors of the Newtown massacre by dumping all its stock in guns and ammo makers — but Mayor Bloomberg surprisingly opposed the move. Bloomberg is one of the nation’s most outspoken critics of the gun industry. As the founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, he’s become...

Syracuse, NY -- A national Muslim organization headquartered in the Southern Tier has filed a libel lawsuit against the author of a book that describes the group as the host of terrorist training camps. Muslims of America, based in Hancock, Delaware County, sued Martin Mawyer and his Christian Action Network for $3 million in federal court in Syracuse, seeking to halt the continued publication of his book, “Twilight in America: the Untold Story of Islamic Training Camps in America.” The book takes aim at Muslims of America with false claims that have put the group's members in fear of violent...

New York needs more than 1,200 physicians across the state, especially in rural areas, and the shortage is only expected to get worse if the state is to meet the federal health reform requirements. That’s the gist of a new report by the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), which Wednesday released the results of its 2012 physician advocacy survey, Doctor Shortage: Condition Critical. Not including New York City, the state will need 1,200 new physicians, with nearly a third of the demand coming for primary care doctors. That’s up from 2011, when the report said 18 percent the...