Now that Barack Obama has won the election, his terrorist pal William Ayers has agreed to accept the highly coveted post of Secretary of Flag Burning! Also too, Ayers was on Good Morning America today to plug a new edition of his book, Fugitive Days—and hey, who could blame the guy for cashing in on his renewed notoriety? Unlike his previous New York appearance, Ayers talked plenty his seditious relationship with Obama, while also......

Woah, can you believe the election is only four days away? And even though that Obama has been busy making sure the drapes match the carpet in the Oval Office, a Fox News poll shows the two candidates almost tied! So if you want to volunteer to support the candidate of your choice—whether it be the bitter old warmonger on death's door and his demagogic running mate, or the most inspiring, perspicacious American politician in......

New York City's eight-plus million residents just got 33 new public places where they can recycle their rubbish, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced at a press conference yesterday in City Hall Park. The new locations are an expansion of a pilot public recycling program that started in March 2007, when 126 blue and green recycling cans were placed in high traffic areas at 10 sites, finally giving New Yorkers' the chance......

William Ayers, that "washed-up" terrorist pal of Socialist presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama, popped up in New York City yesterday for the first time since becoming an inflammatory McCain camp talking point. He was in town Sunday for a symposium on "educational justice" at the Stella Adler acting studio. Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois but in the '60s was a founder of radical group the Weather Underground; in 1995 Ayers held......

The Green Energy Council is sounding the alarm on "cold patch," a blacktop material used to patch potholes, estimating that the stuff leaches 240,000 gallons of toxic fuel oil into the soil or gets washed off into the sewage system or evaporates into the air our children breath. The president of the group tells the Post, "You're talking about an extraordinary amount of diesel fuel." Cold patch has been used to fill potholes for years,......

The New York City Economic Development Corporation has reached a deal to buy the roughly one acre of parcel of land occupied by Deno’s Wonder Wheel kiddie park in Coney Island. Gowanus Lounge has the press release from the NYCEDC with details about the purchase, which is part of the city's controversial plan to rezone 12 acres of amusements as parkland and turn the management over to a "world class operator." Last May the Vourderis......

The Department of Health has issued 682 violations to local restaurants since a new law took effect in April requiring eateries with more than fifteen locations nationwide to prominently display calorie information. Fines range between $200 and $2,000, and McDonald’s has the highest number of violations with 103. (Dunkin Donuts is second with 89.) Some restaurants are still refusing to comply, while others were busted for not posting the info as the law requires. For......

The Times stepped out on Sunday to gauge public reaction to the ubiquitous street fairs that turn various city blocks into a banal mob scene every damn weekend. Perhaps the best quote comes from awestruck Midwesterner Stephen Pijanowski, who loves street fairs so much he went to two over the weekend, explaining, "We have nothing like this in Chicago." On the other hand, New Yorker Javier Ortiz, on his way to brunch, declared the street......

An unidentified female NYPD officer with HIV, named Jane Doe in court papers, is suing the city for denying her the tax-free "line-of-duty" disability benefits awarded to other male cops with HIV. Court papers obtained by the Daily News reveal that four male officers have been granted the full, tax-free benefits after contracting HIV in the line of duty: One who reached into a perp's underwear to retrieve drugs, another who was bitten on the......

Ah, the Second Avenue subway project—that mythical, subterranean Chimera that mayors and governors have spun tales about since time immemorial—is once again in danger of abandonment. With all the talk of service cutbacks as the MTA stares down the barrel of a $1 billion budged deficit, some are wondering if the transit authority should really be spending an estimated $3,000 every minute of every day to dig under Second Avenue at this particular juncture. Even......

Yesterday the MTA board voted to revoke the free E-ZPasses for city employees, 7 votes to 6. According to NY1, the plan, which the Bloomberg administration opposed, was also "narrowly approved" by the MTA's finance committee. The move will force police, fire and other city agencies to get E-ZPass accounts for the MTA's bridge and tunnel crossings. City budget director Mark Page said, "The bookkeeping management argument and ill will arising from this proposal is......

Suffolk County on Long Island has become the first place in New York State where it's illegal to send text messages while operating a motor vehicle. Effective immediately, drivers spotted fiddling with their cell phones will face a $150 fine. Similar legislation has been passed in Nassau and Westchester counties but has not gone into effect, and a statewide law is still tied up in the legislature. In August, New York City Councilman David Weprin......

Could it be that Reverend Billy prematurely administered last rites to Astroland, that highly romanticized jumble of third-rate county fair rides? After yesterday's report that unnamed officials were trying to broker a deal between Astroland owner Carol Albert and developer Joe Sitt (to whom she sold her 3 acres of property for $30 million in 2006), Mayor Bloomberg has now publicly entered the fray. Hizzoner told reporters yesterday that it "would be a shame if......

Well, forget about getting any closure; less than 48 hours after Coney Island amusement park Astroland supposedly shut down forever, city officials are working behind the scenes to try and keep it alive. The Daily News hears buzz from an unnamed official that if property owner Joe Sitt can be convinced to temporarily extend Astroland's lease, the city will agree to lease land to Astroland owner Carol Albert if and when a controversial plan for......

If you watch just one Community Board Meeting video this summer, make it this one. Willets Point property owners who've been passionately protesting Mayor Bloomberg's controversial $3 billion plan to rezone the area (to make way for a hotel, convention center, offices and retail stores) have put together this video showing how the sausage gets made over at Community Board 7. Their gripping featurette focuses in on a contentious committee meeting that yielded a yes......

