Free Republic

I met my new roommates on Craigslist. Two white, one Chinese. Together we represented Portland, Florida, China and (with me) D.C., and as we moved into our apartment in Bed-Stuy last fall, I was excited for the potential of cross-cultural exchange. We had a get-to-know you powwow on the rooftop. We talked about ourselves, what brought us to New York. It was a warm evening in September, a couple of weeks after Michael Brown was shot, and somewhere in the mix I brought up Ferguson, hoping to spark a “conscious conversation.” Then it happened. The nightmarish response. “What’s happening in...

Protesters invoking Michael Brown and Ferguson burst into an auditorium at Harris-Stowe State University early Monday afternoon and briefly shut down a Martin Luther King Day celebration. The protesters and Harris-Stowe students later confronted one another outside the venue, as police converged on the area. Shortly before 1 p.m., as the King observance was in progress in the crowded auditorium, about two-dozen protesters came in waving an upside-down American flag and chanting "No Justice, No Peace." They took the stage, and as the crowd began filing out angrily, they used a microphone to accuse the university and the clergy who...

The Secret Service has decided to remove four of its most senior officials while a fifth has decided to retire, the biggest management shake-up at the troubled agency since its director resigned in October after a string of security lapses, according to people familiar with internal discussions. The departures would gut much of the Secret Service’s upper management, which has been criticized by lawmakers and administration officials in recent months for fostering a culture of distrust between agency leaders and its rank-and-file, and for making poor decisions that helped erode quality. Acting Director Joseph P. Clancy on Tuesday informed the...

Privacy and security researcher Samy Kamkar has released a keylogger for Microsoft wireless keyboards cleverly hidden in what appears to be a rather large, but functioning USB wall charger. Called KeySweeper, the stealthy Arduino-based device can sniff, decrypt, log, and report back all keystrokes — saving them both locally and online. This is no toy. KeySweeper includes a web-based tool for live keystroke monitoring, can send SMS alerts for trigger words, usernames, or URLs (in case you want to steal a PIN number or password), and even continues to work after it is unplugged thanks to a rechargeable internal battery....

As more than 1.5 million people, including 40 world leaders, converged on Paris on Sunday to rally for unity after terrorist attacks that left 17 innocent people dead, three young men in tracksuits and hoodies lounged outside a fast-food restaurant 10 miles north of the city in Sevran, one of France’s poorest suburbs. Mehdi Boular, 24, who said he was married with two children, and two of his friends, did not attend Sunday’s rally. “We’re Muslims,” Boular said. “They might have killed us if we’d gone.” But even though the flags of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia were flying at the...

Rather than fall quiet as requested during a national minute of silence last week, three boys in Hamid Abdelaali’s high school class in this heavily Muslim suburb of Paris staged an informal protest, speaking loudly through all 60 seconds. In one school in Normandy, some Muslim students yelled “God is great!” in Arabic during that same moment. In a Paris middle school, another group of young Muslims politely asked not to respect the minute, arguing to their teacher, “You reap what you sow.” Abdelaali, a 17-year-old high school senior who did observe the quiet minute, said he did so only...

After the killings at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo last week by Islamist extremists, other news media, including web-based outlets, chose to republish some of its cartoons that many Muslims found so offensive. Some American newspapers, including The New York Times, did not. They drew criticism from some free-speech advocates who called the decision cowardly in the face of a terrorist attack. American newspapers are confronting a variation of that choice: whether to republish the cover-page cartoon of the new Charlie Hebdo print edition, due out Wednesday. It shows a tearful caricature of the Prophet Muhammad holding the by-now...

The co-owner of a Shawnee gun store was fatally shot and three suspects were wounded during an attempted robbery Friday afternoon. The gunfight broke out after four robbers entered She’s A Pistol, at 57th Street and Nieman Road, about 2:10 p.m., according to Shawnee police. Jon Bieker, 44, of Gardner, who co-owned the business with his wife, Becky Bieker, died later at a hospital, police said. “Jon was a kind of a quiet guy, very conscientious,” said Sandy Kaspar, who for several years operated a sign language business on the lower level of the building. “He and Becky took great...

Attorneys general from 26 states filed a federal lawsuit against San Francisco on Thursday over an ordinance requiring locked storage for handguns, arguing it threatens the Second Amendment right to bear arms. San Francisco firearms must either be stored in a locked container or with a trigger lock at all times in a home unless the owner is carrying the firearm, according to the lawsuit. The suit notes the ordinance applies even if someone is the sole occupant of their home or sleeping, which is dangerous for gun owners, the states say. “Common sense dictates that in high stress, emergency...

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday that his eye injuries remain so severe that doctors can't yet determine whether his full vision will be restored. Reid suffered at least three broken ribs and broke several bones around his right eye last week while exercising at his suburban Las Vegas home. The injuries kept him from coming to Capitol Hill this week for the start of the 114th Session of Congress. Speaking from Washington, where he's on doctors' orders to stay home and recover, Reid said doctors are "very hopeful" he will have full vision, but "This isn’t...

