Free Republic

New York City police are employing a high-tech system to pinpoint gunfire amid an uptick in shootings in the nation's largest city, officials said on Monday. With the installation of the tracking system, ShotSpotter, New York continues its foray into technology-assisted policing, which recently equipped New York Police Department officers with body cameras, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton told a news conference.

New York public schools will add two Muslim holidays to their vacation calendars, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday, a promise he made during his election campaign. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2979445/Mayor-NYC-public-schools-close-2-Muslim-holidays.html

In late 18th century New York, with a revolt against tea in place and plain water mostly undrinkable, coffee’s popularity surged.And the city’s love affair with coffee beans began.Coffee houses soon sprang up. Unlike the cafes of today, these were more like taverns, where the city’s political and merchant elite met to exchange ideas and do business while nursing a cup of joe (and probably stronger drinks as well).One coffee house on the bustling corner of Wall and Water Streets, the Tontine (the second building on the left, above), bore witness to some of the events and the development of...

“Great Lakes ice is now running ahead of last year and ice will increase with more brutal cold coming,” says meteorologist Joe d’Aleo. “We are likely to have the most ice since records began.” “By the end of February the entire country east of the Rockies will have averaged below normal,” says d’Aleo. “Boston will have either the coldest or second coldest month in their history. It is nearly 13F below normal in Cleveland and all points east for February. Boston has the second most snow for the season and is very likely to be the snowiest ever by the...

Back up the shredders — the Tea Party could be coming. The city’s new municipal- ID program allows for personal info provided by applicants to be destroyed at the end of 2016, in case a conservative Republican wins the White House and demands the data, the law’s co-sponsor told The Post on Monday. City Councilman Carlos Menchaca (D-Brooklyn) said the measure was crafted so data submitted by those seeking the cards can be destroyed on Dec. 31, 2016. The cards are aimed at undocumented immigrants. “In case a Tea Party Republican comes into office and says, ‘We want all of...

ALBANY — The early jockeying to possibly replace embattled Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has already begun, the Daily News has learned. A state assemblyman from the city said he has received calls directly from Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle, and surrogates of Assemblyman Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and Keith Wright (D-Manhattan) in recent days to gauge his feelings on the uncertainty in the chamber. None of the three directly told the assemblyman that they were looking to topple Silver. Morelle did say he'd be interested in being a candidate for the speaker position should Silver step down or be pushed out...

ALBANY — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s arrest was a blow to the gut of the progressive activists who viewed the powerful Manhattan Democrat as their champion. Advocates on issues ranging from rent control to abortion rights have been left wondering whether Silver can still wield the clout they’ve come to expect over two decades. “I am very much concerned,” said Michael McKee, treasurer of the Tenants Political Action Committee. “He is the only one of the three men in a room who would be inclined to hold out for something better on rent regulations,” McKee said. Silver’s arrest on bribery...

Gov. Cuomo is assuming a key role in resolving cases where unarmed civilians are killed by police, announcing Wednesday that he will name an “independent monitor” to review grand-jury decisions when cops are not indicted.

The Village Voice of New York City has come out in favor of knife reform legislation.   The abusive prosecutions under this law have, no doubt, been going on ever since its passage in the 1950's.   Knife Rights has been in the forefront of this fight, and has an ongoing court case, noted in the Voice article.  The abuses have become increasingly severe in the last 10 years, with The Village Voice noting that as many as 60,000 people have been arrested.  From the Village Voice: Assemblyman Dan Quart will introduce a bill today to adjust the language of the...

New York City shouldn’t exist. Its population of waiters waiting to become actors, professors waiting to write bestsellers, muggers waiting to become drug kingpins, welfare cases waiting for American Idol and cyclists waiting to become international humanitarians are the natural constituency of the left. Like every major city in the last fifty years, New York City is caught between a progressive death wish to embrace every single insane policy of the left from midnight basketball for crackheads to a 99 percent tax on everyone who has a job and the common sense competence that keeps it afloat. Every election is...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appears poised for a presidential run and is currently leading the polls among potential Republican candidates for 2016, but the comments he made in 1994 during his first run for Florida’s highest office may come back to haunt him.The Associated Press reports that Bush described himself then as a “head-banging conservative” and used fiery rhetoric — such as claiming he would do “probably nothing” for African-Americans if he became governor — in his ultimately unsuccessful bid. Bush made that statement in response to a question on what he would for African-Americans if elected to office.“It’s time...

