Free Republic

A Yeshiva University student was attacked by several “masked thugs” in a Washington Heights subway station on Thursday night, according to school officials and authorities. Just after 7 p.m., police responded to a 911 call about an assault at the West 181st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue 1 train stop, according to the NYPD. The 20-year-old student of the private Jewish university was punched and kicked by four unidentified individuals, according to police and Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin, a clinical assistant professor of Jewish values at Yeshiva’s Sy Syms School of Business.

A former Army Colonel from Florida was sentenced to two years in prison Tuesday for trying to woo a woman he met online by sending her secret classified battle plans. Retired combat vet Kevin Charles Luke, 62, was working as a high-level civilian contractor with “top secret” clearance at US military headquarters in Tampa in October 2024, when he texted a photo of plans for a Middle East attack to his new fling, according to court documents. “Sent to my boss earlier,” he wrote in the text, which included a photo of an email on his work computer at Central...

An Ohio State professor was suspended for allegedly attacking a journalist who was trying to confront the university’s former president after footage of the assault went viral. Luke Perez, an assistant professor in the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society, was in a Smith Laboratory hallway talking to two freelance reporters when he launched his alleged attack on February 9. One victim, identified as Michael Neuman, attempted to walk past Perez when the staff member snatched at the man’s phone before grabbing the journalist and dropping him to the floor, according to the footage initially shared by...

An Irishman who overstayed his 90-day tourist visa more than 15 years ago has been held in a Texas immigration detention facility for nearly five months rather than be deported, despite calling it a form of “torture.” Seamus Culleton, who is married to an American woman, told Irish media that he has a valid US work permit and a pending green card application when he was suddenly picked up by agents in Boston, where he runs a construction company. He was cuffed and eventually flown more than 2,000 miles from home to a camp facility at Fort Bliss Army base...

Director Steven Spielberg, whom I introduced last week [in 2012] at Gettysburg at ceremonies marking the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speech, said he was deeply humbled to be delivering an address on that history-making spot. *** … Daniel Day-Lewis gives the definitive portrayal of our time, perhaps ever, of Honest Abe. For people like me, who have spent their lives studying Abraham Lincoln, the film is chilling — as if he’s really come to life. Day-Lewis does it by avoiding the traps most Lincoln actors fall into, the stoic, “Hall of Presidents”-esque stereotype that probably most Americans imagine....

Mayor Zohran Mamdani told state lawmakers on Wednesday that the only way out of the city’s $12 billion budget gap is to raise taxes on the wealthy. Hizzoner, during his first Tin Cup Day in Albany, formally called on the state Legislature to raise income taxes on people making more than $1 million by 2%. “I’m asking for a 2% raise in personal income taxes on the most affluent New Yorkers, someone earning $1 million a year. The top 1% of New York City can afford to contribute $20,000 more in taxes,” the young mayor said. “That 2% tax alone...

The daughter of Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson was stabbed to death in a botched murder-suicide over the weekend — leading her father to abruptly suspend his 2026 campaign. Hallie Marie Tobler, 22, was discovered dead with multiple stab wounds inside her locked apartment in St. Cloud after cops responded to a medical emergency Saturday evening, according to the St. Cloud Police Department. Tobler’s husband, 23-year-old Dylan Michael Tobler, was also critically injured inside the home with what investigators believed to be self-inflicted stab wounds, police said.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani committed a cardinal sin last week by dissing millions of area Catholics as the first city mayor in nearly 100 years — and possibly ever — to skip the local archbishop’s installation. Ronald Hicks, 58, on Friday became the 11th archbishop of the New York Archdiocese since 1850, accepting the reins of power from Cardinal Timothy Dolan at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in a packed historic ceremony steeped in ritual. One of the event’s traditions — dating back to at least 1939, when then-New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia attended the installation of famous top clergyman Francis Spellman...

A kerfuffle ensued during the Detroit Pistons - Charlotte Hornets game after a foul was committed.

While Washington searches for ways to weaken Iran’s murderous rulers, our supposed NATO ally Turkey is working overtime to keep the mullahs alive — and in power. This week’s diplomatic tug-of-war over US-Iran negotiations is a win for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Islamist strongman, who has led a cynical campaign to stall for time and block US and Israeli military action against the Islamic Republic after its brutal crackdown on civilian protesters. He’s feigning concern that military action would spark “regional instability,” but his real goal is simple: Keep Iran’s theocracy from falling — and stop the emergence of a...

