Free Republic

A US destroyer intercepted a hijacked Israeli-managed oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden earlier today, freed the crew, and took the Houthi pirates into custody. My colleague Jeff Charles covered the piracy in this post, High Seas Drama: Another Israeli Tanker Seized by Unidentified Attackers Near Yemen.Shortly after dawn local time, the Central Park, a small Liberian-flagged oil and chemical tanker managed by an Israeli company registered in London, sent a distress call saying it was being boarded by armed men. The USS Mason, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was operating in the area. According to reports, the Mason directed...

"Slit your wrists," strangers texted me. "If anyone deserves prison rape, it's you," people I had never met called me to say. "The noble thing to do is to remove yourself from society...so please kill yourself." I'm Amy Cooper, but you probably know me as "Central Park Karen." You may not know my name, but you probably know my story—or at least the two-minute version of the story that was broadcast all over the world without key facts or context. Everyone believed and amplified one story: That a white "Central Park Karen" called the police on an innocent Black man,...

Mayor Adams’ administration is looking at over 3,000 sites to place asylum seekers — and would not say whether the possible locations include Central Park — in the wake of the mayor’s comments that the migrant crisis is “coming to a neighborhood near you.” There are nearly 108,000 people at 194 shelters across the Big Apple — pushing city officials to get creative when looking for places to erect new migrant housing. Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom skirted around whether migrant tents would be set up in Central Park, telling reporters on Wednesday that while there is a “constantly refreshing” list...

The owner of the dog savagely stabbed to death in Central Park over the weekend cried out, “You killed my dog, you piece of ****!” as the heartless attacker fled with his own pups, dramatic new video shows. The clip – taken by a witness to the heated Saturday night clash and obtained by WABC — shows the moments after 14-year-old pit bull-German shepherd mix Eli was mortally wounded by another pet owner near the park’s 106th Street and East Drive entrance. “You better not show your face!” Eli’s 51-year-old owner, Brian, snarled as he followed the suspect, seen fleeing...

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.

Vandals doused the statue of Christopher Columbus in Central Park with red paint and scrawled “Murderer” across its stone pedestal, police said Monday. Detectives have a video of two people — possibly a man and a woman — defacing the statue at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday with spray paint, an NYPD spokesperson said The pair wrote “land back” on three sides of the bronze-and-granite statue and “Murderer” on another, police said. There’ve been no arrests, but the NYPD is investigating the incident. If caught, the spray-paint artists will likely be charged with vandalism and making graffiti, the spokesperson said. Metal...

Flaco, a Eurasian eagle owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo in New York earlier in February, has been seen hunting and eating his own food, officials said. Photo courtesy of the Central Park Zoo Feb. 14 (UPI) -- A Eurasian eagle owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo in New York earlier this month is now hunting for his own food, officials said. Flaco, an owl that escaped from his enclosure at the zoo after his exhibit was vandalized in early February, has been spotted in the park on numerous occasions since his escape, but has evaded...

US District Judge Ronnie Abrams rejected Cooper’s claim on Wednesday that she was defamed when ex-employer Franklin Templeton, a holding company, axed her one day after the viral altercation in Central Park. Cooper claimed that Franklin Templeton and its chief executive Jenny Johnson perpetuated her image as a “privileged white female ‘Karen’” by making public statements about firing her after conducting an investigation into the incident. In May 2020, Cooper went viral after video showed her yelling at birder Christian Cooper and calling the police to claim an “African American man” was “threatening” her while she was walking her dog...

Kmele Foster gives a very good update to the Christian Cooper/Amy Cooper story. If you don't know those names: That's the black bird watcher who accused the white "Central Park Karen" of making up fake charges against him and calling the cops on him. Here's what the media all knows, but which never tells you: Christian Cooper is known to have a history of doing this. He has complaints from multiple people of threatening their dogs. He, a man who hates dogs and routinely threatens to harm them, carries around a bag of dog treats just so he can lure...

The 410-pound Castello CUBE had its own security detail. Artist Niclas Castello made it out of 24-carat gold. The cube, which took more than 4,500 hours of work to create, is reportedly worth $11.7 million. Castello hyped up New Yorkers and tourists alike before the presentation with a truck displaying the cube’s coordinates. It also served as promotion for the Castello Coin, an NFT set to launch later in February

On September 27, 2021, David Sibley, a birdwatching celebrity, posted the following on his Facebook page. "The outdoors is for *everyone* and has felt unsafe to many LGBTQIA2S+ folks for too long … Today, ask yourself 'What could I do better?'" Sibley "warned" that birders were liable to make "hurtful and dangerous comments" and that "sensitive" and "vulnerable" people should "avoid the comments section." LGBT people "struggle to feel and BE safe in the outdoors." Mind – Sibley was not condemning very real and reprehensible anti-LGBT violence. Sibley was specifically accusing birdwatchers of violence. Follow-up comments from Sibley's fans...

