Free Republic

Insider trading was a family affair for upstate New York congressman Chris Collins, federal prosecutors charged Wednesday. The Republican lawmaker, one of President Trump’s earliest supporters, was charged along with his son Cameron Collins and the father of Cameron’s fiancée, Stephen Zarsky, in a scheme that allowed them to avoid $768,000 in stock losses, prosecutors say. The trio are accused of securities fraud related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotechnology company. The elder Collins sits on the firm’s board of directors and is one of its largest shareholders. Manhattan federal prosecutors say the upstate New York congressman passed to his...

Congressman Chris Collins was indicted by a federal grand jury of conspiracy to commit securities fraud on Wednesday morning. Collins, along with his son Cameron, and Cameron's future father-in-law Stephen Zarsky, were accused of insider trading related to the Australian biotechnology company Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited. The indictment alleged that in June of 2017, Congressman Collins violated the duties he owed to the biotechnology company by passing material, nonpublic information regarding the drug trial results to his son so that Cameron could use that information to make timely trades in Innate stock and tip others. Cameron Collins allegedly traded on that...

ow’s the time to get that hand-held fan. Intense humidity will make the next couple of days in New York feel even hotter than the soaring number on the thermometer — turning the city into a swampy hellscape. There’ll be highs in the 90s on Monday and Tuesday but it’ll actually feel like a muggy 100 degrees or more, warned Accuweather meteorologist Dan Pydynowski.

Democrats seem to agree: A job guarantee will be part of the 2020 election debate. What they don't yet agree on is what a "job guarantee" is. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is working on a full blown national bill to enshrine the right to a job. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has a bill that would essentially run a test pilot of Sanders' program. The Congressional Full Employment Caucus has been pushing yet another national job guarantee bill, with some differences from Sanders' plan, for years. Finally, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) just introduced his own bill, which would subsidize more private...

Sheldon Silver, a former New York Assembly speaker who brokered legislative deals for two decades before criminal charges abruptly ended his career, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison by a judge who said political corruption in the state must end. The punishment, announced by U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, amounts to five fewer years in prison than she gave him after he was initially convicted in the case in 2015. She noted that the conviction of the 74-year-old Democrat came in a year in which Joseph Percoco, a once-close aide to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and former...

Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley, who lost to 28-year-old Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in their June primary, said migrant children being held in custody by the Trump administration should be compensated. 'The damage that has been done to these children will be life long,' he said at a press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday. 'In fact, I suggest they need to be compensated for what this administration did to them.' **SNIP** Crowley is on the ballot for the Working Families Party and explained Wednesday the procedure to get his name removed is too complicated.

The struggling Daily News is expected to begin another massive round of layoffs on Monday, The Post has learned. The cuts at the teetering tabloid, which some insiders feared would range as high as 70 percent of staff, are expected to be among the largest in the paper’s 99-year history — and could include editor-in-chief Jim Rich, insiders said. On Monday, Rich’s job description on his Twitter home page was changed from Daily News Editor-in-Chief to “Just a guy sitting at home watching journalism being choked into extinction.” Rich also tweeted on Monday: “If you hate democracy and think local...

So much for Democrats coming together in New York’s 14th congressional district. A feud erupted Thursday on Twitter between Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and outgoing Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley -- the longtime congressman Ocasio-Cortez shockingly defeated in New York’s primaries last month. The victor claimed the incumbent is now mounting a third-party bid. “.@repjoecrowley stated on live TV that he would absolutely support my candidacy,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Thursday. “Instead, he’s stood me up for all 3 scheduled concession calls.” The 28-year-old progressive Democrat added: “Now, he’s mounting a 3rd party challenge against me and the Democratic Party- and against the...

QUEENSBURY — A medical device company has gone on a hiring spree after buying Bard, which has a well-known local manufacturing plant. BD has put up signs on the bike trail, is passing out flyers and recently changed the sign at Bard on Bay Road as it tries to hire 45 new employees. The company needs engineers, supervisors, workers trained in the “continuous improvement” efficiency system and many other positions. A flyer being circulated around the region says the company is also looking for manufacturing team members, with no previous experience needed. The openings are listed at www.crbard.com/careers. The company...

