The Pentagon's budget is being trimmed for the first time since 1998, but that hasn't stopped the Air Force from placing a request for as many as 18,000 iPad 2s. According to Bloomberg News, the devices would "lighten the load of flight crews," who have to lug navigation charts and paper-bound manuals that can weigh as much as 40 pounds. Will we finally see pilots playing Fruit Ninja in those Air Force promos? more ›

Some pretty shots of the flyover from this morning—apparently it was the Brazilian Air Force Smoke Squadron! If you have photographs, you can share them by sending them to photos@gothamist.com or tagging them "gothamist" on Flickr. more ›

From the city's Office of Emergency Management: "There will be a flyover involving nine airplanes near the Statue of Liberty beginning at 10:00 AM this morning. The airplanes will enter New York Harbor, fly over the Verrazano Bridge, pass the Statue of Liberty, and continue north above the Hudson River." (It's Air Force Week in NYC!) more ›

A few more details about yesterday's incident where Air Force 2 (carrying Vice President Joe Biden back to Washington D.C.) knocked over a plane at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach: According to Newsday, "About 11 a.m., Biden's plane, a Boeing 757, was on a ramp and began a turn toward a runway when 'jet blast' caused a Piper PA-18 to flip over. The Piper was parked, tied to the ground and sustained left wing damage." No one was in the Piper, so there were no injuries. more ›

Back in September last year friends Blake Hayes, Alec Bell and Danny Calvert were all victims of a hate crime outside of a Manhattan bar in Hell's Kitchen. Following an incident, the NYPD refused to take their attacker's information, or let them file a claim. Soon after, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn spoke up on behalf of the victims of the bias attack and investigations began. more ›

Last September WPLJ deejay Blake Hayes (pictured left), and cabaret and Broadway performer Danny Calvert were attacked outside of McCoy's Bar in Hell's Kitchen, along with their friend Alec Bell. They claimed a man flicked a cigarette at them while saying, "Keep moving, faggots." When the trio quipped about the man's bald head, he became enraged, physically assaulted them, and said, "Die of AIDS, you fucking queers." more ›

Hey! The Pentagon is just like us, tracking blogs and social media for trends. When it released its report about the ill-planned Air Force One flyover in late April, buried in the pages of documents were details that the military was gauging fallout online: One email read, "Web site blog comments ‘furious’ at best"—like this one!—"Twitter search reveals ‘tweets’ regarding two F-16’s chasing commercial airliner. Rate of 1 tweet per minute and growing" (Twitter rate was later 3 Tweets/minutes!). And the Christian Science Monitor noticed that the Pentagon also ignored the warnings of USAF Maj Gen Brian P. Meenan, who wrote, "NYC populace can be sensitive to airplanes that appear lower than normal or tracks not normally seen over the NYC area. Influenced by 9/11. Have seen one or two instances of civil aircraft cleared for visual arrivals that triggered inquiries to media and local officials concerning unusual flt activity from folks on the ground." The AP—which notes that even a Pentagon PowerPoint chart admitted "No positive spin is possible"—also found that the Air Force's cell that monitors Internet chatter suggested, "Government involvement in this incident could be used to frame expected handling of H1N1 outbreak." more ›

Happy Friday—the Pentagon has released more photographs from the Presidential Airlift Group's NYC flyover. You remember that day back in late April, when the Boeing 747 (known as Air Force One when the President is on board) and fighter jets zoomed near Lower Manhattan building, prompting building evacuations, panic, front page marvels and annoyance. The White House released one underwhelming photo in May, but now, on a slow summer Friday, we've got more to peruse—here's the PDF. more ›

Let's take the Air Force One flyover incident into yet another day! Fox News wanted to calculate the cost beyond the $328,835 it cost to fly the Boeing 747 and fighter jets on Monday, so it asked Mayor Bloomberg's office "how much the city had to spend to deal with the panic." Apparently NYC 911 got flyover-related 97 calls (about a 15% increase) in an hour while Jersey City said it received about 13 calls. more ›

The Pentagon has charged six men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks and will seek the death penalty (the Pentagon's terse press release was titled "Defense Department Seeks Death Penalty for Six Guantanamo Bay Detainees"). These would be "the first trials under the terrorism-era military tribunal system." more ›

Reader Dan got this notice from his Madison Square Park-area building:

THE FAA HAS ADVISED THAT TWO (2) MILITARY F-15 AIRCRAFT WILL BE PERFORMING A FLYOVER OVER NEW YORK CITY AT 1330 HOURS ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 17TH, 2007. THE AIRCRAFT WILL FLY ALONG THE EAST RIVER AND THEN VEER OUT TO THE EAST. more ›

Major Klatt took Vincent Laforet, a photographer for The New York Times, up in an Extra-300L aerobatic plane on Thursday. more ›

