Free Republic

The New York Knicks are NBA champions. In a Game 5 of the NBA Finals Saturday night that looked much like the previous four, the San Antonio Spurs took a double-digit lead in the first quarter. But like in three of the previous four games, the Knicks rallied — this time from a 16-point deficit — to secure a 94-90 Game 5 win and a 4-1 series victory in the NBA Finals. Jalen Brunson led the way with a legacy-securing 45-point effort as New York’s only reliable source of offense on a night in which both teams struggled from the...

As the sun sets on a Friday evening, preparations for Shabbat are in full swing in South Brooklyn... Inside one of the few grocery stores still open, a man who left Damascus in the 1990s greets one of his regular customers in Syrian Arabic as a Hebrew song plays in the background. The pair part ways with a “Shabbat Shalom.” These Brooklyn streets—home to the largest Syrian Jewish community outside of Israel, with an estimated 75,000 members—echo the spirit of the once-bustling centers of Jewish life in Damascus and Aleppo. Today, Syria’s historic Jewish quarters are a dimmer scene. Only...

The New York City Democratic Socialists of America — a group closely aligned with Mayor Mamdani — issued a rebuke of his move to drive up the Police Department’s headcount despite his campaign trail pledge to keep NYPD numbers flat. In rare public criticism of Mamdani, the group called on him to reverse that decision, and reminded him of his promises as a candidate that, they said, “gave us hope for a transformative approach to public safety.” “We acknowledge that Mayor Mamdani has taken a significant step on this path by creating the Office of Community Safety (OCS),” the group’s...

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Thursday that the Trump administration has found at least 146,000 migrant children that were unaccounted for during the Biden administration. A total of 450,000 went missing under former President Joe Biden — and “nearly 300,000” are still unaccounted for, Mullin said at a news conference. “We’re investigating reports to where some of these kids claim that they were raped 6[00] to 700 times,” he added. “I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you have kids. You don’t have kids. I don’t care if you’re a liberal, you’re independent, you’re...

A Canadian man accused of plotting a terrorist attack on New York is being held in custody overseas, an FBI source knowledgeable about the investigation said Friday. This suspect is one of eight people — three of them in custody — who, investigators say, were planning to bomb heavily used commuter tunnels leading to Manhattan with the aim of flooding the financial district at the south end of the island. A version of the alleged plot was revealed Friday morning in a New York daily newspaper, prompting the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security to hold...

The New York Knicks‘ return to the NBA Finals has created one of the hottest ticket markets in sports history, and the prices fans paid to attend Game 3 at Madison Square Garden have left many stunned... One fan revealed she paid an astonishing $20,000... For many supporters, the biggest frustration is how quickly lifelong Knicks fans have been priced out of the building... "It’s unfair to us true Knicks fans. I feel like a peasant outside the castle.” A different fan echoed those concerns. “I think the price of tickets is kind of outrageous. You see a lot of...

An NBA Finals watch party in Manhattan descended into violent chaos on Monday night as fans brawled and police deployed pepper spray in a desperate attempt to disperse the crowds. New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a short-notice big-screen viewing at Bryant Park after the visit of president Donald Trump to Madison Square Garden forced the cancelation of a previously-planned event outside the arena itself. 5,000 free tickets were dished out to Knicks fans to watch Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but scenes turned ugly midway through the night, leading to riot police being deployed. It is understood...

Just when you think you’ve seen the bottom of the internet, this happens on a NYC subway. A guy loses it completely, yelling and abusing a mannequin as riders jump up and run for their lives. What in the world is happening to America?

New York City's vast underground network has become the unlikely focus of fresh alarm. Surveillance footage shared widely online shows teams of men lifting manhole covers in the middle of the night, descending into the sewers with flashlights, tools, and protective gear, then resurfacing hours later.Police have investigated multiple such episodes, particularly in Brooklyn, yet their public message remains the same: no known threat to safety.That reassurance has failed to settle nerves in a city still scarred by past attacks and struggling under years of unchecked migration and progressive governance.Mole people? Treasure hunters? Something else? Police are investigating a string...

“How’m I doing?” Don’t ask! Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to remove the name of his predecessor Ed Koch from the 59th Street Bridge — a stance some critics say is a bridge too far. The democratic socialist mayor, Council Speaker Julie Menin were just a few of the politicians who told an LGBT group that they’d be in favor of canceling Koch from the bridge, also called the Queensboro Bridge, over his alleged mishandling of the 1980s AIDS crisis, The Post has learned. “Yes, I support renaming,” Mamdani said on the campaign trail last year on a questionnaire sent by...