QUEENS, N.Y. ― Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning primary victory over powerful U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley in the working-class New York district stretching from the Bronx to Queens is likely to propel her avowedly left-wing platform into the Democratic mainstream as the 2018 midterm elections heat up. But her detailed proposals to deal with climate change could prove among the most influential at a time when the Democrats have failed to rally around any policy that could feasibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically enough to make a difference. Ocasio-Cortez outlined plans to transition the United States to a 100 percent renewable energy...

NEW YORK — Police arrested five people Sunday in connection with a brutal machete attack on a teen outside a Bronx bodega earlier in the week. Lesandro Guzman-Feliz, 15, was pulled out of the Cruz and Chiky grocery Wednesday by members of the Dominican gang Trinitarios, who beat him, hacked him with a machete and left him to die on the sidewalk outside the store in what officials believe was a case of mistaken identity, according to the New York Post. Gang members wrongly believed Guzman-Feliz was in a revenge sex video posted online that featured a relative of one...

A man trying to jump-start his car got a slithering surprise when he opened the hood of his car.

A Brooklyn man accused of murdering a 66-year-old professor after a war of words over immigration is claiming self-defense, his attorney said Friday.

* William Conte, 39, was caught on video shoving a 12-year-old boy to the ground * The boy, Alex Anderson, said Conte's wife was following him and his friend * Anderson is seen in the video calling the woman a 'low life' while his friend calls her a 'pedophile' and asks if she like 'taking pictures of little children' * Conte, a father-of-two, was charged with criminal mischief and harassment * Residents have stuck up for Conte and one neighbor said the kids were trying to throw a dead snake into his wife's car A Long Island man was arrested...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take steps to curb ozone pollution that blows into New York and Connecticut from five other states. The decision by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan is a victory for New York’s and Connecticut’s attorneys general, Barbara Underwood and George Jepsen. Their offices sued EPA administrator Scott Pruitt in January, accusing him of ignoring his responsibilities under the federal Clean Air Act to reduce pollution.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood is pretty rankled by President Donald Trump’s pardon of Dinesh D’Souza. Underwood is so irritated, she’s calling for New York to change what she’s calling the “double jeopardy loophole” to prevent things like this from happening again. “President Trump’s latest pardon makes crystal clear his willingness to use his pardon power to thwart the cause of justice, rather than advance it. By pardoning Dinesh D’Souza, President Trump is undermining the rule of law by pardoning a political supporter who is an unapologetic convicted felon. First it was Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Then it was...

Maryland tunnel digger accused of killing pal feared North Korea missile attack By Nicole Hensley May 31, 2018 | 7:45 PM A man was charged in the death of a pal killed while digging a secret network of tunnels under his Maryland home he hoped would save him from North Korea’s budding nuclear missile program, according to his lawyer. After months of nuclear weapon tests by the isolated nation last year, 27-year-old Daniel Beckwitt began construction on an underground bunker to protect himself from a possible intercontinental ballistic missile attack at his Bethesda property. The digger’s paranoia was fueled by...

It started with money, as it so often does in New York. A crisp $100 bill slipped across the smooth surface of the mid-century-inspired concierge desk at 11 Howard, the sleek new boutique hotel in Soho. Looking up, Neffatari Davis, the 25-year-old concierge, who goes by “Neff,” was surprised to see the cash had come from a young woman who seemed to be around her age. She had a heart-shaped face and pouty lips surrounded by a wild tangle of red hair, her eyes framed by incongruously chunky black glasses that Neff, an aspiring cinematographer with an eye for detail,...

At 8:47 a.m. Eastern, the CNN host set up the segment: "An Army veteran running for Congress in upstate New York is getting a lot of attention with a campaign ad that seems to defy some of the interests of his own possible gun rights constituents." After running the ad which depicts children dressed as combat soldiers with Ryan commenting that the U.S. should either ban "assault weapons" or equip children to fight back against them, Camerota introduced her guest and began by posing: "So those are striking images. What's your goal with that ad?" As Ryan argued in favor...

MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) -- A billboard along I-70 is raising eyebrows - and questions. The sign along eastbound I-70 near Junction City reads, "Manhattan is the closest thing to communism." A notation at the bottom states the sign is paid for by the Ford family. Public records show the billboard is owned by Ron Ford.