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The NYPD announced Monday it is eliminating its anti-crime unit, a group of plainclothes officers who blend in to fight crime but have caused tension in relations with the communities. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea described the move as a massive cultural shift for the department, saying the 600 officers who are part of the unit will be transitioned to other departments, including the detective bureau and neighborhood policing." This is a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city," he said. "I would consider this in the realm of closing one of the last chapters...

It’s 1937 in Berlin… – No, wait, it’s 2020 in New York City, and Mayor Warren Wilhelm – who changed his name to Bill de Blasio years ago for some odd reason – is doing this at the largest park in Brooklyn’s main Jewish neighborhood: Joel Fischer @JFNYC1 Yes. This is actually happening now! Bill de Blasio is Welding the gates at the biggest park in the Jewish community, (Borough Park, Brooklyn) So your child shouldn't try to break in. While Hundreds of thousands of people gathered yesterday at Brooklyn Museum.#deBlasioMustGo Embedded video 4,763 10:09 AM - Jun 15, 2020...

...Maybe even more significantly, land and housing costs are higher in the Cream Ridge area than the Swedeboro area. Real estate listings show that Cream Ridge houses have a median price of around $500,000, more than twice the $200,000 range of the Swedeboro houses. Clearly one is sitting on land that's more plum than the other...Murphy might just be hitting one farm to help a donor with designs on the prime land and an interest in driving the one farm out of business to buy it cheap, or else some other reason explains what's going on...Was it a 'nice farm...

The son of an alleged New York City mobster who was shot to death at a McDonald's drive-thru in the Bronx in October is accused of calling a hit on his own dad. Sylvester Zottola, 71, an alleged Bonanno crime family associate, was found inside his vehicle riddled with gunshots just before 5 p.m. Thursday, according to police. His car was boxed in when a gunman opened fire, sources told The New York Post in the fall. He had reportedly just ordered a coffee when he was shot. The murder came just months after his son survived an apparent hit....

At least until the first week of August, it appeared to have been a pretty good year for Joseph Force Crater. He was 41 years old, a good Tammany Hall Democrat, widely regarded as a comer. Gov. Franklin Roosevelt had recently named him to the state Supreme Court bench. Some felt he was on the fast track to big things, perhaps even the Supreme Court of the United States. Then he stepped into a New York City taxicab and vanished from the face of the Earth. Maybe he ended up in the tropics with a sackful of cash and a...

A signature mental-health program funded by First Lady Chirlane McCray’s $1.2 billion ThriveNYC initiative was so badly mismanaged during its first 18 months that it may have done more harm than good, a report said Tuesday. A dozen former clinicians who worked for the Mental Health Service Corps — a program aimed at bringing social workers and psychologists to needy communities — described mismanagement from the very beginning of the program in 2016, Politico NY reported.

ALBANY — In an attempt to work around the White House, Democratic lawmakers in Albany are trying to do what their federal counterparts have so far failed to accomplish: to obtain President Trump’s tax returns. Albany lawmakers are seeking state tax returns, not the federal ones at the heart of the current standoff in Washington. But a tax return from New York — the president’s home state, and the headquarters of his business empire — could likely contain much of the same financial information as a federal return. Under a bill that is scheduled to be introduced this week, the...

Mayor de Blasio astonishingly said Sunday that New Yorkers don’t care whether City Hall is corrupt. “There are much more important issues than what these guys [reporters] are raising,” the mayor claimed amid bombshell allegations in court last week that pay-to-play was alive, well — and rampant — at City Hall. Hizzoner insisted that the topic is far from “interesting conversation.

A new ethical firestorm is engulfing Mayor de Blasio as questions are being raised about where he’s getting all the money to fund his cross-country presidential campaign trips. It’s deja vu all over again for “On The Road Bill,” the mail-it-in mayor of New York City who has been galloping all over the country to test the presidential waters with a suspicious campaign cash box that’s raising lots of eyebrows. “To me, that’s a real no-no,” Betsy Gotbaum of the Citizens Union said. Gotbaum is questioning how de Blasio is raising money for his “Fairness PAC” – the political action...

New York prosecutors Wednesday announced the indictment of President Donald Trump's former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, only minutes after his sentencing in a federal case. The 16 charges unveiled by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance relate to mortgage fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. "No one is beyond the law in New York," Vance said in a statement. Manafort's alleged actions "strike at the heart of New York's sovereign interests, including the integrity of our residential mortgage market," Vance added.