PARIS — When Chérif Kouachi first came to the attention of the French authorities as a possible terrorist a decade ago, he was in his early 20s and, according to testimony during a 2008 Paris trial, had dreamed of attacking Jewish targets in France. Under the influence of a radical Paris preacher, however, he decided that fighting American troops in Iraq presented a better outlet for his commitment to jihad. On Wednesday, Mr. Kouachi, according to investigators, returned to his original plan of waging holy war in France. Along with his older brother Said and a third French Muslim of...

Ever since a Danish newspaper drew death threats and incited protests by publishing cartoons satirizing the prophet Muhammad in 2005, American news organization have wrestled with a question: to publish or not to publish the offending, if clearly newsworthy, cartoons? The issue came roaring back Wednesday with the attack on a satirical Paris publication that had republished the Danish cartoons and created its own in the face of violent threats from Muslim extremists. The attack by three gunmen on the publication, Charlie Hebdo, left 12 people dead, including its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, who once defiantly posed with a copy of...

The Associated Press is among the numerous news outlets that have been self-censoring images of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that may have provoked Wednesday's deadly Paris attack. In a statement, the news organization said that such censorship is standard policy: None of the images distributed by AP showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. It’s been our policy for years that we refrain from moving deliberately provocative images. The conservative Washington Examiner publication then pointed out that the AP nonetheless continued to carry an image of Andres Serrano's 1987 "Piss Christ" photograph—which is certainly provocative, having been the subject of massive...

Kevin Jamison knows some people don’t care for him. OK, his word: They “loathe” him. He’s the gun guy. He heard that very phrase at a garage sale — “Hey, it’s the gun guy!” To gun owners, gun sellers and strict constitutionalists, he’s the calm, learned voice of reason. To those who think the Second Amendment is as outdated as a spittoon, he’s dangerous. Both sides, though, would probably agree that Jamison, 62, a Northland attorney, is one of Kansas City’s most public and prolific voice for gun rights. His office is dark wood and leather. He wears a bushy...

Protesters from the group Black Lives Matter staged a demonstration on one of the busiest shopping days of the year at the Mall of America in Bloomington. Chants of "Hands up! don't shoot!" and "Black lives matter" filled the rotunda. After about an hour, police escorted protesters out and arrested about a dozen people. Photojournalists Jackson Forderer, Yi-Chin Lee and Angela Jimenez documented the day.

It is the bane of many female subway riders. It is a scourge tracked on blogs and on Twitter. And it has a name almost as distasteful as the practice itself. It is manspreading, the lay-it-all-out sitting style that more than a few men see as their inalienable underground right. Now passengers who consider such inelegant male posture as infringing on their sensibilities — not to mention their share of subway space — have a new ally: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Taking on manspreading for the first time, the authority is set to unveil public service ads that encourage men...

My style of dress is classic preppy. My fashion sense evolved from my years spent in boarding school, where I was required to dress that way for class: khaki pants, fitted dress shirts, crewneck sweaters, and penny loafers. J.Crew and Ralph Lauren could have used our campus to shoot their advertisements. Some of my Black friends say my style is “boo-zhee.” What can I say? I prefer quality over quantity, avoid crowded stores like H&M, the Gap, and Zara where you’ve got scores of copies of the same item. I love blazers—especially those with patches—and own too many to count....

A volunteer group of security guards associated with the national constitutional rights organization Oath Keepers says it never abandoned its post in Ferguson after being targeted by police for operating without a license. St. Louis County police confronted the well-armed volunteers early Wednesday as they guarded the rooftops of buildings previously vandalized during unrest in Ferguson. “The reason the Oath Keepers were not allowed to remain on the rooftops is that the individuals from the group did not adhere to St. Louis County ordinance regulating security officers, couriers, and guards,” St. Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire said Tuesday in...

CAN billionaires remake the Manhattan shoreline? Apparently so, in light of the news that a new park will be just offshore in the Hudson River, largely financed by the media mogul Barry Diller and situated, conveniently, a short walk from his office in Chelsea. The new park will also be near the High Line, allowing for an easy tour of how private wealth is remaking the city’s public spaces. This trend isn’t unique to New York: Philanthropists are also busy reshaping the riverfront of Philadelphia and building a green corridor through Houston. In Tulsa, Okla., a vast new park system...

Police questioned group members early in the week and allowed them to stay. But Saturday, after an inquiry by a reporter, St. Louis County Police officers ordered the Oath Keepers to leave the rooftops. Threatened with arrest for operating without a license, the volunteers argued but eventually left their positions early Saturday morning, Rhodes said. "We are going to go back as protesters," Rhodes said Saturday afternoon. Rhodes, who said he is Mexican-American, stressed that Oath Keepers is not anti-government. He said the group volunteers pulling rooftop security in Ferguson were current or former government employees and first responders, many...