A second video of sewer spelunkers emerging from a Brooklyn manhole wearing headlights and carrying shovels has surfaced — but there remain no answers on what they are doing down there. One creepy new clip shows a whole cadre of men exiting from a manhole at the intersection of Bedford Avenue and Lynch Street in Williamsburg early Friday morning, according to footage obtained by Williamsburg 360. Video shows one man wearing a headlamp emerging from the ground after pushing off the cover of the manhole – which is located in the center of the intersection. [snip] Men with flashlights and...

New York City has long been a place of extremes. During the Gilded Age (about 1870 to 1900), the contrast in the way the wealthy and the poor lived in New York was drastic... Photograph of William K. Vanderbilt’s home on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, where the lavish costume ball was held in 1883.In stark contrast to lavish balls and mansions of the city’s wealthiest citizens, photojournalist Jacob Riis captured the shocking living conditions of New York’s poverty-stricken population in How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890). His photographs reveal...

Former high-ranking FBI official Charles McGonigal started tearing up Thursday as he was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison for colluding with a Russian oligarch to evade US sanctions. McGonigal, 55, was ordered to surrender by Feb. 26, 2024, made to serve three years of supervised release following his time behind bars, and was fined $40,000. After he exited the courthouse, McGonigal told onlookers, “Happy holidays.” McGonigal, who helmed the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018, pleaded guilty to the charge back in August. “[McGonigal] well knew his actions violated those sanctions,” Manhattan federal judge...

Now that Republicans have narrow control of the House of Representatives, the GOP is investigating the Biden administration with gusto. Still, Republicans seem not to have noticed one major foreign policy scandal that's hiding in plain sight. As I recently reported , the rising scandal surrounding retired FBI senior official Charles McGonigal is perhaps the worst in the bureau’s history. Multiple sources have told me that McGonigal, while still serving with the FBI as head of counterintelligence in New York, shook down Balkan business people, most of them Albanian, in an audacious political corruption scheme worth many millions of dollars....

Key PointsState lawmakers passed a tax on nonprimary residences in New York City in order to help close the city's budget gap.The so-called pied-a-terre tax will be imposed on second homes valued at $1 million or more and will take effect in two different phases. Billionaire and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin became the face of the tax after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a video in front of Griffin's penthouse apartment announcing the tax.New York City's new tax on second homes will more than double property taxes owed by many wealthy luxury apartment owners, according to tax experts.State...

Glenn Beck is sounding the alarm over Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new housing proposal, warning that he's laying the groundwork for expanded government control over private property.The new “Block by Block” housing plan includes taking aggressive legal action against landlords — and even transferring their properties to the tenants themselves.“Through our new citywide campaign, Fix the City, we will focus on the worst landlords in New York City. When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers,” Mamdani said in a speech announcing his plan.

At a press conference Tuesday, Mamdani stressed that no landlords would receive a blanket exemption from a potential rent freeze set by the Rent Guidelines Board. He added that the provision allowing rent increases 'applies to a select number of units' when they are vacant and is administered by a separate city agency, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Roughly 300,000 apartments financed through the city's housing agencies would be eligible for rent increases once they become vacant, along with other forms of assistance. That represents about a third of the city's rent-stabilized housing stock and includes major affordable...

The city’s s worst “super speeders” will be forced to install speed-limiting devices on their cars, under a new state law passed Tuesday. The measure, approved as part of the state’s budget, will require drivers with 16 or more speed camera violations in a year to install a speed-limiting device that uses GPS technology to keep drivers from going faster than posted speed limits. The new law is set to take effect about one year from the date Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the budget — and will apply only to violations that occur after that. “New York is putting these...

Annual Salute to Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue will take place without New York City’s mayor; organizers expect record attendance and a strong presence of Israeli official representatives.

When it comes to policing New York’s sprawling Medicaid program, Attorney General Letitia James has some explaining to do. As AG, James runs the state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which is charged with prosecuting those who rip off the taxpayer-funded program or neglect and abuse its vulnerable patients. It ought to be a busy place, considering New York spends far more per capita on Medicaid than any other state. Yet on her watch the unit has been posting metrics that range from lackluster to surprisingly low, especially when measured against the scale of a $119 billion social program. **SNIP** As...