Free Republic

Derek Finkle lives across the street from the South Riverdale Community Health Centre and supervised injection site in Toronto. He has been writing a series of stories in the National Post about his neighbourhood’s battle with the centre over discarded needles, drug dealers, crime and murder. Seven months after a mother was killed in a gun fight between drug dealers outside of a supervised injection site my family lives across the street from, a class action lawsuit was filed today in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, naming the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, which operates the site, as well...

Chicago police are no longer responding in person to 911 calls reporting vehicle theft, garage burglary or simple assault in a change aimed at freeing up officers to deal with more serious crimes. According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, the change came into effect on Sunday and also covers crime where the victim is "safe, secure and not in need of medical attention" and the offender is "not on the scene and not expected to return immediately." Chicago authorities are hoping the change frees up more officers to attend to the most serious crimes, such as serious assaults...

New York City schools are offering young girls a full menu of birth control options, free of parental counsel, thanks to an unpublicized project by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration. School nurses handed out 12,721 doses of the Plan B One-Step “morning-after” pill in 2011-12, up from 10,720 in 2010-11 and 5,039 in 2009-10, the New York Post reports. Mona Davids, president of the NYC Parents Union, was stunned by the report. “I’m in shock,” she said. “What gives the mayor the right to decide, without adequate notice, to give our children drugs that will impact their bodies and their psyches?...

The love affair between Barack Obama and young Americans may be on the rocks. Recently released figures from the Department of Labor reveal staggeringly high joblessness numbers among America’s youth. Indeed, 53.4 percent of young Americans are without a job – a post-World War II high. With over half of 16-24 year olds jobless, even after stimulus package after stimulus package supposedly meant to create jobs, one has to wonder how Barack Obama’s approval ratings are doing among his strongest supporters. Unsurprisingly, the answer is “worse.” According to Gallup, approval of President Obama among young adults aged 18 to 29...