Free Republic

CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson personally intervened in a dispute between his own administration and a coalition of activist groups set for a massive protest at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, helping reverse the city’s denial of a permit to set up stages and sound systems for rallies in a park near the United Center, the coalition’s leader said Friday. The agreement, which was reached after hours of back-room negotiations between the parties, nullified an emergency motion filed in U.S. District Court earlier this week alleging the city had violated protesters’ First Amendment rights by restricting how...

Downtown Manhattan, the city's party mecca, has been hit by an alarming spike in vicious street violence. Assaults in Greenwich Village lead the frightening upturn, with a whopping 43 percent increase so far this year compared with the same period in 2008. "I've never seen it like this before -- never, ever," said G. Simon Chafik, a female photographer who has lived in Manhattan for 15 years. "I'm a big New Yorker. New York is one of the safest cities. [But] I'm beginning to question that." Other hot Manhattan neighborhoods tainted by the crime wave include TriBeCa, with a nearly...