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NEW YORK — The Confederate flags had been in a Manhattan apartment’s windows for over a year. And then, in a matter of days last week, they were met with hurled rocks, a punched-out window, a tarp hung over them and legal action. By this week, the lighted flags were no more to be found in the seventh-floor windows in the East Village neighborhood , where the Confederate symbol had been displayed alongside an Israeli flag and a colonial-era American one. They’d attracted new attention after an Aug. 12 white nationalist rally to preserve a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, spiraled into violence that left a counter-protester dead and stirred debate over where or whether Confederate statues and symbols belong in 21st-century America. The flags’ owner, William Green, said by email Tuesday that the reaction reflects a misunderstanding of their meaning. “The problem here is media, and schools abusing their power and leaving the population completely ignorant of what the Dix...

The same day it voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park — a move that white supremacists descended on the city to protest — the City Council did something that got much less publicity. It unanimously approved a $ 4 million spending plan to address racial disparities . Over the next five years, about $2.5 million is to be used to redevelop public housing ; $250,000 will go to expanding a park in a black neighborhood; and $20,000 a year will pay for G.E.D. classes for public housing residents . Photo K. Ian Grandison, a University of Virginia professor, with a map of what the rapidly gentrifying city looked like in the 1920s. Credit Matt Eich for The New York Times Activists call it reparations for the destruction of Vinegar Hill and other black neighborhoods here. “I’m hoping that other elected officials and policy makers from across the country can see it’s not enough to just move a damn statue,” said Wes Bellamy, the vice mayor, who proposed the plan. “I think symbol...

A rabble-rouser is raising the ire of East Village residents with a rebel flag. Angry neighbors tossed rocks and hurled insults Wednesday at the windows of an E. Eighth St. apartment where a pair of Confederate flags were draped, backlit by bright lights. Cops blocked off the area outside the building around 11 p.m. and were trying to talk to the tenant, according to Mike Schweinsberg, the ABCD block association president . “We don’t want a riot here,” Schweinsberg said. Dozens of neighbors crowded along lines of police tape to gawk at the banners. A video obtained by the Daily News shows a man lobbing rocks at the sixth-floor windows of the building, on the corner of Avenue D, earlier in the day. The NYPD said no arrests were made at the address. The Confederate flags, joined by Israeli and American flags, have been hanging in the windows for more than a year, but recent violence in Virginia...

As the racial unrest stirred by a neo-Nazi rally in Virginia on Saturday continued throughout the nation on Monday, a group of demonstrators took down a statue of a Confederate soldier outside a courthouse in Durham, North Carolina.  According to the News Observer, nearly 100 demonstrators, describing themselves as anti-fascists, used a ladder to tie a rope around the statue. The crowd used the rope to pull the statue to the ground.  Video of the incident shows the crowd kicking the statue, as others in the crowd cheered on. The statue has stood outside the courthouse since 1924. According to a Facebook event page , the protest was organized by the Workers World Party Durham Branch . The protest was organized to demand the removal of all Confederate symbols.  The News Observer reported that members of the Durham County Sheriff ’s Office were on hand, but did not get involved. Instead, deputies videotaped the incident.   “Charlottesville and racist monuments across the country are the...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A car with a Lucas County license plate plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in a Virginia college town , killing one person, hurting at least two dozen more and ratcheting up tension in an increasingly violent confrontation . Multiple media outlets are reporting the car is registered to 20-year-old James Alex Fields of Maumee, based on vehicle registration records . Albemarle- Charlottesville Regional Jail Superintendent Martin Kumer told The Post that a man with the same name and age was booked Saturday on suspicion of second-degree murder, malicious wounding, failure to stop for an accident involving a death, and hit and run. Mr. Fields is being held without bail, and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Charlottesville General District Court , Mr. Kumer told the Washington Post. ...

TOLLING THE TYCOONS — Albanese calls for 'politically popular' pied-à-terre tax, by POLITICO New York’s Conor Skelding : Foreign "oligarchs" who own real estate in New York but don't live in the city should have to pay two or three times what they pay now in property taxes, Democratic mayoral candidate Sal Albanese said Wednesday. The "politically popular" new tax's revenue, which Albanese said would amount to billions, could then be put toward the development of affordable housing . "Look, there's a lot of money across the world that people want to outsource," he said during a news conference outside the gates of City Hall. "There's a lot of money there, and we can use that to build real affordable housing ." Mayor Bill de Blasio promised years ago to "take a look" at a pied-à-terre tax, but the proposal is opposed by many of the city's real estate interests . "They own Bill de Blasio , big real estat...