Free Republic

Mayor de Blasio released his new, bigger-than-ever city budget this week pretending that federal aid would make up for City Hall’s losses thanks to the pandemic. And, worse than that delusion, he still hasn’t faced up to how his policies had New York shrinking long before the pandemic even began. That’s right: The mass exodus from the city dates to at least 2018; the flight since then is just adding to New York’s woes. The Health Department’s 2018 Vital Statistics report on health outcomes showed that the Big Apple’s population dropped by 223,950 residents, or 2.6 percent, between 2017 and...

Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang made his first appearance as a New York City mayoral candidate on Thursday, proposing a basic income program for the city’s poorest. “We will launch the largest basic income program in the history of the country,” Yang stated. “We will lift hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers out of extreme poverty, putting cash relief directly into the hands of the families who desperately need help right now.” Yang’s plan, a modified version of his national universal basic income (UBI) proposal, would involve providing roughly 500,000 New Yorkers “who are living in extreme poverty with...

Donald Trump’s children are exiting New York just as the city and other businesses cancel contracts with the Trump Organization following the riot at the Capitol. The latest to leave the city is Donald Trump Jr., The Post can report exclusively. Trump Jr., 43, will be moving to Florida — following in the footsteps of his little sister — with gal pal Kimberly Guilfoyle, 51, in tow. “There is no way they can stay in New York. They’d be tortured in the streets,” said a source close to the family. For now, Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle are looking at homes...

New York City will review whether it can legally end its contracts with the Trump Organization, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) said Tuesday. “Our legal team is assessing the options,” de Blasio said during a press briefing Tuesday morning, noting that all of the contracts with the Trump Organization are under review.

Full title: Antifa protesters armed with SHIELDS take to the streets of Manhattan amid fears of more violence as Trump supporters 'target Biden inauguration' after storming of the Capitol Antifa protesters wearing helmets and carrying riot shields marched through the streets of Manhattan on Sunday amid fears of further political violence after last week's deadly mob attack by Donald Trump supporters at the Capitol. Dozens of protesters marched through Times Square in New York City with at least one waving a Black Lives Matter flag and another dressed in a mock police uniform with a pig's head... While the march...

A man suspected in a string of random assaults on women at a Brooklyn subway station was arrested Tuesday and charged with a slew of hate crimes, authorities said. Khari Covington, 29, is accused of attacking nine women in separate instances in East Williamsburg since last August, according to police. Seven of the alleged assaults occurred in transit — mainly at the Morgan Avenue subway station — while two were committed nearby on street level, police said.

No excerpt from Bloomberg allowed, story here.

New York is back! No, I don't mean Rudy Giuliani's revived New York City. I mean the nightmarish New York City of Dinkins, Beame and Lindsay. I mean the Death Wish and Warriors city. And now Bill de Blasio's New York City before it's passed on to some even more nightmarishly incompetent and corrupt leftist whose only agenda is identity politics. New York City is back, baby. Bat-wielding man injures multiple people in NYC during crazy crime spree - New York Post Violence adds to NYC’s 2020 death toll, with 97% jump in shootings and 45% increase in murders...

I’ve been writing about the looming eviction crisis since early in the summer. This entirely predictable disaster has been obvious to anyone who has been paying attention ever since the pandemic broke out. A well-intentioned “eviction moratorium” effort by the government to prevent renters from finding themselves out on the streets after government shutdowns eliminated their jobs did little or nothing to prevent the damages sustained by landlords. It also never answered the question of what would be done about all the back rent that was going to come due when the moratoriums expired. These challenges are already taking their...

Gotham’s in trouble. Not just because it’s suffering under the weight of crushing woes — soaring violence, out-of-control homelessness, a broken economy, a broke City Hall. And a population that can’t flee fast enough. But also because none of the would-be saviors running for mayor is offering any meaningful plan to turn things around. And the primary, where the election is likely to be decided, is now less than six months away.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio danced with his wife in Times Square before midnight on New Year’s Eve while keeping the rest of New York out of the famed plaza for the first time history as he enforced coronavirus restrictions.

