Police were called to a frat house in Boston just after midnight on Monday to find five young men in the basement bound with duct tape wearing nothing but their underwear and coated with flour, coffee grinds, fish sauce, chili sauce, honey, hot sauce, mustard, and empty sardine cans. According to police, the young men were shivering and crying, some of them had parts of their heads shaved, and they all had red welts on their backs. Oh, just another Easter Sunday in Boston! more ›

One Rhode Island family is telling the tale of how they were kicked off a JetBlue flight—headed to Boston from Turks and Caicos—because their two-year-old child didn't want to sit her seat and instead wanted to be held by mommy. See, the pilot decided to turn the plane around and return the family, Dr. Colette Vieau, her husband, 2-year-old Natalie and 3-year-old Cecilia, to the airport. And of course there were no flights to Boston that day, so they ended up spending $2,000 for a hotel and a new flight back. more ›

An online pawn shop either pissed off a lot of Patriots fans or endeared themselves to some hungry people. PawnGo dumped 900 pounds of Butterfingers, with the sign, "Thank You, Wes Welker." Hey, was Gisele behind this? more ›

After an amazing playoff run, the Giants are facing off against the Patriots in the 46th Super Bowl. And now that Mayor Bloomberg has won cheese curds from Green Bay and sourdough bread from San Francisco, he's giving his stomach a break and will give a New York City family the chance to savor seafood from Boston—plus much more—in a bet with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. more ›

One of the things that used to make New York City great is that all the bars stayed open until 4 a.m., so you could support your local businesses long after residents of other more provincial cities had tucked their dainty livers into bed. But more and more—and especially in Manhattan—2 a.m. is becoming the norm for last call, because local community boards are withholding liquor license approval unless barkeeps agree to shut down early. We've seen this happen all over the Lower East Side, the Meatpacking District, and Tribeca, and now Harlem is the latest part of town to demand veritably Bostonesque hours of operation. more ›

Early this morning a contingent of 700 police swept into a park where Occupy Boston protesters had set up camp, arresting over 100 people who refused to comply with an order to vacate. The encampment is not the main OWS site at Dewey Square, but a larger park nearby that protesters had recently seized. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had pleaded with the demonstrators to leave the park by midnight, and the Boston Herald reports that "the park’s patrons had just spent $150,000 to spruce it up." Here's video, via Charlestown Patch, of police clearing the park around 1:30 a.m., as the crowd chants "the whole world is watching!": more ›

Reason #1, 2, 3 and 4 why you shouldn't ignore buskers: they may turn out to be Bruce Springsteen. The Boss was dropping off his son Evan at Boston College this week when he and wife Patti Scialfa decided to say hi to David Gonzalez, who busks in the Public Gardens regularly. Springsteen then borrowed his guitar and put on a little show for passersby...although at least one woman was in too much of a rush to notice (at the :20 mark). Watch below: more ›

After more than 20 hours of surgery Charla Nash, the Connecticut woman whose face was eaten in a bizzarre chimp attack two years ago, has a new face, doctors say (warning, the Reuters article has a graphic photograph of Nash). A team of more than 30 surgeons in Boston last week not only replaced Nash's nose, lips, facial skin, teeth, face muscles and nerves, they also performed a double hand transplant. However the hands did not "thrive" after Nash suffered complications from pneumonia and had to be removed. more ›

Yesterday, the funeral was held for Michael DiMaria, the Hicksville resident who was killed while two other men were fighting in a Boston bar last week. A beer glass was thrown at DiMaria's group and shattered—one of the shards punctured his jugular vein. Newsday reports, "So many people packed the pews of the Holy Family Church.. that even the overflow chairs weren't enough to accommodate the crowd." The 23-year-old had just started a job on Wall Street, and Rev. Gerald Gentleman said, "We have justified anger at this senseless act, which was not an accident but an awful choice." The man who threw the glass was charged with manslaughter and is being held on $75,000 bail and the pub has stopped using glass vessels for the time being. more ›

After a Long Island man died when a shard of glass from a broken beer glass punctured his jugular vein, a Boston bar has stopped using glass vessels and is now serving its drinks in plastic cups. According to the Boston Globe, "The Lansdowne Street pub...will switch to plastic cups and nonglass bottles until a city licensing hearing next month, a practice Boston officials have used elsewhere to reduce injuries from bar fights." more ›

This past weekend, a Hicksville, Long Island man died when a heavy beer glass was thrown during a Boston bar fight and shattered; one of the shards of glass puncturing 23-year-old Michael DiMaria's jugular vein. He had been visiting with friends and enjoying a night at the Landsdowne Pub when a fight between two other men broke out. His father said, “He was an innocent bystander. He was innocent. He had nothing to do with anything going on in that bar." more ›

Philip Markoff, the medical student accused of killing a NYC masseuse (hired via Craigslist) at a downtown Boston hotel last April, was found dead in his Boston jail cell this morning. According to the Boston Globe, "Officials do not know how he died, according to [Suffolk County Sheriff's spokesman Steven]Tompkins. Markoff, 24, was pronounced dead at 10:17 this morning. Tompkins said authorities are investigating." However, the Boston Herald's sources say he was alone and had suffocated. more ›