The four waterfalls installed by artist Olafur Eliasson and the Public Art fund at various spots on the East River are supposed be taken down on October 13th, but some Brooklyn residents fear that could be too late. In response to mounting concerns that spray from the salty, semi-polluted East River is blowing onto trees and slowly killing them, Judy Stanton, head of the Brooklyn Heights Association, is calling for the falls to be stopped......

That tree-hugging Mayor Bloomberg and his Million Trees NYC campaign can go play in traffic as far as Dyker Heights resident (and noted gadfly) Sonny Soave is concerned. Ever since discovering telltale white markings spray painted on the sidewalk outside his house, Soave has been futilely trying to stop the city from planting a tree outside his house. He rants to the Brooklyn Paper: “How is it that I have no say about what goes......

Brooklyn's own Harry Shasho, owner of luxury car detailing shop 212 Motoring, is suing the city for neglecting his Bentley while it was impounded as evidence for a year and a half. According to the Daily News, Shasho is seeking $190,000 in damages because police allowed "mold to grow inside and water damage to occur, rendering the vehicle inoperable." What the lawsuit doesn't mention is that Shasho's Bentley was already a little dinged up after......

The state law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving doesn’t extend to text messaging, something Councilman David Weprin, father of 16-year-old twin girls, would like to change fast. Motivated by last summer’s fatal accident in the Finger Lakes region, in which five girls in a sport utility vehicle died when the text-messaging teenage driver swerved into oncoming traffic, Weprin will introduce a measure today that would ban the sending or reading of text messages......

Photo courtesy Atomische. Angry opponents to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to develop 62 acres of poorly-maintained land in Willets Point, Queens disrupted a press conference yesterday held by city officials in Washington Square Park to tout the proposal. Councilman Hiram Monserrate, whose district includes Willets Point, led over two dozen protesters to the press conference, where they drowned out advocates for the plan, chanting “Justice for Willets Point!” According to the Times, the police refused......

Watch your back, Dick Cheney! Actor Ed Asner, former Dallas Cowboy Mark Stepnoski, and formerly famous hip hop group Arrested Development are leading a petition drive to get a referendum on New York City’s November ballot that would establish a new 9/11 investigation. If the group, called 911 Truth, can collect 30,000 signatures before September 4th, the City Council will be required to consider the measure, which calls for an investigative panel with subpoena......

A week ago the Times reported on Jay Dines, an upstate farmer banished from the city’s Greenmarkets for selling meat he had not raised himself. Today the paper follows up with a look at these complicated Greenmarket rules that have many farmers chafing. Alfred Milanese, co-owner of Martin’s Pretzels, is in his 26th year at the Greenmarket. But he says other vendors resent him because he’s allowed to bypass the “producer-only” rule and sell pretzels......

Chain restaurants that haven’t been complying with the city’s new law requiring them to display calorie information for all their food and beverages can be fined by the Health Department starting at midnight. But some establishments like Olive Garden remain defiant; they’re refusing to cooperate in hopes that a Restaurant Association appeal succeeds in court. Over 252 violations have already been reported, but not until tonight can fines be levied. Other places are scrambling to......

Yesterday, weather apparently prevented Mayor Bloomberg from giving a speech at the NAACP convention in Cleveland yesterday, but, in his place, Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said the city found 23% of NYC residents are living in poverty, above the 19% the U.S. Census Bureau found. The city's numbers are higher because the Bloomberg administration opted to use a different measure taking into account NYC's high living expenses. For instance, the federal formula doesn't include things......

City Councilman Eric Gioia suggests that the city and the state should pay hardball with countries and diplomats who don't pay parking fines or property taxes. The Post reports the Queens pol's ideas include cutting off electricity, taking away driver's licenses and towing cars. The city is owed about $78 million in unpaid taxes--Egypt owes almost $2 million in diplomatic-related parking tickets and India owes upwards of $16 million in property taxes.......

Despite a forecast earlier this year that City pension funds would break even this year, it now appears that the funds will post large losses for the year. Three quarters of the way through the current fiscal year, city funds have lost almost $5 billion. Taxpayers are the ones who likely be called upon to make the funds whole and meet worker benefit commitments. Of the billions that will have to be repaid, the first......

Last night’s Coney Island Public Scoping Meeting was the place to be, as activists like political performance artist Reverend Billy turned the meeting into a carnival, leaping up on a chair with repeated cries of “Coney-lujah!” Musician Amos Wengler stood up to croon his anthem “Save Coney Island,” and Savitri D., the Mermaid Parade queen who had been on a hunger strike since Saturday to spotlight the meeting, passionately derided the city’s latest proposal for......

A former city employee could face seven years in jail and a lifetime of ghoulish haunting if convicted of stealing $3,300 from a dead person’s safety deposit box. Arthur Orikher pulled the scam while working as an accountant for a Kings County office that administers the estates of those who die without a will or families. Assuming it’s the same Arthur Orikher who owns this gorgeous Siberian cat, can you really blame him for wanting......

Yesterday, the Post ran a cover story suggesting that Governor Paterson bitterly criticized Mayor Bloomberg. Not to Bloomberg's face or anything, but a source provided the Post's Albany bureau chief Fred Dicker with alleged Paterson quotes like "He has the same kind of anger that reminds you of Spitzer" and "It's obvious that Bloomberg has little use for the kind of people who come from Queens and Staten Island." But in an afternoon press......

As local franchises start complying with the city’s new calorie law – which requires establishments with over 15 locations nationwide to prominently display caloric info – there are bound to be some bumps in the road. But this snafu is hard to top: Blog about town “Cellar Door” spotted an interesting discrepancy at two different Dunkin' Donuts purveyors located next to each other inside Penn Station....