...New York prosecutors... have evidence that Barry Weisselberg, a Trump Organization employee, avoided taxes by living rent-free in a luxury apartment Trump owned, The Daily Beast reported on Sunday. ..Weisselberg, the manager of Trump's Wollman ice rink in Central Park, is the son of Allen Weisselberg.. Now prosecutors have evidence - delivered by Barry Weisselberg's ex-wife, Jennifer - that he avoided paying taxes... ..."In 2018, Weisselberg's family member was allowed to occupy a different Trump-owned apartment on East 61st Street in Manhattan, with no reported rent at all," the indictment said. "The value of lodging provided to [Allen] Weisselberg's family...

Last October, a barred owl showed up in the Ramble, the woodsy section of Central Park just north of the lake, and crowds of birders gathered at its preferred hemlock tree like it was a hot new bakery. At a time when many in the city turned to birding and the urban outdoors, Barry, as people called the owl, became part celebrity, part mascot — the most recognizable bird in the park since the Hot Duck of 2018. Barred owls aren’t uncommon, even in the city, but unlike the snowy owl that thrilled birders in Central Park for a time...

The white woman who was recorded on video calling police to claim that a Black bird-watcher was threatening her in New York City's Central Park last year filed suit against her former employer, alleging that the company did not properly consider her fear for personal safety prior to firing her. Amy Cooper filed a federal complaint against investment management company Franklin Templeton on Tuesday, alleging that the company terminated her based on her race and gender while also failing to properly investigate the viral incident that made national headlines. The lawsuit, filed exactly a year after the Central Park confrontation,...

The Wollman and Lasker rinks will not be closed after all, with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio suddenly folding to pressure to keep the ice rinks open. Sunday was destined to be the last day of the season the rinks would be open in Central Park. The mayor wanted to shut them down because they are run by the Trump Organization, whose contracts he has been trying to cancel in the wake of the Capitol riot.

We learned last month that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was cooking up a plan to cancel all of the Trump organization’s contracts with the city. Those contracts involve the operation of a golf course, the carousel in Central Park and two skating rinks. The contracts were set to expire in April anyway, but apparently, the city’s showboating mayor couldn’t wait that long. It was just announced that de Blasio wants the Trump-owned operations shut down and moved out by February 26. (In one week.) That means that operations will end tomorrow to give them time to pack...

Skaters arriving at Central Park’s two ice rinks are in for a cold awakening next week — the rinks, which are both managed by the Trump Organization, are being shuttered by City Hall to punish the former president for the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, The Post has learned. The Trump Organization says its last day of operating the iconic Wollman Rink and the smaller Lasker Rink at the park’s northern end will be Sunday. The rink contracts had been set to expire in April, but Mayor de Blasio has moved to ice Trump out a month early, effective Feb....

Many of you may know the story of how Donald Trump saved the Wollman Skating Rink in New York City. Especially those of you who’ve read The Art of the Deal (one of my all-time favorite books and now back in stock on Amazon!). But if you don’t know the story, it’s really worth hearing. It will make you love and admire our President all the more! It’s classic Trump. Perserverance, determination, hard work and common sense thinking all rolled into one!

The black birdwatcher falsely accused of threatening a white dog walker wants more police in Central Park. Christian Cooper, who clashed with Amy Cooper over Memorial Day weekend because her pooch was running loose, is backing an Upper West Side community board proposal that calls on the Central Park cops and Park Enforcement Patrol to do a better job of enforcing dog regulations, including the leash requirement. Christian Cooper and other supporters told Community Board 7’s Parks & Environment Committee that the resolution addresses a longstanding feud between birders and dog-walkers in Central Park — one that morphed into an...

Amy Cooper, a white woman who was publicly shamed and fired by her employer after calling the police on African American birdwatcher Christian Cooper who asked her to leash her dog in Central Park, said her “entire life is being destroyed right now.” After the immense backlash against Amy, Christian is now saying he is uncomfortable with the response, according to the New York Times. “It’s a little bit of a frenzy, and I am uncomfortable with that,” he said.