Free Republic

The city insists the water is safe, but people can't get over the colorResidents on Manhattan's East Side are staying far away from their tap water after it started flowing with an unusual color, despite the city's insistence the water is safe. On Thursday, residents and businesses began noticing brown water from their sinks and taps. Nearly a dozen hydrants in the area were also unlocked and gushing discolored water. The city's Department of Environmental Protection said the discoloration happened when construction of new water mains forced them to reverse flow, stirring up sediment. The DEP said the brown in...

In some cash-strapped Chicago schools, no resource can be taken for granted -- not even toilet paper. Nicholas Sposato, alderman of Chicago’s 36th ward, recently held a toilet paper drive for the schools in his community.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel condemned a Thursday night shooting on Chicago’s South Side that wounded 13 people, including a three-year-old boy. “Senseless and brazen acts of violence have no place in Chicago and betray all that we stand for,” said Obama’s former chief of staff in the first of a series of tweets Friday morning. “The perpetrators of this crime will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Emanuel added. Witnesses said several gunmen fired at least 20 shots at a group on basketball courts, according to NBC News’s Chicago affiliate. The station said...

A businessman has a message for young African-American men: pull up your pants!

... Department spokesman John Chafee says a man was shot in the leg and a woman was shot in the arm Sunday afternoon. Chafee says the shooting happened on Northside Drive near Markham Street, about three blocks south of the Georgia Dome, where thousands gathered to watch the Falcons play the St. Louis Rams.

Even the most dangerous cities in America can have relatively safe neighborhoods, as there is more variation in crime within most cities than between cities. But using exclusive data developed by NeighborhoodScout, and based on FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in America, we here report those specific neighborhoods in America that have the highest predicted rates of violent crime per 1,000 neighborhood residents of all. Violent crimes include murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. These neighborhoods are the epicenters of violence in America, where social issues are likely to ignite into violence and spread.

Using Census data, we've figured out that half of the United States population is clustered in just the 146 biggest counties out of over 3000. Here's the map, with said counties shaded in. Below the map is the list of all the counties, so you can see if you live in one of them. See link for list of names.

A school cafeteria fight turned deadly this morning at a high school in Houston where one student was stabbed to death and three others were injured, police said today. Three persons of interest are in custody, police said.

Curious about the correlation between population density and voting behavior, I began with analyzing the election results from the least and most dense counties and county equivalents. 98% of the 50 most dense counties voted Obama. 98% of the 50 least dense counties voted for Romney... At about 800 people per square mile, people switch from voting primarily Republican to voting primarily Democratic. Put another way, below 800 people per square mile, there is a 66% chance that you voted Republican. Above 800 people per square mile, there is a 66% chance that you voted Democrat. A 66% preference is...

Portland is in the middle of a nasty bout of black mob violence. This time directed at bicyclists. But Tim Oberlander does not want us to know. Oberlander says he wants to be able to live in a city that does good things for good people. So what’s wrong with that? Everything. Oberlander is a news editor at KGW TV in Portland. His city is under attack from black mob violence centered around Martin Luther King Boulevard. This mob has been attacking bike riders, housewives, students, seniors, you name it. These attacks are part of a long — but quiet...

L.A. Unified and seven other California school districts on Tuesday won relief from some strict and costly provisions of federal education law. Besides Los Angeles, the school districts are Long Beach, Santa Ana, Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Sanger.

Young Tatiana Kirby cried until she couldn't cry anymore last Monday night after an angry man attending a party next door pumped several bullets into the body of her father, Pastor Tim Kirby, 46, after he asked them to turn down the music. "It was devastating. I cried for a minute, and then it was like I couldn't cry no more," the young girl told WDIV 4 of her father's untimely death in Detroit, Mich. "He was a good father. He was always a caring person. Every Sunday we were always in church. He always made sure we had clothes,...

Just after 3 a.m. on Sunday, the pop of gunshots cut through the air. Two rookie police officers — barely a month out of the Police Academy, and now on foot patrol in the Bronx — hurried toward the sound. They headed east on East 151st Street to find a chase unfolding, one man running down the middle of the street, another following with a handgun. The officers ordered the second figure to drop his gun. Instead, another shot rang out. One of the officers fired a single shot. The bullet struck the gunman in his lower left jaw, killing...

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/25-most-dangerous-neighborhoods/ Even the most dangerous cities in America can have relatively safe neighborhoods, as there is more variation in crime within most cities than between cities. But using exclusive data developed by NeighborhoodScout, and based on FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in America, we here report those specific neighborhoods in America that have the highest predicted rates of violent crime per 1,000 neighborhood residents of all. Violent crimes include murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. These neighborhoods are the epicenters of violence in America, where social issues are likely to ignite into violence and...

DETROIT (WJBK) - The bad news came in broad daylight that 45-year-old Deon Taylor of Detroit was dead inside a building. "He was a very loving, strong man," said daughter Deleesha Taylor. "His children are devastated. His grandchildren are devastated, and all I can say is we're trying to deal with this. It's hard," said sister-in-law Ramona Harper. "I don't know what's going to happen now. He had 24 kids," said sister Jacqueline Taylor. 24 children are waiting to find out who or what took their father from them far too soon. Deon's cause of death is currently a mystery....

Police in Washington, DC are investigating a robbery that occurred Saturday as a possible hate crime in retaliation to the not-guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman. A Bethesda, Maryland man was beaten and robbed early Saturday morning by three black men who approached him as he was walking down Euclid Street in Adams Morgan district of Washington, DC. Police are investigating the robbery as a hate crime since one of the men yelled 'This is for Trayvon Martin' before attacking the man. The men threw the victim to the ground and kicked him before leaving with his wallet...

"It was crazy. Beyond our control," says the manager of the King Convenience store in the 1500 block of U Street in Southeast D.C. He says a flash mob of teens stole candy, soda and other items from his store Saturday night. "Bunch of kids, more than 20 or 30, grabbed everything," he says, asking not to be identified. "They grabbed everything and then ran away from the store." An employee ran outside to try and stop some of the teens involved in the flash mob. He was confronted by one of them armed with a stick and is now...

Take Oakland, which is Detroit's doppelganger on the West Coast. The run-down Bay Area city, which has the highest crime rate in California, recently laid off more than 100 police to fund retirement benefits and pension-obligation bonds. Murders and robberies shot up by nearly 25% last year. To avert steeper cuts, the city borrowed an additional $210 million to finance pensions. . . Philadelphia is spending about 20% of its budget on pensions to make up for years of short-changing the system.

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina ordered on Friday that Detroit’s bankruptcy be withdrawn. Aquilina said the 2012 Michigan law that allowed Gov. Rick Snyder to approve the city’s bankruptcy filing, the largest municipal bankruptcy filing ever in the United States, violates the Michigan Constitution. Specifically, Article IX Section 24, which holds that pension plans and retirement systems “shall not be diminished or impaired.” Aquilina said that she will ensure that President Barack Obama gets a copy of her order. “It’s also not honoring the president, who took [Detroit’s auto companies] out of bankruptcy.” bilde “I know he’s watching...

Chicago Public Schools officials announced late Thursday that 2,113 teachers and other employees would be laid off Friday, largely due to a giant pension obligation increase that’s straining the system. “In fiscal year ‘14 we’re facing a historic deficit of $1 billion that is driven primarily by a $400 million increase in our annual teacher pension payments,” said CPS spokesman Becky Carroll. “Absent pension reform in Springfield, we have very few options available to us to close that gap, and that has resulted in bringing this crisis to the doorsteps of our schools.” Of those being laid off, 1,077 are...