Free Republic

That’s one way to get an apartment steps from Central Park. A pair of alleged squatters from Oregon have commandeered a two-bedroom, rent-controlled co-op worth nearly $1 million on Manhattan’s ritzy Upper West Side after the longtime tenant died, according to court papers. Sheila Upjohn, 72, of Salem, has been living in the roughly 1,100-square-foot pad on the ninth floor of 46 West 95th Street since 98-year-old resident Mary Etta Tanuma died in April 2022.

Another pop culture trend that Americans are no longer buying, is the cruel disfiguring and callous mauling of children’s bodies all based on a moment of youthful dysphoria.

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas argued that the number of crossings at the border has spiked in the past year due to “poverty, violence, corruption, authoritarian regimes, the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather events,” and false information from smugglers. Co-host Willie Geist asked, “You said a moment ago, Mr. Secretary, that we have a broken immigration system. And I don’t think many people would disagree with you about that. And yes, this is a decades-old problem, but the truth of the matter is, just this week, we’re seeing record numbers of illegal crossings at the...

Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry thinks the Biden administration’s climate policies will outlast the president and will survive a Republican administration Biden’s special envoy told CNN that he believes that the climate policies will outlast Biden and won’t be able to be reversed if a Republican is elected president in 2024. Kerry argued that the economy would be one of the main drivers in keeping the Democrat’s partisan climate and energy law passed last year.

A New York State Assembly bill that would have banned landlords from reporting late rent payments to credit agencies was withdrawn this week, exposing potential difficulties for Democrats in achieving housing reform before the legislative session ends on June 8. The bill, proposed by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, sought to protect tenants from credit score damage and potential issues securing future leases due to delayed rent payments. Rosenthal asserts that the bill would have leveled the playing field for renters, as landlords can still pursue fines or evictions for late payments. However, the proposal was deemed too open-ended by some Democratic...

Beautiful, sweet, soft, and taps into our guilt as well as our intellect. 4 verses. First is in a jail, second sleeping outside, 3rd is a drunk and fourth is about war.

Earlier this week, a 34-year-old driver led North Carolina police officers and deputies on a pursuit after fleeing from the officers during a traffic stop. According to the Town of Boone Police Department and the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office, the suspect, later identified as Joshua Minton, of Millers Creek, NC, ran into an undeveloped area after abandoning his vehicle in the Deep Gap area. Because the suspect was driving fast and recklessly, officers were not close behind him and therefore did not see where he ran to, police said. While officers were searching the area for the suspect, they were...

A former special education teacher at Española Valley High School pleaded no contest in state District Court in Tierra Amarilla to three charges stemming from an incident in which she was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage student. Makana Masacayan, 26, was arrested in June of last year and initially was charged with fourth-degree criminal sexual penetration, fourth-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and enticement of a child. ---------- Masacayan appeared in court wearing a mask and stood next to her attorney, Dorie Biagianti Smith, while entering her plea. She accepted a...

Think Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray in Carberet. Think West Hollywood, Greenwich Village and Provincetown and the Castro, known as hotbeds of homosexuality. But they are nothing like the uninhibited urban gay sexual scene and vast homosexual subculture that flourished in Berliin under Germany's Weimar Republic. Sexual experimentation between the same sexes and medical advances of helping genders ‘trapped within the wrong body’ in Germany more than one hundred years ago shaped our understanding of gay identity today. The city's liberal years - before the rise of Hitler - are detailed in a new book, Gay Berlin. The science of...

drug bust video Authorities in Ohio have arrested 10 men in a human trafficking sting. The men, who range in age from 30 to 55, were arrested Thursday on sex charges in North Olmsted by the members of the Northeast Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force. On the same day, a Lorain County man who was previously convicted of 31 human trafficking offenses was sentenced to life in prison.

Videos posted on Russian social media on Saturday showed a helicopter apparently being shot down over Russia’s Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine. The state news agency TASS cited an emergency services official as saying preliminary information indicated the helicopter’s engine had caught fire before the crash near Klintsy, which is around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border. However, a video posted on the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Voyenniy Osvedomitel, which has around half a million followers, showed a helicopter high in the sky exploding, being thrown off course and then plunging earthwards in flames. Comments accompanying the video, which Reuters...

