During the holidays, we are all bombarded with requests for charitable giving. Sure, it's a great way to do something good and squeeze in one more tax deduction before year's end, but given the number of requests, making a choice about how to spend your charity dollars can be somewhat daunting. The Times focused this week on the dizzying number of food-related charities making year-end requests. Alongside the more traditional hunger-related organizations, "[c]haritable groups dedicated......

The city’s food charities are dealing with dire shortages this year, exacerbated by cutbacks in federal food aid. Many places like St. Benedict the Moor Neighborhood Center in the South Bronx are almost barren; according to today’s Times, the center’s pantry used to be stacked up to the ceiling with food but now holds just “a few sacks of potatoes, some cornflakes, juice and peanut butter.” To help fill the void, City Harvest, the non-profit......

A Westchester couple were charged with promoting prostitution from their home. And what's more, the Journal News describes thirty-four-year-old Robert Werner and his 32-year-old wife Heather Mazzenga as "victims of the housing market"! The New Rochelle Police had been doing their rountine monitoring of Craigslist and became suspicious when they saw a few ads, including one that said, "Grand Opening Special! Hot models, soft sensual touch...New Rochelle has Westchester's first and only member's only club......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

The Kid From Brooklyn sees famine, war, and despair in the world's future. " I've got foresight," he says, but even he could never have predicted his own popularity. Michael Caracciolo started his website TheKidFromBrooklyn.com to entertain friends and family, uploading videos of himself ranting wildly about whatever he happened to feel passionately about that moment, whether it be border control, the President, or even Starbucks. It's led to television appearances, a memoir about his......

For all of you that were waiting to find out which burgers would be served at Saturday's Gothamist-Serious Eats/A Hamburger Today QBQ BBQ at Water Taxi Beach, the burger menu has been finalized. The winning burgers, as determined by voters, were: the onion burger, the butter burger, and the pimento cheese burger. Here are the descriptions of the winning burgers again: The Onion Burger: Popular in El Reno, Oklahoma, the Onion Burger was born of......

If you have yet to vote what burger should be on the menu at next weekend's Gothamist-Serious Eats/A Hamburger Today QBQ BBQ at Water Taxi Beach, today is your last chance. Since we announced the event on Monday, the leading vote getter is the onion burger, followed by the butter burger and the pimento burger. Only the top three vote-getters will make the menu for the July 28th event. Also up for contention are......

After the success of our Gothamist-A Hamburger Today QBQ BBQ last year (that's quality before quantity), we've decided to team up with Serious Eats/A Hamburger Today for another burger event at Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City. At last year's event, Chef Harry Hawk served up four regional burgers from around the nation. This year, you get to choose what burgers are served, with the top three vote-getters across Gothamist, Serious Eats, and......

Yesterday afternoon, 1,097 police cadets graduated from the Police Academy in a ceremony at Madison Square Garden. The Mayor said, "Just a few weeks ago, the FBI reported that violent crime went up in the rest of the nation during 2006, but here in New York violent crime decreased. The NYPD has continued to drive violent crime and property crime down to historic lows this year - and year after year. Today we welcome 1,097......

May 12: Brooklyn Pigfest It's the 7th year for this pork-filled event, which also serves as a fundraiser for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy. Swine and birds will be tenderly slow-cooked by Waterfront Ale House's own Sam Barbieri and his champion BBQ team, and there will be plenty of cold beer and live music to go around. Tobacco Warehouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park, 1 - 6 p.m., tickets $75, available online in advance and at......

On Tuesday "The Oprah Winfrey Show" became a platform for the Hip-Hop community to respond to the Don Imus controversy with a panel discussion featuring Russell Simmons, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Kevin Liles, Common and more. Should musicians lose their jobs or their contracts for using words that are considered racist and sexist? As seen in the video clip below, the former EIC of Essence Magazine thinks so. She is met with many who disagree, however,......

ART: A Cloudy Day's Epiphany is an exhibit including artists Devendra Banhart, Andrew Guenther, Brent Ridge, Dash Snow and Valaire van Slyck. You love Dash Snow, right? The idea is to explore the ephiphany as artistic inspiration. More on the show here. 6 to 8pm (through April 14th) // Dinter Fine Art [547 W 27th St] // Free THEATER: On Thursdays and Fridays through March 16 at Dixon Place, Sibyl Kempson unveils her latest opus,......

Baby, it's cold outside—go see a movie, why dontcha? Werewolves, comic books and hot girls who prowl the streets of Bucharest in high heel boots should be the stuff of great geek cinema. Unfortunately, Blood and Chocolate, a new movie starring Agnes Bruckner as a werewolf girl trying to get along with the pack is utterly laughable. And not even in a good, kitchy, throw popcorn at the screen and giggle with your friends sort......

Today is the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. As the Times editorial today mentions, it's "time to heal and renew." NYC is trying to do its part. Various city restaurants working with Share our Strength to donate a part of tonight's sales to rebuilding efforts (the Shake Shack is included). And Brooklynite Lori Baker and Jersey Cityzen Eric Harvey Brown have created a book, Signs of Life, a collection of photographs of signs made......

