A Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting was just awarded to the Associated Press journalists who broke the series of damning reporting on the NYPD's surveillance of Muslims across the Northeast. Surely Ray Kelly, Mayor Bloomberg and the editorial boards of the New York Post and New York Daily News will retract their criticism of the pieces. more ›

Hours after the AP released a report proving that the NYPD kept files on New Yorkers for no other reason than their religion, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly met with Muslim leaders Friday afternoon at 1 Police Plaza to assure them that no laws were being broken. "They are organizing sham meetings with sham leaders of the community," Fahd Ahmed of the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition told NY1, implying that Kelly is dodging his most severe critics. "The Muslim community feels under siege," Mohammed Nurhussein of the United African Congress said. "And that issue has to be addressed." more ›

The Associated Press can't stop, won't stop reporting on the NYPD's "Demographics Unit," which has been both criticized and praised for conducting widespread surveillance in neighborhoods with significant Muslim populations. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has insisted the NYPD is not racially profiling their surveillance targets, but internal NYPD documents tell a different story: Secret files (below) have been kept on businesses owned by second- and third-generation Americans specifically because they were Muslims, the AP reports. more ›

Did you hear the news? It turns out that plenty of officials in New Jersey's law enforcement and government knew about the NYPD's sweeping surveillance of Muslim communities in the state. City Hall's press flacks are all a'twitterin about this Star-Ledger story with members of the New York media (and the headline: "THEY ALL KNEW." Woof!) Phew, guess we don't have to worry about the NYPD's methods or racial/religious profiling, since some politicians knew about it. And what did they know? Peter Harvey, the state's AG from 2003-2006 explains: "Truth be told we can’t stop [the NYPD], and I’m not sure I want to stop them." more ›

In a speech to Fordham Law alumni yesterday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly defended his department's vast surveillance network watching Muslims across the Northeast. “The notion that the Police Department should close our eyes to what takes place outside the five boroughs is folly, and it defies the lessons of history,” Kelly said. “If terrorists aren’t limited by borders and boundaries, we can’t be either." more ›

Since 2001 the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have pumped $135 million into the NY/NJ region under the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, a portion of which went into the NYPD's controversial surveillance program targeting Muslims in the Northeast. According to the AP, it's unclear how much of that money went towards surveillance "because the program has little oversight," but cars used by the department's plainclothes officers in keeping tabs on Muslim communities were paid for with federal money, as were the computers used to compile the reports for Commissioner Kelly. more ›

Newark Mayor Cory Booker tells the AP he's undertaking an investigation into the NYPD's surveillance of Muslims in his city. The spying came to light in the Associated Press's most recent report about the NYPD's counterterrorism efforts, which have been criticized for racially profiling Muslims. "We're going to get to the bottom of this," Booker says. "This raises a number of concerns. It's just very, very sobering." In fact, the NYPD's efforts to build a database of Muslims in Newark was so clandestine that Booker didn't even know about it. The AP reports: more ›

Caroline Kennedy, whose Senate aspirations have only allowed for controlled moments with the press and submitting written answers to media outlets' questions so far, has submitting to actual interviews. First, an interview with the Associated Press was published, just after she spoke to reporter Larry Neumeister at Tribeca diner Gee Whiz (she ordered a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich). more ›

Tomorrow, iconic photographs of American presidents over the years will be on display at Federal Hall. The exhibit, "The American President," is put together by the Associated Press, which is showcasing over 80 photographs of presidents "at war and at ease, in victory and in defeat, confronting national crises and facing personal scandals, running for office and leading the country on the world stage"--and photographs of this year's presidential candidates on the campaign trail. more ›

A woman appears to have fallen or jumped from a very high floor of the U.N. Secretariat Building at 405 East 42nd St. early today. Per wcbstv.com, U.N. security personnel escorted detectives and NYPD officers to the rear of the building, where the woman's body was splayed out on the lawn. She was quickly covered with a sheet and the area was cordoned with yellow tape. It's believed that the dead woman was an employee at the United Nations, although her identity has not been revealed. more ›