The CEO of New York City grocery store chain Gristedes is sounding the alarm over all the "dumb things" the government is doing as inflation persists. When FOX Business host Maria Bartiromo asked John Catsimatidis when Americans will see a break at the supermarket he said: "When the food executives feel confident that Washington is not doing dumb things." "When they feel that their earnings… are going to survive," he continued. His comments came on the heels of inflation jumping 0.4% in April as prices remain stubbornly high. The Labor Department said Wednesday that the consumer price index, a broad...

New York City is home to the country’s first-ever reported cases of ringworm infections that are highly contagious and resistant to common anti-fungal treatments, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two cases were reported to state health officials by the dermatologist in February, and those cases are briefly documented in a case study released Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “On February 28, 2023, a New York City dermatologist notified public health officials of two patients who had severe tinea that did not improve with oral terbinafine treatment, raising concern for potential T. indotineae...

It’s a wrap. After more than three long years, the public health emergency for COVID-19 in the United States is ending. The Biden administration in February announced that the measure, first invoked in March 2020, would expire today. Alongside the US decision, the World Health Organization (WHO), similarly ended its public health emergency of international concern designation for COVID. By many measures, the impact of the virus—both in the United States and around the world—is receding, but experts warn that could change if and when a new immune-evasive variant crops up. COVID deaths have been dropping steadily this year. Between...

The idea that the attorney general and the Department of Justice are independent from the president is a modern misconception with no basis in the Constitution. This is clear just from Article II of the Constitution, and it is even clearer in Federalist Paper 76, which discusses the appointment of officers in the executive branch. If we are ever going to put the genie of the unconstitutional fourth branch of government back into its bottle, we have to bust this myth. The administrative state, especially after the astonishing revolution that the New Deal era accomplished, is now strangling our republic.Let’s...

CNN chief Chris Licht reportedly scolded far-left ‘journalist’ Oliver Darcy for being too emotional in his coverage of the network’s town hall event with Trump. Darcy released his Reliable Sources newsletter, whining about the debate 15 minutes after CNN released a statement essentially bragging about the event. Darcy was reportedly ‘visibly shaken’ over this exchange. Prior to joining CNN, Darcy worked for conservative outlets like The Blaze and the Daily Caller, but since joining CNN, has become a major mouthpiece for the far left in pushing lies about Russian collusion and focusing his attention on smearing Trump and conservatives.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) doesn’t seem very interested in hearing from constituents who live near public land. On Wednesday, the agency released its schedule for a tour of Western high mountain states during which BLM officials will present sweeping new regulations on public lands. The proposed Public Lands Rule, published at the end of March, threatens to undermine the multiple use mandate and jeopardizes grazing rights for ranchers. The bureau, which manages 245 million acres primarily across 12 Western states, is preparing to implement conservation leasing and cut off ranchers’ access to public lands.The states to entertain a...

Despite an audience that was friendly to the candidate, CNN’s recent town hall hosting Donald Trump was anything but an effort to inform independent and Republican voters about the candidate’s position on the substantial issues faced by struggling Americans. It was a hedonistic exercise to satiate its left-wing producers’ and viewers’ desire to emphasize all the criticisms that CNN talking heads have been levying against him since 2020. CNN certainly didn’t expect that Trump would simply concede to all the nonsense that they’ve been unsuccessfully peddling to Americans these past few years. He wasn’t going to say that he’s really...

It is time we face it: we live in an era where our leaders manufacture crises. This week, with the eclipsing of Title 42, the U.S. southern border has gone from a hot mess to a full-blown emergency. We were pushed into the conflict with Ukraine and Russia as well. Before that was the debacle in Afghanistan. Our leaders killed drilling for oil and terminated pipeline projects which led to elevated gas prices and fueled inflation. If inflation was a concern, you’d never notice it from our leaders. They pumped trillions of dollars into the economy to make inflation worse...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...