As a general rule, people have the right to protect themselves from animals that attack them. As might be expected, they have more leeway to use deadly force against animals than against other humans. Most states also allow property owners to protect their property from marauding animals, whether the animals are wild or property of another person. Damage caused by domesticated animals can be grounds for a civil suit. This situation occurred in New York.   From thedailynewsonline.com: ALEXANDER — The man who shot and killed his next-door-neighbor’s dog as it attacked him last week will not face any...

Donald Montgomery, a decorated retired police detective who served in the United States Navy, says in a lawsuit that his pistol permit and four handguns were seized by authorities in New York after he sought medical treatment for insomnia, the Daily Caller reported Friday. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who once said conservatives who oppose gun control aren't welcome in his state, and several other state officials are named as defendants in the lawsuit filed on December 18.

Judge frees 2nd cop-hater in 2 days By Josh Saul, Jamie Schram and Bruce Golding She keeps turning ’em loose. A day after freeing a gang member who posted an anti-cop death threat online, a Brooklyn judge ignored the admonishment of a court boss — and sprung a man who allegedly punched a police officer and threatened to kill his colleagues, The Post has learned. Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson blatantly disregarded an Office of Court Administration boss who said she “should be setting an example to the public that threatening or assaulting police officers isn’t an acceptable thing,” a...

Mayor Bill de Blasio has spoken of conversations with his son, Dante, about the “dangers he may face” from the police. Like so many other assertions connected with the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, it is a fiction — and a dangerous one. Truth is, a young man of Dante de Blasio’s age faces far more danger from violent men his age than he does from cops. Zach Emanuel found this out the hard way. Zach’s father is Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago. Like Dante, he’s 17. Last Friday, he was assaulted and mugged just a block from...

At a press conference Monday afternoon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio repeated his request that demonstrators in the city put aside protests until after the funerals of the two police officers ambushed and executed in their patrol car Saturday. Naturally, when video shows marchers chanting, “What do we want? Dead cops!” during the recent #MillionsMarchNYC, it’s not hard to believe that many protesters weren’t sympathetic to the mayor’s request.

McDonald’s and its franchisees illegally retaliated against employees for participating in union-related activities, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer alleged Friday in a case with sweeping industry implications. NLRB general counsel Richard Griffin announced Friday he will issue 13 complaints involving 78 charges against franchises and McDonald’s USA, LLC. Though many of these alleged labor violations were committed by independent franchise owners, Griffin ruled earlier this year that McDonald’s can be held liable for those actions as a so-called joint employer, leaving the corporatrion — and potentially other franchisors — exposed to such claims. McDonald’s said the decision will...

ALBANY — The Cuomo administration announced Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State, ending years of uncertainty by concluding that the controversial method of extracting gas from deep underground could contaminate the state’s air and water and pose inestimable public-health risks... That conclusion was delivered publicly during a year-end cabinet meeting called by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in Albany. It came amid increased calls by environmentalists to ban fracking, which uses water and chemicals to release natural gas trapped in deeply buried shale deposits.

It might not be as fragrant as evergreen but this giant beer keg Christmas tree sure taps into the festive spirit. The Genesee Brewing Co. in Rochester, New York, spent around two weeks constructing the 23-foot-high structure out of 300 stainless steel half-barrels. Employees laced it with 600 feet of green LED lighting and placed a rotating sign bearing the company's name on top instead of an angel.

The Red Apple Rest opened in 1931, in Southfields, N.Y., and quickly became a place where people stopped to fill up their cars and their stomachs on the way to the hotels and bungalow colonies in the Catskills. It survived economic downturns, competing businesses, and the new highways that lured drivers away. By the time the restaurant closed its doors in 1984, it had become a legend for generations of diners. In her new memoir, Elaine Freed Lindenblatt, daughter of Big Apple’s founder Reuben Freed, shares her memories of the restaurant’s rise and fall. By 1955, after nearly a quarter-century...