Early Saturday morning around 2 a.m., an undercover police officer shot and killed a 22-year-old Queens man after he pointed a gun at him and another officer. Earlier in the night, Ronnie Smalls had run from police when they approached him because they recognized him as a known criminal--he'd been arrested nine times before--and suspected he was carrying a gun. When they saw Smalls a second time, he ran again. According to the Associated Press account, with two undercover police chasing on foot and the third giving chase in a car, the officer in the car said he saw the suspect pull his gun and point it at the pursuing officers. At that point, Smalls either tripped or was tackled and the closest pursuing officer fired four shots at Smalls as they struggled on the ground. more ›

The Associated Press and Ipsos asked Americans to pick which candidates would make the scariest Halloween costumes. Naturally, frontrunners Senator Hillary Clinton and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani won in their respective political parties (there were separate polls for the two parties). Clinton led Democrats with 37% while Giuliani had 14%, and no other candidates broke 6%, giving them resounding wins. And we found this interesting: "While a predictable two-thirds of Republicans picked [Clinton], she also was the choice of 18 percent of Democrats. Among members of her own party, that made her second only to Giuliani as the scariest costume." more ›

An explosion occurred at building on West 119th Street, right off Fifth Avenue and just south of Marcus Garvey Park, around 4PM. Several people were injured - WCBS 2 says that the injured include two babies and a firefighter who was helping people out of the building. Also: "Firefighters on the scene removed pieces of debris from the building's first floor while residents were being treated on stretchers on the street." more ›

A man was shot after he stabbed two people on a Midtown street. Either an off-duty police officer or plainclothes law enforcement officer is believed to have shot the man. Here's a tip we received:

I walked outside my building about an hour ago and saw tons of police activity. From what I hear a man went into Starbucks to obtain a knife unsuccessfully. Then went into another restaurant (not sure of the name) and obtained a knife. He proceeded to stab two people in between 34th & 35th St on 2nd ave. An off-duty police officer was present and shot the attacker.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a gas main break on Dale Ave. and Amboy Rd. on Staten Island, an overturned garbage truck on Fountain Ave. and Linden Blvd. in Brooklyn, and a triple shooting on 82nd St. in Queens.
• When a boomtown real estate market goes bust, even the far-out reaches of NYC can assume a ghost town-like quality.
• Tavern on the Green is being sued for years of alleged racial and sexual harassment.
• Mayor Bloomberg has traveled to New Orleans, LA, in what the Associated Press is describing as a mandatory stop for Presidential candidates, even when they are not running for President.
• New York City's municipal television network is now offering its shows on-demand from its web site.
• A former NYPD deputy inspector, who was booted from the department after his conviction for robbing a drug dealer of $60K in 1996, won almost $1 million from a scratch-off game this August.
• The one-time Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands is looking for a corporate sponsor to affix a name to its facade.
• An online phone service will push ads at users based on the verbal content of their phone conversations.

A report being released tomorrow by the Industrial Assistance Corporation (IAC) titled "Buried Treasure: New York's Hidden Tech Sector" asserts that New York City rivals cities like Seattle and areas like Silicon Valley as the largest technology center in the country. The study counted the number of tech workers in the city, at branches of corporations like IBM, Microsoft, Google, and the research and development departments of medical centers in the city. The IAC report actually considered all of the "New York Metropolitan Statistical Area," which includes southern New York State and northern New Jersey. The Associated Press story says that IAC found 620,000 tech workers in that area, more than twice the number found in Silicon Valley. more ›

New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) has added a section to its web site where residents can see how city hospitals stack up against each other and against state and national benchmarks. HHC operates 11 hospitals and four long-term care facilities in the city. The Associated Press reports that information available to healthcare consumers at the HHC site includes data like mortality rates, adherence to "best practices" treatments, rates of pneumonia and infections developed while under care, and the rate of pressure ulcers and falls while in long-term care. more ›

Smoke is once again drifting across the skyline of downtown Manhattan near the World Trade Center site as the Deutsche Bank building on Liberty St. has caught fire. Initial reports said that scaffolding was falling from the building, which is under deconstruction. The fire was recently upgraded to 5 alarms 7 alarms and multiple firefighters have been injured. Two firefighters were triaged and designated in need of immediate care with a life-threatening condition and at least one reportedly was receiving CPR on the scene. Another five were designated as needing urgent care. We'll report more when additional information becomes available. Yesterday The New York Times featured a slide show about the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank Building. more ›

Only 2 weeks after his 89th birthday, Swedish film and theater director Ingmar Bergman passed away at his home on Fårö Island this morning, the Associated Press reports. "Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, confirmed the death, and Swedish journalist Marie Nyreröd said the director died peacefully during his sleep. Bergman never fully recovered after a hip surgery in October last year, Nyreröd told Swedish broadcaster SVT." more ›