The White House deleted a meme video posted on President Trump’s Truth Social that depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes — after a prominent GOP senator called the clip the “most racist thing I’ve seen” and demanded it be taken down. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the post and accused critics of fomenting “fake outrage” — but the video was taken down a little before noon Friday. A White House official added that a staffer had “erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the highest-ranking black...

An Olive Garden cook has died after he dunked his own head into a searing hot deep fryer — as his co-workers frantically tried to thwart his gruesome suicide, authorities said. The employee, who hasn’t been identified, stripped his clothes off and thrust his face into the fryer at the chain’s restaurant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, last Friday afternoon, the Smoking Gun reported. “A male victim went head first into the fryers,” dispatchers could be heard saying in grim 911 audio. “I don’t have a lot of details, lot of people screaming, some kind of a burn victim,” another operator could...

An Olive Garden cook has died after he dunked his own head into a searing hot deep fryer — as his co-workers frantically tried to thwart his gruesome suicide, authorities said. The employee, who hasn’t been identified, stripped his clothes off and thrust his face into the fryer at the chain’s restaurant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, last Friday afternoon, the Smoking Gun reported. “A male victim went head first into the fryers,” dispatchers could be heard saying in grim 911 audio.

That’s one hell of a markup. Whoever moves into NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s rent-stabilized apartment in Queens will be shelling out an extra $800 — or 35% — more per month than what the socialist “nepo baby” did, The Post has learned. The Astoria apartment — which has quietly attracted interest from potential tenants for the past few weeks — is now commanding $3,100 per month while still remaining rent stabilized, sources said. Mamdani — who’ll be moving into Gracie Mansion with his “aloof” artist wife Rama Duwaji sometime after being sworn in Jan. 1 — caught a break during...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is demanding a public congressional hearing about her and her husband Bill’s relationships with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell — despite both having already agreed to closed-door depositions. The Clintons caved on Monday to avoid a vote to hold them in contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for depositions as part of the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein investigation. But by Friday, the former first lady accused Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) of having “moved the goalposts” regarding the subpoenas — which were issued last August — “and...

The team carefully examined the liquid’s appearance and color before opening it up. Finding that the cork had a slight vinegary smell, they began extracting the liquid to determine the type of alcohol. “We weren’t sure if it was clear spirit, if it was aged spirit, if it was beer, if it was wine, if it was champagne,” Winter said. To minimize disturbance, the group used a Coravin device, which allows liquid to be extracted without fully removing the cork. When the bottle was opened, the team took careful note of its smell. Tara Lindley, director of sensory and product...

Chuck Negron, one of the co-founders of the rock band Three Dog Night, has died at the age of 83. The singer died at his Studio City, Ca, home on Monday and he was surrounded by his family, his rep told Variety. Negron had been battling heart failure in the months leading up to his death, and suffered with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for around three decades.

California drivers and Republican legislators are furious over a Democrat-led proposal that could see motorists taxed for each mile they drive. With the state staring down a budget deficit in the billions and more Californians switching to electric vehicles, Democratic lawmakers are searching for new ways to shore up declining gas tax revenue. Californians pay the second-highest gas price in the nation behind only Hawaii. In January, the average price was $4.23 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. On Thursday, state legislators advanced Democrat Lori Wilson’s bill, AB 1421, which would direct the California Transportation Commission and the...

Some Costco customers are crying fowl over the big-box chain’s popular $4.99 rotisserie chickens, saying they contain preservatives in spite of the company’s claims to the contrary, according to a new lawsuit. Two California-based people say Costco “has systematically cheated” consumers “out of tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars” by advertising the poultry as being free of preservatives. The class-action lawsuit, filed last week in San Diego federal court, alleges that Costco makes the claim despite the fact that the rotisserie chickens contain sodium phosphate and carrageenan.

Police lashed a woman and her lover 140 times each for having sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol in a far-flung region of Indonesia on Thursday — one of the harshest punishments carried out in 25 years. The brutal beating — with a rattan cane — caused the woman to sob and collapse in the region of Aceh, which is governed by strict Islamic laws. The lovers were caned on their back in a public flogging. It is among the harshest sentences imposed since Sharia law was implemented in Aceh in 2001, the Agence France-Presse reported.