Earlier this year, it was announced Con Ed would give refunds of $100 to residents and $350 to businesses who were struck by the 2006 blackout in Queens and now the state Public Service Commission has approved the compensation plan. Oh, and customers will also get a "formal apology." Assemblyman Michael Gianaris slammed the PSC, "Whether it is blackouts, steampipe explosions, stray voltage electrocutions, or record rate hikes in the face of multi-million dollar executive......

There are few things more heartwarming than hearing about a dog who was returned to his rightful owners after 5 years (and over a distance of 850 miles, thanks to a microchip), and the press naturally descended upon Rocco the beagle. The dog had gotten out of his Queens backyard, and it's suggested someone in the military took the dog from the Big Apple down to Georgia, where he was found. Eleven-year-old Natalie Villacis, who......

Remember the old days when dogs would bolt from the car during a road trip, only to follow their uncanny sense of direction to find their way home across hundreds of miles? Thanks to microchip implants, today’s 21st century canine can now rely on technology to do the work. That’s how Rocco, a beagle who disappeared from a Queens backyard in 2003, was located and returned to his owners last weekend after being found in......

A developer will break ground Thursday on what will be the city’s only rooftop ice rink (the Chelsea Piers Sky Rink is on the second floor, not the roof, and it’s been a while since skaters frolicked on the old Madison Square Garden roof rink.) Located in Long Island City, the City Ice Pavilion will feature an NHL size ice rink that will be open during the winter under a Yeadon air dome, the self-proclaimed......

Police believed that 17-year-old Karon Lenihan shot another teen over a long-held grudge. Patrick Hernandez, a Far Rockaway High graduate who was headed to SUNY Cortland, had been walking back from cleaning up a local beach on Thursday morning when Lenihan allegedly jumped out of a car and shot Hernandez in the chest. While the nature of Lenihan's grudge against Hernandez is unclear, the victim's grandmother raged to the Daily News, "I'd like to kill......

An 18-year-old graduate of Far Rockaway High was fatally shot on Beach 16th Street yesterday morning. The Daily News reports Patrick Hernandez, who had played on the high school football team and was headed to SUNY Cortland this fall, "had spent the morning helping clean up a local beach and was walking home with his brother" when a shooter jumped out of a car and fired at him. The police are speaking to a suspect.......

The police are investigating a sex attack reported by a 16-year-old. The girl was grabbed on her way to school, threatened with a box cutter and assaulted behind an abandoned church, and police are investigating the possibility the attacker may be the same as the one in a series of earlier assaults. And WNBC reports there are two more reports of attacks--another in Springfield Gardens and the other in South Ozone Park.......

If one ever needed an additional reason to buckle up, there's the news of two men who were killed while traveling in a car piloted by a drunken driver. 28-year-old Stephen Bush was speeding down Rockaway Blvd. early Saturday morning when he lost control of his Cadillac sedan and drove through the front of a carpet store in Rosedale. Bush was uninjured, but two of his passengers--Garfield Nelson and Wayne Burnette--were both killed. A third......

Some Queens residents are getting touchy about sprouting McMansions in their borough. Many believe it's being transformed into the worst of suburbia: Huge ostentatious homes plunked onto undersized lots that don't conform to the neighborhood's aesthetics. Residents of Forest Hills are upset with an influx of Bukharian Jewish immigrants, who like their homes large and lawns nonexistent. The NY Times quotes a Bukharian community leader: “Don’t be upset with our people because we like to......

The Queens DA's office says a man posed as a police officer and raped a woman in Flushing on Thursday morning. The suspect, 35-year-old Anthony Lane, is accused of using a fake police badge--actually a Department of Sanitation badge (Lane is not a DoS employee)--and saying, "Open the door, I'm the police." When the woman opened the door, NY1 reports "Lane allegedly grabbed the woman by her hair and forced her onto her bed." According......

A 37-year veteran teacher is accused of punching and throttling a 12-yea-old student. Scott Antwork, 58, teaches at PS 54 in Richmond Hill and Queens DA Richard Brown says Antwork "punched 12-year-old Edgar Lopez in the head with a closed fist, placed him in a choke hold and then grabbed the student's right arm and pushed him into a table." Two students say that Lopez first punched Antwork. The teacher has been "reassigned" and is......

On Wednesday night, 15-year-old Keyanna Jones was stabbed to death by when a dispute over line cutting at a Queens bus stop. Police say that 39-year-old Winston Alladin was angered because a woman and child allegedly cut in front of him to board a bus. One passenger said, per the Post, he "spat racial epithets at the woman and other African-American passengers." When a group of kids followed him off the bus, more people joined......

The Queens woman who is accused of verbally abusing and punching Jet Blue flight attendants during a flight from NYC to San Francisco was released on bail yesterday. Christina Szele was allegedly drunk and caught the crew's--and fellow passengers'--attention when she lit a cigarette on the plan. She had been in a Denver jail for the past week and a half; 1010 WINS reported, "The magistrate who set her bail ordered her not to travel......

A woman was stabbed in the chest yesterday morning by a man on a bicycle. The woman, 37-year-old Eduarda Olivia, had been walking in the Queensbridge section with her 13-year-old daughter when the sudden attack occurred. She was taken to NY-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell, where she is currently in stable condition. According to police, the man just cycled up to her "plunged a knife into her chest." He did not rob Olivia or harm the......

Investigators looking for the cause in Sunday's fatal Queens fire now suspect that the ex-girlfriend of the most recent victim may have started the fire. It is believed Agnes Bermudez doused William Salazar with an accelerant, possibly carpet cleaner. Salazar died from his injuries yesterday. Video showed Salazar and Bermudez both on fire. Bermudez, a 48-year-old former stock trader, had recently broken up with Salazar and, according to family members, the split was an amicable......