EVENT: The New York Book Club at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum presents…"Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered New York City". The panelists include "Hal Buell, longtime AP photo editor who put images of the Vietnam War in newspapers across America; Richard Drew, AP photographer who has covered New York events including 9/11; Edie Lederer, longtime UN correspondent and first woman to be the foreign chief of bureau; and Valerie Komor, corporate archives director of the AP." more ›

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board decided yesterday not to act on a ban of alcoholic beverages on Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. Both railroads sell beer, wine, and liquor (along with soft drinks, water and snacks) from carts at Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station, as well as from bar cars on trains. Sales yielded a $1 million profit for the MTA, so the decision was probably more based on pure hard economics than anything else, although an MTA task force looking into the matter determined the sales did not pose a risk to the safety of commuters. more ›

Save Veronica Mars Campaign Does Not Effect Local Mars Bar Availability more ›

Louis Eppolito, who was accused of moonlighting as one half of a mafia hit squad, has expressed his displeasure with the bad press he's been getting. In a letter to the Associated Press, penned from prison, Eppolito said that the coverage surrounding his and his partner's case was a "media circus" and contributed to his continued imprisonment despite the fact that his conviction was overturned by a judge. more ›

Internationally beloved Angelina Jolie and her less philanthropic beau, Brad Pitt, are in town. They're making headlines, too, with things like wearing inexpensive clothes and going to the doctor. Fine, we'll bite... more ›

NJ Governor Corzine showed the Associated Press that he's doing pretty well, sitting up (in red track pants, which is rather Fidel-ish) and reading his many get well cards. These are the first photographs of Corzine since he was in a car accident that left him critically injured and with 15 broken bones. Earlier this week, Corzine was still stuck in bed, but now he's able to leave bed and sit up. The cards look like they are from NJ school children; we hope that if they're making the cards during the school day, then there better be seat belts also drawn on them somewhere! more ›

April Fool's! When America's Mayor told Barbara Walters that his wife, Judith Nathan, would be attending Cabinet meetings if he's elected President, he was totally joking. Some confusion arose when Giuliani told Walters that Nathan would be welcome at Cabinet meetings if they were discussing something she might find interesting: "If she wanted to. If they were relevant to something that she was interested in. I mean that would be something that I'd be very, very comfortable with". more ›

Governor Spitzer who once called the Freedom Tower a “white elephant” and questioned its economic viability announced his support of the project today in lower Manhattan alongside the Mayor and NJ Governor John Corzine. Spitzer said that after looking into alternatives, he decided that it was best to proceed as planned, citing the strong real estate market. Plus, it's a good photo op. more ›

It has been almost a year since tabloid-it-boy Peter Braunstein allegedly dressed as a fireman in order to break into the apartment of, and sexually abuse for 13 hours, a former co-worker on Halloween. So it would seem to be about time for some new news on the perp, and the Associated Press delivers. more ›

Pedro Martinez was thought to be out for only the playoffs when it was annoucned that he had a torn tendon in his left calf. Now it's being that the soon to be 35 year-old Mets righty will be out for 8 months because of rotator cuff surgery. Assuming Pedro has a speedy recovery, which is a big assumption, he would be back in June. The injury was detected the same day physicians discovered the injury in Martinez's left calf. A second opinion requested by Martinez confirmed the initial test. Omar Minaya told the Associated Press that Pedro was "absolutely not" considering retirement. more ›

Matthew Colletta, the Queens man accused of shooting at cars and pedestrians, killing one and injuring four others last Friday, said he got his gun from Lucifer. Remember, Colletta had said that he shot at red cars because he thought the Bloods were after him. Yesterday, he was arraigned by the Queens DA's in the Bellevue prison ward, where he has been undergoing mental evaluations. When Colletta was questioned by the police, he apparently gave them rambling, conflicting accounts of what had happened. From the NY Times:

Prosecutors said Mr. Colletta described to police officers “red cars closing in” during the spree, said Marcus Franklin, a reporter for The Associated Press who was selected to represent fellow reporters at the arraignment. When arrested, Mr. Colletta gave police investigators several versions of the events that seemed contradictory and fantastical at times, prosecutors said yesterday. more ›