Free Republic

On an industrial strip of land hemming Newtown Creek, pipelines snake low to the ground, connecting an array of giant beige oil tanks. From outward appearances, this little patch of Texas in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, would not seem to easily fit into Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan for a greener, less petroleum-dependent future. But this fuel terminal may soon be home to one of the largest biodiesel fuel manufacturing plants in the country. The terminal’s owner, the Metro Fuel Oil Corporation, is awaiting city approval to produce 110 million gallons of fuel a year from raw vegetable oils. The output would...

The Khalil Gibran International Academy was conceived as a public embrace of New York City’s growing Arab population and of internationalism, the first public school dedicated to the study of the Arabic language and culture and open to students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. But nearly three months after plans for the middle school were first announced, a beleaguered Department of Education is fending off attacks from two angry camps: parents from Public School 282, the elementary school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, that was assigned to share building space with the Khalil Gibran school, and a handful of columnists...

At 14, Rocky Harris knows the routine: You raise your hands high, you keep your mouth shut and you don’t dare move a muscle. Then the police officer’s gloved hands go up and down each leg, around your waist, across your chest and back, then down your shoulders to your wrists. When they don’t find guns or drugs, Rocky said, they let you go. He said that he had been searched, fruitlessly, at least three times since last summer, and that he had friends who had been searched repeatedly. “They tell you that you’re selling drugs. But I don’t do...

A black city councilwoman won the racially charged primary for a Congressional seat in central Brooklyn yesterday, beating back a challenge from a white councilman to win a seat created nearly four decades ago to increase minority representation in Congress. The councilwoman, Yvette D. Clarke, 41, narrowly beat three opponents to capture the seat, which has been held by blacks since the 1968 victory of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress. This year’s campaign attracted national attention because of the strong run by the white councilman, David Yassky, whose candidacy raised questions about race and representation. With...

Brooklyn’s 11th Congressional District has had black representation since a court-ordered reapportionment in the 1960’s. Shirley Chisholm represented the area when she became the first black woman ever elected to Congress. So it was not surprising that black leaders reacted with some pain when a white city councilman, David Yassky, announced he was moving a few blocks to establish a home in the district and run for the seat. Mr. Yassky is pitted against three black candidates in a Democratic primary that is the equivalent of election in their highly Democratic district. While we agree that having good minority representation...

The imam begins his trek before dawn, his long robe billowing like a ghost through empty streets. In this dark, quiet hour, his thoughts sometimes drift back to the Egyptian farming village where he was born. But as the sun rises over Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Sheik Reda Shata's new world comes to life. The R train rattles beneath a littered stretch of sidewalk, where Mexican workers huddle in the cold. An electric Santa dances in a doughnut shop window. Neon signs beckon. Gypsy cabs blare their horns. The imam slips into a plain brick building, nothing like the golden-domed mosque...

A 9-year-old girl got into a fight with an 11-year-old girl in a Brooklyn apartment yesterday - family members said it was over a ball - and killed her by plunging a steak knife into her chest, the police said. The stabbing in the apartment building at 185 Wortman Avenue in East New York left the police scrambling to determine the appropriate charges for the youngest suspect in a killing that anyone in the department could recall. And it left the family of the slain girl, Queen Washington, not only grappling with the horror of her death, but also trying...