Get this woman a reality TV show! Christina Szele of Woodside, Queens created such a disturbance during a Jet Blue flight from JFK airport to San Francisco that pilots diverted the plane and landed in Denver, where federal authorities took her into custody. According to an affidavit obtained by the Smoking Gun, things started to go sideways after a flight attendant noticed Szele waiting on line for the bathroom with a book of matches and......

After the October 2007 murder of her father and her mother's arrest for his killing this past February, the Daily News checks in on 5-year-old Michelle Malakov to see how she's doing. According to her paternal grandmother, the little girl calls her uncle "Daddy," "She can't be without him for a minute." Michelle witnessed the fatal shooting of her father, well-liked dentist Daniel Malakov, in a Queens playground. (Her parents had been embroiled in a......

Two men were found dead when firefighters arrived to battle a fire in the Tompkinsville section of Staten Island. The fire at a vacant building was so intense that it took firefighters two hours to get it under control. The fire looks suspicious, and the authorities are investigating whether the men died before or during the fire. Additionally, the building is one of three that was given the go-ahead for demolition last month by the......

The fire in a three-story building that killed one yesterday morning has claimed two more deaths. A 58-year-old man was in an apartment, dead of smoke inhalation and his wife and 20-year-old son died later at a hospital. According to the Post, FDNY believe the fire is suspicious; it "broke out between the second and third floors of a building in Middle Village, Queens--"not near any electrical outlets." Five others were seriously injured, including one......

Early this morning, a fire ripped through a three story building with a store on the ground floor and apartments above. There has been one reported fatality so far, with three people critically injured and four more residents seriously injured. The proprietor of the ground floor deli said two people ran onto his store while on fire. He was able to douse them with water The seven injured survivors have all been hospitalized. Witnesses described......

Graphic from the Daily News All NYPD precincts do not ticket equally; and a graphic in the Daily News displays where drivers are most and least likely to receive a parking ticket in New York City. It's not indicated why, but the total number of tickets issued by parking agents, 672,149, is down 13% from last year. The City hopes to remedy this with the recent addition of 200 more parking agents. The crunched......

City councilman and mayoral hopeful Tony Avella held a press conference today at City Hall to spotlight a pending council resolution urging the New York State Senate to outlaw force-feeding ducks and geese to produce foie gras. A bill to ban the practice is languishing in Albany, and Avella hopes his largely symbolic gesture will push it forward. Yesterday Avella told the Village Voice that though there are only two foie gras farms in New......

Last week's special election to fill the vacated 30th Council District seat was a close one and suggested that Republican Anthony Como won. Como had led Democrat Elizabeth Crowley by 70 votes; an official announcement of the winner will be made this week, after the Board of Elections counts hundreds of absentee ballots and certifies the findings. Still, there are rumors that the election may have prompted the feds to take a closer look. Queens......

A 22-month-old Queens girl, Kimberly Salinas, may have lost her pinky finger after sticking it through a backyard fence, on the other side of which was a neighbor's caged pet monkey. The monkey bit the girl's little finger and surgeons spent 12 hours trying to reattach it. It's unclear if they were successful or not. The Salinas family lives next door to Mimwon Khan, who was illegally keeping a capuchin monkey named Sampson as a......

A Queens car wash was the scene of a fatal incident that left one employee dead. Two workers who had been drying a vehicle were hit by another worker who drove into them with an SUV. According to the Daily News, the worker "came roaring out of the cleaning tunnel at a killer speed" in a silver Jeep Cherokee. He hit Olston Kilkenny's car and pinned Felipe Alvarenga. Then the worker "kept driving - turning......

Yesterday, Queens residents in the City Council district represented by City Councilman Dennis Gallagher went to the polls to decide who will replace him until a November election. Right now, it seems like Republican candidate Anthony Como is leading, but only 70 votes separate him from Democrat Elizabeth Crowley. Gallagher is vacating his District 30 seat because his March guilty plea to sexual abuse and forcible touching. In 2007, he was accused of raping a......

Don’t get too comfortable homeowners – the city’s foreclosure rate is skyrocketing, up a startling 66% in the first quarter of 2008 compared to last year, according to Crain’s and the housing research site Property Shark. Queens saw more foreclosures than the four other boroughs combined, with 508 in the first quarter, up 59% from the same period in 2007. The Queens neighborhoods of Jamaica, Hollis and St. Albans reported the biggest foreclosure increases,......

Another sad story of pet electrocution comes out of Queens; ABC reports that Cecelia Sing's Siberian husky named Sebastian died on his Sunday night walk in Long Island City. A lamppost is believed to have shocked him with stray voltage (not an unfamiliar story)."As soon as he got to the lamppost, he jumped and he dropped," she said. "And he starting shaking wildly, and I'm like, 'Go on. Get up, Sebastian, get up,' And he......

Three-year-old boy who disappeared from a Catskills campground on Saturday was found a day later. Daniel Niktalov, who lives in Forest Hills with his family but had been camping at the Swing Bridge Campground in Sullivan County, was found less than a mile away after "rescuers from three states" were involved with search efforts. The boy, who only suffered a bump on his head and some dehydration, was found under a rock ledge. One rescuer......

Someone went on a rampage just before noon yesterday, shooting five people standing at a bus stop in a fusillade of gunfire in Jackson Heights, Queens. It wasn't as much a rampage, exactly, as a reckless attempt to kill a single person by firing into a crowd. The alleged target was a 21-year-old man, who was shot in the side before staggering into a restaurant and collapsing. Police are searching not just for a single......