Free Republic

It’s not the White House. But… it’s a short walk to the Park? Kamala Harris is eyeing post-loss life in New York, we hear. Page Six spies say that Doug Emhoff toured a $20,000-a-month three-bedroom at the Park Loggia luxury condo building on the Upper West Side last week. (“The missus was missing,” said the source.) We’re told he arrived at the Lincoln Center high-rise on Friday with a “convoy of SUVs and a phalanx of Secret Service.” No word yet if the power pair plan to take the apartment. Meanwhile, a source said, “Not from me, but I heard...

Serhiy Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked evidence of Paul Manafort’s systematic corruption to The New York Times, kicking off the latest round of Trump-Russia scandals, is a former investigative journalist famed for his pedantic and forensic habits in parliament. . .Leshchenko and some of his journalist reformer friends, such as Mustafa Nayem, were brought into Ukraine’s parliament by President Petro Poroshenko on his winning parliamentary slate in 2014 as a way of showcasing his reformist credentials. Leshchenko has since become a fierce critic of Poroshenko, whose parliamentary faction he has never left. . .[Q:] Let’s return to Paul Manafort....

What happens when the face of a country’s anti-corruption movement suddenly is investigated for the sort of bribery he once condemned? Ukraine, a U.S. ally and neighboring foe of Russia, is soon to find out. And it’s a case with implications in the United States, where the fallout from the unproven Trump-Russia collusion scandal has engulfed several Ukrainians. The country’s chief corruption prosecutor on Thursday opened an investigation into “suspicions” that Serhiy Leshchenko, a crusading anti-corruption member of Ukraine’s parliament and former investigative journalist, accepted bribes in 2016 from a Russian source that enabled him to buy a luxury condo...

Billionaire entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban has become a vocal critic of Donald Trump in recent years. However, throughout his public political clashes with the former president, Cuban has quietly owned a luxurious condo in Trump International Hotel and Tower on Central Park West for nearly 25 years, records obtained by The Post reveal. The Dallas-based mogul — who has thrown his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris during the current presidential campaign — purchased the 3,700-square-foot property on the 45th floor of the iconic Trump Tower in July 2000 for $13.5 million. The white-glove condo, located at...

A molecular biologist says she was prevented from buying the Virginia Beach condo of her dreams after the white owner learned that she was black, it is alleged. Dr. Raven Baxter, 30, was prepared to buy the home after a virtual tour of the property. It had everything she wanted: a private foyer, wainscoting, exquisite crown molding, and a marble fireplace. Baxter offered the asking price, $749,000, which was promptly accepted by the seller. The molecular biologist, who works remotely for Mt. Sinai hospital, then sent over a down payment and the condo went into escrow. But then she received...

Have a Florida condo? Can you afford a $100,000 or higher special assessment for new safety standards? After the collapse of a Surfside Building on June 24, 2021that killed 98 people, the state passed a structural safety law that is now biting owners. Not only are insurance rates soaring, but owners are hit with huge special assessments topping $100,000.

Former Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby could be about to lose her Florida vacation condo - the same property she was found to have bought fraudulently, days after revealing she plans to ask for a presidential pardon to avoid a lengthy jail term. Mosby, 44, bought the property in February 2021 for $476,000 but the feds are now looking to seize it and sell the place. If there are profits from the sale, Mosby would get back her original $47,600 down payment, prosecutors have stated. During her trial on perjury and mortgage fraud charges, the court heard how Mosby lied on...

New York City Council members feeling the heat from thousands of angry co-op and condo owners are urging state pols to OK tax breaks over a new “green” mandate that could cost more than $20,000 per unit. The City Council had actually approved the mandate, the Climate Mobilization Emissions Law, in 2019 requiring residential buildings to initially curb their greenhouse gas emissions by 40% and ultimately by 80% by 2050. But as the Big Apple’s already-financially-pressed residents flood members with complaints about how much more the regs will cost them, local pols are turning to Albany for help, seeking their...

