Free Republic

Are the NYT's and James Risen at fault here? Investigators of the failed car bombing in Times Square are looking for a money courier they say helped funnel cash from overseas to finance a Pakistani-American's preparations to blow up the crude gasoline-and-propane bomb in the heart of New York, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Investigators have the name of the courier they believe helped Faisal Shahzad pay for the used SUV and other materials to rig up a car bomb that would have caused a huge fireball in Times Square if it had gone off, the official...

According to statistics obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the NYPD’s operational “slowdown” continues. Though the rates of arrests and citations are beginning to accelerate compared to the week of December 22 to 28 when they were down 90 percent from the year prior, New York City police activity remains relatively low. The reduced police activity is largely seen as a protest in response to the actions of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who angered police when he implied that racism played a role in the death of Eric Garner and the grand jury’s subsequent decision not...

Most New Yorkers didn’t approve of police officers turning their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio at the funerals of two officers shot to death in their patrol car, or of the comment by a union leader that the mayor had “blood on his hands,” according to a poll released Thursday. The Quinnipiac University poll found that 69 percent disapproved of the silent protest among police at the funerals of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu and 77 percent considered union leader Patrick Lynch’s comment “too extreme.” …

A Delta flight that was headed to Spain from Kennedy Airport turned around in the air and made an emergency landing after some cut wires were discovered in the plane's bathroom, sources said. Delta Flight 126 took off for Madrid at about 8:10 p.m. When an air marshal on board was alerted to some cut wires in a lavatory on the plane, officials decided to bring the plane back to Kennedy.

Emergency crews responded to a three-alarm fire early Tuesday morning at Penn Station, according to the FDNY. The fire happened just before 2:30 a.m. at the station, located at West 33rd Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, the FDNY said.

The New York City clinic where Joan Rivers suffered a fatal complication during a medical procedure is losing its accreditation at the end of the month, a federal agency said Monday. “Yorkville Endoscopy no longer meets the conditions for a supplier of ambulatory surgical center services,” the Centers for Medicare Services said in a statement. As of Jan. 31, the Manhattan medical facility will no longer be eligible to receive federal funds for services provided to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. …

The New York City Police Department has reportedly been placed on alert after an ISIS message surfaced calling on its followers to kill police officers, soldiers and civilians in the United States by any means necessary. "Pay close attention to people as they approach and look for their hands as they approach you," an internal NYPD memo read, according to the New York Daily News on Sunday. The threat was apparently made by ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammad Al-Adnani, and mirrors a previous jihadist call for action in September 2014. The memo warns that the latest threat should be taken even...

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...

Not long after Mayor Bill de Blasio sat beside the Rev. Al Sharpton at a July summit meeting on police reform, a political adviser gave the mayor a blunt assessment: You have a problem with the cops. Rank-and-file officers felt disrespected by the mayor, the adviser explained, and were dismayed to see Mr. Sharpton, a longtime critic of the New York Police Department, embraced at City Hall. But Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, rejected the notion that officers disliked him. His message, the adviser later recalled, was clear: Everything was under control. That confidence would last until late last month,...

Across New York City, policemen are being put on notice by higher ups, get back to business as usual, or no vacations, or sick days, according to reports. And borough commanders want to see the proof. “Throughout the city, precincts are being ordered to hand up to borough commanders ‘activity sheets’ indicating the number of arrests and summonses per shift…” Said one union source, according to the New York Post, “Police officers around the city are now threatened with transfers, no vacation time and sick time unless they write summonses.”

The Amazing Kreskin wants to read de Blasio’s mind The Amazing Kreskin will celebrate his 80th birthday with a star- studded bash at City Crab on Monday, and Bill de Blasio is invited. But if the mayor shows, “I will read his thoughts in public, in front of the audience,” offered the mentalist, who admits he’s at odds with de Blasio over his crusade to ban horse carriages. “I only have one fear — I may draw a blank,” Kreskin cracked of de Blasio’s brain.

