Free Republic

Detectives investigating the murder of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson reportedly found shell casings with the words 'deny', 'defend' and 'depose' inscribed on them. Police sources told ABC News that casings were found at the scene with the cryptic messages left on them. Detectives are now working to determine what the words mean and if they could possibly hint at a motive for the slaying of the 50-year-old. Officers are still searching for the unknown assailant who gunned down Thompson outside of the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan on Wednesday morning. Authorities say he fled the scene on foot before then making...

The so-called “Central Park Five” sued former President Donald Trump Monday, saying he made “false and defamatory” statements about them during last month’s presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise filed the civil complaint in US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleging Trump, 78, “falsely stated” that they had “killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime.” “These statements are demonstrably false. Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing,” lawyers for the quintet wrote in the 18-page filing....

Legendary TV anchor Tom Brokaw was spotted in Central Park this week, amid his lengthy battle with incurable blood cancer. The 84-year-old retired journalist, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2013, was in a wheelchair near the park’s pond. “He was in the wheelchair, with his wife and the home health aide, being wheeled around the pond. He and his wife looked so happy. It was sweet — sad, but sweet,” a source told NewsNation’s Paula Froelich.

Robert Kennedy Jr. has finally admitted he was involved in the shocking discovery of a bear found dead in Central Park a decade ago. The bear was found in the New York park in October 2014 by a dog walker who then notified a Central Park Conservancy worker who contacted police. An investigation by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) concluded that the six-month-old bear was run over and killed by a vehicle, but they could not figure out how it ended up in the park.

Neigh-sayers galloped outside Manhattan Criminal Court Monday afternoon to call for a shutdown of the city’s carriage horse industry as a handler of a horse that died two years ago faced his first day of trial — or so they thought. Ian McKeever, who is facing animal abuse charges in connection to the death of his carriage horse Ryder in 2022, was not able to appear in court Monday due to a scheduling conflict with his attorney, The Post learned. Despite the adjournment, roughly 30 demonstrators remained in the scorching heat for the “Criminal Horse Abuse Trial for Ian McKeever”...

The city of New York released thousands of documents from the 1989 Central Park rape case recently, provoking more weeping and gnashing of teeth over Donald Trump's full-page ads in four New York newspapers taken out soon after that attack with the headline: "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!" His ad never mentioned the Central Park rape, but talked about New York families - "White, Black, Hispanic and Asian" - unable to enjoy walks through the park at dusk. Of muggers and murderers, he said, "I no longer want to understand their anger. I want them to...

Robberies in New York City are surging, police data show. While most major crimes are down, including shootings and murders, robberies shot up 5.6% so far in 2024 over the same period in 2023 — to 5,522 from 5,228 as of May 5. Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, pointed out that robberies have a low arrest rate — with only about 25% of cases solved because victims typically don’t know their attackers.

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...