A Washington Councilwoman was caught on camera having a heated exchange with unhoused people earlier this month. 'Y'all need to move because you're trespassing,' Burien Councilwoman Linda Akey can be heard telling a group of unhoused people outside her condo building in footage taken on February 10. Akey and her husband can be heard telling the group outside their tents of the city ordinance prohibiting camping on public property between 7 pm and 6 am. 'I live here and you do not belong here. You are trespassing right now,' Akey tells one individual in front of the Burien Town Square...

New court filing submitted this morning reveals that Nathan Wade visited Fani Willis' Hapeville neighborhood over three dozen times before the district attorney hired him to lead Fulton County’s election interference prosecution, according to cellphone data included in a court submission filed Friday. Data collected from Wade’s cellphone and cellphone tower transmissions were used to track his movements, and seem to contradict Wade’s testimony from last week in which he said he had visited Willis at her condo in Hapeville no more than 10 times before he was hired in November 2021. It also indicates Wade twice arrived late at...

A North Miami Beach condominium building was being evacuated Monday after it was deemed to be structurally unsafe, city officials said. The owners of Bayview 60 Homes at 3800 Northeast 168th Street requested the city order an immediate evacuation of residents from the five-story building, the city said in a statement. Footage showed residents leaving the building with suitcases and a police command center on the street outside the building.

SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) - Demolition specialists finished boring holes and began laying explosives in them Sunday as they prepared to bring down the precarious but still-standing portion of a collapsed South Florida condo building, a top Miami-Dade fire official said. The work has suspended the search-and-rescue mission, but officials said it should eventually open up new areas for rescue teams to explore. Rescuers will await the “all-clear” after the demolition and then immediately dive back into the task of trying to locate any survivors buried under the rubble, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. Officials had previously said that...

SURFSIDE, Fla. — A 7-year-old daughter of a Miami firefighter was among two additional bodies found overnight in the rubble of the collapsed condo building outside Miami, raising the death toll to 20 with 128 people still missing. "This tragedy has haunted so many of us because so many of us know somebody who was in the building or affected by this tragedy," City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Friday at a news conference. "Now, not only do we know someone, but this is someone who is a member of our family, of our fire family." Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella...

According to North Miami Beach Police Department, Crestview Towers condominiums in North Miami Beach is being evacuated due to structural and electrical conditions. The evacuation comes just a week after the Surfside condo collapse and as South Florida municipalities continue to push for more routine reviews of high-rise condominium complexes.

Out-of-state rescuers turned away after testing positive for coronavirus SURFSIDE, Fla. – Search-and-rescue teams looked for survivors through the 9th night and into the 10th day of a delicate operation after the Champlain Towers South collapse formed a compact mountain of pancaked concrete in Surfside. There were 126 people who remained unaccounted for Saturday.

President Joe Biden traveled to Miami, Florida to appear with Gov. Ron DeSantis and local officials on Thursday to signal support after the disastrous Surfside condo collapse. “Again, this is your show, we just want to make sure that whatever you need, including… anyway, I’m talking too much…” Biden said in his opening statement before turning the rescue and recovery efforts briefing over to local officials for comment.

On Monday, several residents at Maison Grande Condominium, an 18-story building with 502 units, said they are worried about the safety of the 1971 building at 6039 Collins Ave., in Miami Beach. They have photographs showing corroded steel and concrete spalling. Records show there have been five inspections that determined the building is an “unsafe structure.” The building envelope is among the list of concerns. There were also warnings that the two-story parking garage and pool deck “have reached the end of their useful life and require repair, replacement,” or “a combination thereof.”

Link only. Text is almost impossible to copy. That being said, this extensive, long DM article is just about the most complete to date. Along with its text, it includes a massive collection of photos and videos.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday suggested it is possible climate change led to the partial condominium collapse in Miami, FL. When asked on CNN’s “New Day” if climate change’s impact on “extraordinary tides” played a role in the condo collapse, Granholm said “we don’t know fully” if it did or not. She added that beaches all around are seeing the “phenomenon” of rising waters.

President Biden said Tuesday that he plans to visit the site of the deadly condo building collapse near Miami. “Hopefully as early as Thursday,” Biden told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to Wisconsin to promote a bipartisan infrastructure plan. The White House press office confirmed moments later that Biden and first lady Jill Biden will make the trip Thursday.