Zoo Won’t Let de Blasio Hold Groundhog After He Killed One Last Year The NYPD isn't the only city organization that has lost complete confidence in the esteemed Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio. After he dropped the groundhog during last year's Groundhog Day celebrations, the Staten Island Zoo has unequivocally banned De Blasio from holding or handling any more of their animals in a celebratory setting. - Mayor de Blasio won’t be killing any more groundhogs — zoo handlers are forbidding the butter-fingered mayor from holding the critter at the annual shadow-sighting ceremony on Feb. 2, The...

City to ban foam takeout, delivery food containers in environmentally friendly push The ban, which will start July 1, covers foam take-out containers, packing peanuts and plastic cups. New Yorkers’ beloved foam takeout and delivery food containers will soon be products of a bygone era. Mayor de Blasio — finishing off an initiative begun by his predecessor — will announce a ban on the environmentally unfriendly material Thursday, according to The New York Times. The ban will start July 1 and cover foam packing peanuts as well as plastic foam cups and takeout containers. City Hall declined to comment when...

A man yelling “I want to kill cops” tried to run down two Port Authority Police officers with his car near the entrance to the ­Holland Tunnel Wednesday night in the latest attack on officers. Matthew Christian Cash, who has an extensive criminal record, was barreling down a restricted fire lane near Varick and Watts streets when he barely missed cops patrolling the tunnel and smashed his silver Audi right into their ­police cruiser at about 8 p.m., authorities said.

A New York requirement that all children attending public school be vaccinated has been upheld by a federal court. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a regulation by New York City health and education officials. The rule was being challenged on grounds that the law was discriminatory and that its local applications violated freedom of religion. The court also upheld a regulation that allows school officials to prevent non-immunized children from going to school during an outbreak of vaccine-preventable diseases. The state statute was being challenged by three New York City plaintiffs,...

In the aftermath of the Islamic terrorist attack in Paris, France, on Wednesday — an attack that left 12 journalists and cops dead — cities throughout the world are increasing alert levels especially those in Western nations, according to a number of reports. However, the terrorists’ crown-jewel target, New York City, has become more and more vulnerable under the leadership of Mayor Bill de Blasio. For example, his dismantling of a special operations unit of police officers that conducted surveillance and investigations of the city’s and metropolitan area’s mosques has left the Big Apple arguably as vulnerable as it was...

With the NYPD slowdown due to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s support for racist cop killers, no one is actually enforcing the minor rules and regulations, summonses aren’t being issued and people hop turnstiles in the subway with reckless abandon.But petty tyrants aren’t to be deterred and Mayor Wilhelm/De Blasio has focused in on the city’s greatest enemy. Packing peanuts. Nearly two years after Mr. Bloomberg first proposed banishing the material in his final State of the City address, de Blasio administration officials are expected to announce on Thursday that they have completed the deed.Beginning on July 1, food establishments...

De Blasio boots judge known to be tough on criminals By Jamie Schram A Manhattan judge known for being tough on criminals has been booted from the bench by Mayor Bill de Blasio — even against the ­advice of his own vetting team, law enforcement sources told The Post on Tuesday. The move comes on the heels of de Blasio’s reappointment of Brooklyn Judge Laura Johnson, who set free without bail two men who threatened to kill cops just days after a double police assassination. The booted judge, Diana Boyar, “was fair, knowledgeable and ran the courtroom professionally,” a stunned...

One of the cops wounded in a wild Bronx shootout didn’t appreciate a hospital sympathy visit from Mayor Bill de Blasio, the wounded officer’s dad told The Post on Tuesday. The mayor accompanied NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton to St. Barnabas Hospital overnight to see wounded plainclothes officers Andrew Dossi, 30, and Aliro Pellarano, 38. “He wasn’t too happy about the mayor’s visit,” Dossi’s dad, Joe, told The Post at the family’s home in Rockland County. “He (Dossi) deals with some crappy people every day and getting no support (from the mayor), come on. These are the guys in the trenches...

For the third time, the cops of the NYPD have turned their backs on the mayor of New York. The first time was when Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived at Woodhull Hospital where mortally wounded officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu had been taken on Dec. 20. The second was when the mayor spoke at Ramos' funeral. The third was at Liu's service on Sunday. Detestation of de Blasio among the NYPD and the cops who came from across the country to stand in solidarity with their slain brothers is broad and deep. And, in a way, de Blasio served...