Free Republic

Five more cases of Legionnaires' disease have been added to the Bronx outbreak that has claimed seven lives and sickened more than six dozen people in the last three weeks, Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday. The number of those killed stands at seven. The mayor's briefing comes a day after the city announced an increase in the death toll and the number of cases at a packed town hall meeting at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, where hundreds of residents gathered to hear what state, city and local officials had to say about the deadly outbreak. Eighty-six cases of...

New York (CNN)—The number of deaths in the New York City Legionnaires' disease outbreak is up to four. Seventy-one cases of the flu-like disease have been reported since mid-July in the South Bronx, up from 31 on Thursday, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Sunday.

Melissa Mejia, 18, was stunned and embarrassed when officials at William Cullen Bryant HS in Long Island City, Queens, told her she had met all the requirements to receive a diploma in June. She knew she hadn’t. Teachers say Melissa is just one of a number of students magically given credits for classes they failed in an effort by administrators to raise Bryant’s graduation rate. She told her story to The Post’s Susan Edelman. I don’t like receiving what I would call a handout, but that’s what happened. New York City gave me a ­diploma I didn’t deserve

A house party in Brooklyn was cut short Sunday morning when as many as nine people were shot and four others were injured, police officials said. At least one victim was in critical condition and clinging to life early Sunday, law enforcement sources told The Post. The gunfire erupted at a building at the intersection of Stanley Avenue and Crescent Street around 2:30 a.m. The carnage spilled out into the streets; one of the victims was found a block away at Loring Avenue and Crescent. At least four of the victims were at Brookdale Hospital, two of them with injuries...

The unique display, on one of the world's most recognisable structures, was aimed at sparking conversations about mass extinction. Pictures of snow leopards, tigers and various sea creatures were shown. A 350ft (106m) image of Cecil, the famous lion killed in Zimbabwe earlier this month, also appeared. [Snip] In all 160 species were shown, including marine mammals, insects, and even the shadow of King Kong climbing up the building.

It was so hot Wednesday that City Hall issued a 24-hour heat advisory warning people to stay indoors — but officials also cautioned against blasting the A/C. New Yorkers should keep their air conditioners at 78 degrees to help reduce the risk of blackouts, Mayor de Blasio said. “If the air conditioning is set at 78 degrees, people are safe and they will be able to deal with the hot temperatures,” he said. A 75-degree setting uses 18% more electricity, and a 72-degree setting uses 39% more, he said. The city’s fragile power grid was already showing signs of strain...

It was a shocking scene at one of the city’s most visited landmarks. CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer obtained exclusive images of what some call the latest public insult of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York City. Pictures were snapped of a homeless man taking a bath in the fountain at Columbus Circle, a popular city landmark that is now the bathtub of a bum. The man who took the photo called the incident simply appalling.

The elevated “SkyWatch” booth was erected July 21 following a Post exposé about the hordes of homeless people taking over the park and Mayor de Blasio’s subsequent visit to chat up vagrants there.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, late as usual, arrived in Rome Tuesday morning to pontificate at the Vatican about the dangers of climate change. Delayed by fog that forced his plane to land in Milan, de Blasio arrived 80 minutes after his allotted time to speak at the gathering of mayors invited by the Vatican. Once he was given time to speak, though, he waxed eloquent about “powerful corporate interests,” adding, “Is it not the definition of insanity to propagate corporate policies and consumer habits that hasten the destruction of the earth?”

RALLY FOR PEACH THROUGH STRENGTH - For America and for Humanity Stop Iran Rally is being held on July 22, 2015, in Times Square, at 42nd Street and 7th Avenue. The rally is scheduled for 5:30PM – 7:30PM. Our mission is to educate our countrymen on the dangerous accord being negotiated today in Geneva that will soon be put up for a vote in Congress. Our aims: 1. An end to the farce being perpetrated against the American people with a pending deal which will endanger America and our allies. 2. A restoration of the ORIGINAL demands – NO nuclear...

The plan for a museum in the city that would focus on climate and climate change, with exhibits that could relate to health, social justice and rain-delayed baseball games, moved a step forward Monday, officials said. The state Board of Regents, meeting in Albany, approved a five-year provisional charter for the museum, Regents spokesman Tom Dunn said. The vote means “there is absolutely going to be a museum,” said Miranda Massie, executive director of the Climate Museum Launch Project. She said the museum is now “empowered to hold collections in trust for the public.” Supporters say it would be the...

New York’s Empire State Building was lit in green late Friday to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

The Empire State Building has a message for Mother Teresa - you don't deserve to be honored in lights. "As a privately owned building, ESB has a specific policy against any other lighting for religious figures or requests by religions and religious organizations," said Anthony Malkin, head of the family company that owns the building.

Evidence pools beneath rows of pay phones, between parked cars, outside bars where last call has come and gone. The culprits can be found in any neighborhood of New York City. As city leaders wrestle with how to adapt police tactics to a lower-crime era, the Police Department in recent months has suggested it would loosen its approach to public urination, a quintessential quality-of-life crime whose effects have a tendency to linger — both on the street and for the person cited. Public urination has emerged as an especially thorny test case, scrambling traditional political allegiances among even left-leaning lawmakers...

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (left) is moving forward with a controversial plan to decriminalize such offenses as urinating in public — part of an effort to rollback on criminal offenses used by police to stop and detain suspects under the “broken windows” approach of Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. Critics have charged that the murder rate and other crimes are already up under Mayor Bill de Blasio due to the tensions with police and new policies against stop and frisk maneuvers. Mark-Viverito appears to believe that criminalizing urination is only a pretext for police stops or a minor offense for the...

..files $500K lawsuit against the director for 'violating her civil rights' Shoshana Roberts says she was paid $200 to be filmed walking through the streets of Manhattan for 10 hours, with the resultant video of her being catcalled more than 100 times quickly going viral. Now the 24-year-old aspiring actress has filed a lawsuit against the director of the clip and the advocacy group who came up with the idea of documenting street harassment, claiming they did not get her written permission to air the video before using it to cash in on advertising. The two-minute footage received over 40...

The New York Post has HAD IT. Take a gander at its cover today:

Cops are hunting the creep who raped and assaulted a 21-year-old woman in the Port Authority Bus Terminal parking garage, police said on Saturday. The brute raped and then beat the woman, lacerating her face and body in the parking garage on Eighth Ave. and W. 42nd St on Friday at 1 a.m., according to the police. The suspect was spotted on security cameras sauntering into the garage's sixth floor elevator and then examining his knuckles before he ambles out, the footage shows.

Here’s an up-close look at a quality-of-life offense the City Council wants to decriminalize. This urinating vagrant turned a busy stretch of Broadway into his own private bathroom yesterday – an offense that would result in a mere summons if Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and her pals get their way. Wrapped in rags and a Mets blanket the hobo wandered into traffic at around 10:30 a.m. and relieved himself as cabs, cars and buses whizzed by between West 83rd and 84th streets on the Upper West Side.

Throngs of impassioned fans of the US women's soccer team turned out early for a parade through New York City's Canyon of Heroes to celebrate the squad's victory at the Women's World Cup. The parade-goers started gathering at 3,30am on Friday along the Canyon - a stretch of Broadway where the nation's largest city has honored its legends - in anticipation of the event's 11 am start. Friday's celebration marked the first time New York City held a parade honoring a women's sports team.