I have a crush on “Hamilton.” I’ve described the play as a miracle of civic education, a gratifying handoff of America’s national identity to a young, diverse generation, and wished for every school kid to see it. I’ve praised its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda as a visionary genius. Let me pile the praise even higher: “Hamilton” is the most important artistic creation in any medium of its generation and perhaps decades. Particularly at this political, cultural, and social moment in our nation’s history, “Hamilton” matters.

By now you are familiar with the Pence Affair. The Vice President-elect went to see the play Friday night and the cast couldn’t resist the opportunity after the show to lecture Pence from the stage.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

There were bloodstains all over his East Side apartment, investigators say, a dead man’s clothes in the trash chute in the hallway and evidence that a corpse had been in the car he was driving. But a suspect in the grisly stabbing death of a Connecticut man who was in New York for a night on the town insists he didn’t do it.

Suspect James Rackover doesn’t dispute that victim Joseph Comunale, 26, was in his apartment Nov. 13. But he claims he never even laid eyes on his guest, and he knew nothing about Comunale’s death until after he was arrested. “This is complete bulls—,” Rackover told the Daily News Sunday during a jailhouse interview at the Manhattan Detention Complex, where he is being held on $3 million bond. “I’ve never seen this kid. I don’t even know who he is.”(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A Bronx mother found her 19-year-old son fatally shot in his bedroom Sunday afternoon, police said. Jose Hart’s mom made the horrific discovery when she walked into his room and found him lying there with a gunshot wound to his torso in their Southern Boulevard apartment near Westchester Ave. in Foxhurst at about 12:30 p.m., police said. He died at the scene. Details about the shooting were not immediately available.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A police officer in Alabama was fired after posting racist memes on Facebook, including one of First Lady Michelle Obama, officials announced. The controversial post featured text over a picture of Melania Trump reading, “Fluent in Slovenian, English, French, Serbian, and German.” Below it, the words “Fluent in Ghetto” were laid over a photo of Obama. The officer, Joel Husk, is a Trump supporter who had worked for the Talladega Police Department for two and a half years, according to media reports.(goal.com)…[+]

A San Antonio cop has died after a gunman shot him in the head while making a traffic stop outside police headquarters Sunday, authorities said. The shooting happened at 11:45 a.m. near police headquarters on S. Santa Rosa and W. Nueva, police said.

The officer, identified as Detective Benjamin Marconi, 50,  pulled over a vehicle near the Southside of the police headquarters building in his marked vehicle, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said in press conference.(nydailynews.com)…[+]