Criminal-justice “reform” in New York has turned our courts into a merry-go-round, with violent offenders free to jump off at will. The latest outrage took place in The Bronx, where 16-year-old Jordon Benjamin allegedly stabbed Amya Hicks in mid-December. Arrested a few days later, he was charged with felony assault and assorted lesser charges. Amya Hicks needed surgery and spent several days in the hospital. Benjamin was less inconvenienced: He only spent a few hours in a holding cell before being released on his recognizance, without having to post bail. It’s bad enough that an alleged knife-wielding thug who slashes...

The BMW driver whose ride was surrounded and trashed by a gang of bicyclists on Fifth Avenue was attacked in broad daylight while driving with his elderly mom — who screamed during their escape, “We’re going to die, they’re going to kill us!” Max Torgovnick, 36, recounted the harrowing run-in to The Post one day after it unfolded around 4 p.m. Tuesday at 21st Street and Fifth Avenue. “It’s something that I never expected to happen in New York City,” said Torgovnick, a lifelong city resident. “That’s something like you would see on the streets of a war zone. I...

A pack of young bicyclists attacked a BMW in broad daylight in Manhattan, terrorizing the man and woman inside in a terrifying ambush caught on video. Several assailants surrounded the luxury ride at Fifth Avenue and 21st Street around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, with some pounding the vehicle with their fists and feet, and another smashing a bike down on top of it, video posted to Instagram by Breaking911 shows. One attacker got a running start, vaulted up on the hood of the BMW and jumped on top of the windshield, causing it to partly cave in, the video shows. “This...

Michael Alig, the New York City club promoter who in the early- to mid-1990s made a name for himself as the leader of the “Club Kids,” and was subsequently convicted of first-degree manslaughter for the 1996 death of Andre “Angel” Melendez — the inspiration for the 2003 film “Party Monster” starring Macauley Culkin — has died of an apparent heroin overdose. He was 54. The New York Daily News reported that Alig was found in his Manhattan apartment on Christmas Day. His death is believed to have occurred on Dec. 24. Alig’s story, from wide-eyed Indiana teenager to notorious downtown...

There are seven registered Democrats for every one registered Republican in New York City. In fact, there are almost twice as many registered with no-party-affiliation than with the GOP. But the city has been in freefall on multiple fronts under Democratic leadership and residents of the Big Apple may be ready for a change.Are they ready to return to the days when Republican Mayors had the city humming? That’s what Dr. David Samadi is contemplating as he looks at the field and considers running in the upcoming primary as a Republican.I have been thinking about running for Mayor of New...

A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot in the head at a Bronx deli in broad daylight Wednesday, the NYPD said. The unidentified teenager was at Ali Kings Deli at 1097 Boston Road when he was struck by a bullet around 12:10 p.m., according to police.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio mocked Fox News’s coverage of remarks he made last week in which he said he sees “redistribut[ing] wealth” as part of his mission in overseeing the city's education system. Addressing underserved neighborhoods in the city and those hardest-hit by the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, de Blasio said in a Monday briefing “we’ve got to right the wrong by making them the priority. So that’s what we will be doing as we go into 2021, as we go into the next school year.” De Blasio said the network “apparently was very interested” in...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City officials announced a series of admissions changes for hundreds of middle and high schools Friday in one of the most significant steps the nation’s largest school system has taken in years to address racial segregation. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is suspending merit-based screening systems for its selective middle schools for at least a year. That means that academic records, auditions and other assessments will no longer be used by schools to skim off the top-performing elementary school kids and segregate them from other children. A lottery would be used when...

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono on Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of the legendary musician's shock murder with a call for gun control. "The death of a loved one is a hollowing experience," tweeted the 87-year-old artist, who still lives in the Dakota building in Manhattan outside of which her husband was shot four decades ago. "After 40 years, Sean, Julian and I still miss him. 'Imagine all the people living life in peace,'" she wrote, quoting the 1971 song she co-wrote with Lennon that became the best-selling single of his solo career. Ono, who witnessed her husband's murder at...