In one of the more odd press releases we have received this week, we learn that Sir Richard Branson and Kevin Federline will be teaming up to "save the U.S. penny from annihilation". Yes, the two unite with Common Cents Policy Director Matthew Eggers to put emphasis on the value of a penny (that K-Fed really is simple isn't he), in the face of its possible legislative elimination. Virgin Mobile reps will be gathering signatures......

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/407005p-344593c.html Stress killed coyote Too much handling, worms are blamed BY JOE MAHONEY and LISA L. COLANGELO DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS In the end, the stress was too much for Hal, the crafty Central Park coyote. Being darted, captured and then restrained for tagging helped cause the coyote's death last week, just moments before he was to be released back into the wild. A massive case of heartworm and the ill effects of eating a rat or a mouse full of rodenticide also were to blame for his death, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Hal stopped breathing last Friday as a DEC biologist and a Cornell graduate student restrained him with a catch-pole and a muzzle in an effort to tag him. Holding and tagging Hal in his weakened condition "was more than the animal could handle," said DEC wildlife pathologist Ward Stone, who performed the necropsy on the dead coyote. "These are not sadistic people who wanted to do something bad. This is something that was not expected." Stone said the heartworms, which were 8 to 12 inches long and had invaded both sides of Hal's heart, probably would have eventually killed him. The anti-coagulants in the rodenticide led to internal bleeding, and the coyote also had hemorrhaging in his eyes, possibly from being restrained. The DEC has pledged to reevaluate the way it handles, tags and releases coyotes. The wily coyote led parks officials and police officers on a wild chase through Central Park last month. How he got to Manhattan is still unclear. After being captured by cops, Hal was cared for by wildlife rehabilitators Bobby Horvath and Rebecca Asman on Long Island until DEC officials tried to prepare him for release upstate. "We are still very saddened by the fact that Hal was never able to be free," Asman said yesterday. "To minimize stress, we handle wild animals as little as possible so they can be released back into the wild." "Hopefully, new protocols will be set for the handling of coyotes that come into the five-borough area, and we do believe that will happen again," Asman said. ...

One man was shot dead and another man wounded after a fight in a Bowery Street club. Witnesses say the altercation was started when Thomas McKinney spilled a drink on a man's gilfriend at Club Mission. They argued and went outside, and when McKinny tried to ran away, he was shot three times. Newsday reports the gunfire also hit a homeless man sitting at the Common Ground Shetler. The NY Times says there have been......

In the slow August news season, it takes about two days from a story to make it from the webby trenches to be the cover story of the Daily News. Thao Nguyen's cameraphone picture of a subway masturbator seems to work perfectly in the Daily News's cameraphone-empowerment stories - they covered the cameraphone captures sleeping token booth clerk in March and the Catholic school girls showing a cameraphone picture of a perv to the police,......

As soon as Bright Eyes (and the Faint) are finished hogging Webster Hall this week, former Conor Oberst label mate Rilo Kiley take over for a two day run. Former child actress Jenny Lewis leads this band of safe OC-ready indie pop-rockers. For a taste of Rilo, download MP3s of their entire Coachella performance. Portastatic and The Brunettes open both shows on Thursday and Friday. For something completely unsafe (slam dancing, ringing ears, and......

Filing a lawsuit against the MTA is like the thing to do! The biggest transit union filed a suit saying the West Side railyards bidding should be reopened because the MTA perhaps didn't get enough money out of it. And the Straphangers Campaign and Tri-State Transportation Campaign, plus the NY chapter of Common Cause, are joining the suit. While it sucks to be MTA Chairman Kalikow (or NYC Transit President Reuter), Gothamist imagines that the......

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are some shows coming up. Lemme collect myself... You want to see a different--but good--live show? Hit the Bowery Ballroom tonight to see The Unicorns (pictured). Ashlee Simpson-like they ain't. And they're Canadian, so maybe you can marry one of them and get that free healthcare after all! A really cool show would have been Beans and Jimmy Edgar (all you IDM fans, you've gotta check out his upcoming EP).......

There's something we left off of our Sell Outs list, because it deserves its very own post. First because it's FREE and second because it's DAVE CHAPPELLE. Actually, there's a third too, and that is it's a BLOCK PARTY! Gothamist was just discussing the lack of block parties in this city. We'd imagine nothing better than closing down a street and drinking with friends on stoops. But we digress. Get your free tickets for this......

Priscilla Grim, Membership & Advocacy Director AIVF...

Jen Bekman, Gallery Owner...

Tomorrow night, at the Supper Club, the "Original Kims of Comedy" will be performing. Rebecca Louie of the Daily News tries to explain: "The show's title melds a common Korean surname with the name of the hit African-American comedian tour "The Original Kings of Comedy," which grossed $39 million in venues around the country and an additional $38 million as a film." Common Korean surname, eh? The article is rich with information about that elusive......

In the spirit of Super Bowl Sunday, I thought I'd bring up the new ad campaign by Coke...the Coca-Cola "Real" spots. Here is what Coke says it's trying to do with the ads, and here's a take from MSNBC. The ad rags, Ad Week and Ad Age, are enthusiastic about them. Me? I like the David Arquette-Courteney Cox one a lot, they seem natural and it's a great insight into the desirability of Coke.......