Amazon, Inc. was forced to withdraw its bid to locate a second headquarters facility in New York City two weeks ago, but New York state and city political leadership hasn't forgotten them. Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, major unions, and businesses have all begun a fierce lobbying campaign to woo Amazon back to the city. The governor has been active, talking to Amazon executives including CEO Jeff Bezos, about a new location  The original deal was cancelled when radical socialist politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez objected to the tax breaks being given away to convince Amazon to...

The NYPD is warning police officers about a possible threat from the MS-13 gang, particularly when they are off-duty. CBS2’s Dick Brennan reports that in a bulletin the NYPD put out this alert: “Members of MS-13 are looking to ‘hit’ NYPD police officers, specifically in the Brentwood/Central Islip area as well as possibly Patchogue.” The bulletin says that the gang members would carry out the attacks on off-duty officers “in order to gain street credibility.” While the threat has not been substantiated, law enforcement experts say this cannot be taken lightly. “Whenever a law enforcement officer is being threatened, especially...

"""Where has $850m gone? Bill de Blasio's wife can't account for staggering amount of taxpayer money that the NY Mayor gave her for mental health project""" Chirlane McCray was assigned a $850million budget for her ThriveNYC program But records show scheme has failed to keep track of what it spent the money on The small amount of data that was collected shows it fell far short of targets Despite that, organizers have expanded the budget to $1billion over five years

The Big Apple’s fast-food industry, The New York Times recently reported, has long served as a laboratory for progressive politicians and the nation’s labor machine.

New York City has been battling a number of budget problems lately, along with unrest in the streets over the deplorable state of the subway system. That makes the latest news about the city’s financial situation all the more of a political stinkbomb. According to the New York Post, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, was put in charge of a new mental health initiative named ThriveNYC four years ago. It was intended to help the city deal with a spiraling mental illness problem, particularly among the Big Apple’s homeless population.Four years later, the program has soaked up...

Last week, there was the pitiful scene of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York begging President Trump to restore a tax provision which unfairly benefitted New Yorkers. It seems that many high-income New Yorkers have been moving their tax homes to Florida, undermining the New York tax base. Those who live in New York City may be paying state and local income tax rates, in addition to the federal tax, of over 12 percent, giving some an overall tax burden of approximately 50 percent. Florida imposes no state and local income taxes in addition to the federal income tax —...

New York State managed to draw significant national media attention this week when Amazon decided to cancel its plan to open a new HQ in Queens. AOC, who apparently now runs the Democratic Party, immediately declared victory, having ensured that a caravan of tens of thousands of new, well-paying jobs wouldn’t invade the area. But as difficult as it may be to believe, that wasn’t the worst economic news New Yorkers had to face.The less reported story had to do with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to save the upstate region by investing in “green technology” companies, presumably also bringing...

It’s primary day in New York and as many voters scramble to cast their ballots before, during, and after work, some are also running into unfortunate circumstances. It’s not often that New Yorkers’ votes are pivotal in a presidential primary and many at polling places across the state are determined to make their’s count.... At one polling site at Carlton Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the site coordinator didn’t even bother to show up and it took about an hour-and-a-half to find a replacement so the poll could open. Television and radio contributor John Burnett took to Twitter to...

As Bob Dylan told us long ago, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” These days, a foul wind blows from City Hall. With subpoenas issued, investigations spreading and at least one federal grand jury at work, the question isn’t whether Bill de Blasio’s administration has a corruption problem. The questions are how big is the problem, how many agencies are tainted and how high up the pecking order does it go? […] The two biggest and most recent scandals involve lucrative gifts and cash given to current and former top officers in the NYPD,...

Sheldon Silver will become a virtual figure head on Monday, as he cedes iron control over legislative matters to five Democrats. Despite corruption charges, arrest, and arraignment, Silver is scheduled to vote on handing out nearly $95 million tax dollars in state grants and loans — despite allegations he funneled taxpayer money to a Columbia U cancer doctor as part of a long-running kickback scheme. Silver is one of three voting members of the Public Authorities Control Board---the upcoming Board's agenda includes a residential real-estate project in Silver's district. The 168-unit apartment building got $78.5 million worth of public financing...