Yesterday, six men were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix in NJ and other targets in the area. The men, Muslims from (the former) Yugoslavia, Turkey and Jordan, were apprehended after the FBI conducted 14 months of surveillance and infiltrated their group. more ›

A guilty pleasure many people have is watching Dateline's To Catch a Predator. We assume so, because it's on a lot and because there's nothing as satisfying as watching people try to weasel their way out of chatroom transcripts and out of the clutches of swamp things. So we're glad that the Asbury Park Press and Staten Island Advance are keeping tabs on the show. more ›

Yesterday, the City Council passed a "symbolic ban" on the n-word. City Councilman Leroy Comrie introduced the resolution earlier this month, and he said, "I'm hoping this is the beginning of a move forward to a place where the use of the N-word is simply unacceptable. So many people have been quietly seething about this for a long time. It's time to bring it into the open." more ›

Many things happened last Tuesday night at a CUNY Graduate Center auditorium lobby reception. Kim Peek, the 55 year-old savant who inspired Rain Man, walked through the crowd to answer strangers' questions about forgotten rural highways, old telephone directories, and birthdays. His father Fran talked about Kim’s abilities and home life in Utah, and passed the nine-pound Academy Award given to him by Rain Man’s screenwriter to anyone who wanted to hold it. Elsewhere at the reception, the inventor Nate True chatted about his Time Fountain, a breadbox-sized contraption pumping with highlighter dyed water and ringed by ultraviolet strobes. When everything works right, it appears to the observer that time is slowing down, stopping, and even reversing for the fountain's falling droplets. Standing near to the cheese plate and chicken finger buffet was Joe Kittinger, who in 1960 jumped off a rickety Air Force gondola hitched to a big weather balloon, and free fell 102,800 feet back to earth, breaking the sound barrier in the process. Yes, this was all part of the inaugural meeting for the Athanasius Kircher Society, a mysterious group of people devoted to understanding the curious, obscure, and spectacular. The group is named for a 17th century German Jesuit scholar, an early adopter of Egyptology, volcanology, and a pioneer of germ theory. more ›

Air travelers, rejoice: The Port Authority has decided to lease Stewart Airport. Both Governors Spitzer and Corzine support the plan, and the Port Authority says the deal is "a major milestone." more ›

News that some sort of aircraft had crashed into an Upper East Side building sent everyone fleeing to TVs and computers to see what was going on. MSNBC broke the news first nationally, while most locals probably tuned into NY1 for coverage. We were most impressed by WNBC's coverage. They had a secret/not-so-secret weapon in Chuck Scarborough. more ›

Gothamist reader David Shulman spotted a stealth bomber doing a little recon over Manhattan: more ›

It is an annual right of spring; “Selection Sunday” gives way to “Moaning Monday”, a chance for the teams who didn’t make the NCAA Tournament to complain. Florida State, Michigan, Cincinnati and Maryland are all grumbling today after not being invited to the big dance. more ›

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So, you want to be a meteorologist? The New York City/Long Island Chapter of the American Meteorological Society is having a panel discussion on career opportunities in meteorology and atmospheric science next Thursday. The meeting will be held at the SUNY-Stony Brook. Speakers include meteorologists from the private sector, the National Weather Service, TV, academia and the Air Force. more ›

Loyal Gothamist readers will notice that there is little change in our rankings this week - there simply weren't many upsets or games involving top 25 teams last week. That will certainly change this weekend with several top matchups including LSU vs. UGA, Aub vs. Tenn, and Purdue vs ND. It will be a great weekend for college football junkies/coach potatoes! Naturally Gothamist will be watching every televised game from Noon until 2 am in order to provide you with rankings slightly more accurate than a dart throwing monkey! more ›

Rebecca Lobo, WNBA Commentator more ›

President Bush wanted to freak out little kids from a softball team, so he dropped his dog Barney before boarding Air Force One. Barney did not suffer any injuries, but did have to be kissed by Bush. more ›

Harrison Ford, where art thou? You're our Han Solo, our Indiana Jones...hell, our Jack Ryan (we need a good CIA hero in this day and age, we suppose). It seems you've been going through a three-quarter-life crisis. In love with Calista Flockhart? The earring? The crappy movies? It's so sad to Gothamist that you have to star in a movie with Bedhead (as for Hollywood Homicide, A.O. Scott likes it, Manohla Dargis doesn't). Yes, you're the most popular star on the earth, but we're waiting for Fametracker to do a Fame Audit. more ›

Gothamist loves to see awkward situations that we're not involved in, and that's certainly the case with our President and French leader Jacques Chirac. The Times shows that everyone else (at least White House reporters) is as interested in Bush-Chirac relations: more ›