For all our muttered complaints, New York City's public transportation system is still one of the oldest and most extensive in the world. Dating back to 1910, the subway is today one of four in the U.S. to at least partially serve 24/7, 365 days a year, and is ranked fourth in the world for annual ridership, just under Tokyo, Moscow, and Seoul. But as in all other walks of life, though size matters, so does price. Following the horrifying news last month that the MTA greenlit a 7.5 percent fare hike for January, riders have been in an uproar. more ›

On Thursday, there were reports that a JetBlue pilot was removed from duty at Logan International Airport in Boston, with some speculation (which JetBlue refuted) that he threatened to crash a plane, in an email to his ex-girlfriend, who had recently dumped him. Now it turns out the pilot had a gun, and that the Massachusetts State Police were were told by an acquaintance of the pilot who worried he might hurt himself. more ›

The FBI conducted raids on homes in the Northeast, including ones near Boston and on Long Island, this morning, as part of its investigation into the Times Square terror plot. FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz told the Boston Globe, "there's no known immediate threat to the public or active plot against the United States... The searches are the product of evidence that has been gathered in the investigation" so far. more ›

A surprising report in the March issue of Men's Health asserts that Boston is the "least drunk" city in all the land. You really don't need to read much further to realize this news is wicked retarded, but what makes it even more ridonkulous is that the Irish and college capital of America ranks even higher on the sobriety scale than Salt Lake City, which is fourth "least drunk." And ranking #2 for least drunk is Yonkers, which is such a dreary place you need a drink just to get through it on Metro North. more ›

Anthony Daly was visiting NYC from Boston at the end of December when a violent encounter with the NYPD left his leg broken in three places. Cops were called to the Hotel Chandler on December 27th after getting a report that Daly had assaulted the bartender in the hotel bar. Daly denies assaulting anyone but admits he got drunk and insulted some Englishmen who were singing English football songs. "I put my hands on their backs and just said, 'Sing it up boys, sing it up. That's all that's left of your little empire, soccer,'" Daly tells NY1. more ›

According to Boston.com, Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for the Massachusetts Senate seat, has 53% of the vote in the special election. Hope you like your health insurance— because you probably aren't going to be getting any help with that for quite some time! Update: the Brown campaign is saying that Coakley, the Democratic candidate, has already called to concede. more ›

In June the Port Authority announced a plan to kill 2,000 geese during their molting season to prevent accidents like the one that brought Flight 1549 down in the Hudson River. Mayor Bloomberg immediately voiced his support for gassing geese, telling radio listeners, "There is not a lot of cost involved in rounding up a couple thousand geese and letting them go to sleep with nice dreams." Well, it looks like the mayor's winged targets finally sent a message on Saturday, when one flew into a jet carrying the mayor and about six others from the Hamptons to Senator Kennedy's funeral. In what is surely just the opening salvo between the avian empire and the imperial Bloomberg, the bird failed to fell the French-made Dassault 900EX, though the pilot was concerned that the strike had damaged the landing equipment, and requested emergency ground crews in Boston. The mayor was discreetly informed during the flight, which landed safely, but according to the Post he didn't inform his "entourage." Sure, Bloomberg's not sweating it, but if the rumored alliance between the birds and groundhogs ever happens, he's in trouble. more ›

The Kennedy family estimates (via Twitter) that 25,000 people paid their respects to Senator Edward Kennedy at the J.F.K. Presidential Library in Boston yesterday. The library was scheduled to close at 11 p.m., but stayed open until 2 a.m. due to the long lines. The family said, "We could not be more grateful for the amazing support. Thank you." more ›

Philip Markoff, the medical student suspected of killing a NYC woman he met on Craigslist in a Boston hotel room, was indicted by a grand jury yesterday. According to the Boston Globe, prosecutors say in the April 14 killing of Julissa Brisman, as well as two other robberies of women he met via Craigslist, Markoff "allegedly used disposable cellphones and temporary e-mail addresses to make appointments, then used plastic ties and duct tape to bind his victims." Prosecutors also revealed that the 9mm gun used to kill Brisman was "purchased in a New Hampshire gun shop in February under [Andrew] Miller's name, though prosecutors found Markoff's fingerprint on paperwork filed with the purchase." Miller's license was found in Markoff's car when he was arrested; investigators do not think Miller was involved in the crimes. The 22-year-old will be arraigned today on charges including first-degree murder, armed robbery and armed kidnapping. more ›

A Boston trolley operator who rear-ended another trolley Friday night because he was text-messaging his girlfriend has ruined cell-phone chatting for everyone at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which has now instructed workers to leave their cell phones at home. 49 people were injured in the collision, which is just the latest example of train wrecks caused by distracted operators—last September a Union Pacific Freight train engineer in California was found to have sent his last text message about a minute before killing 25 people, including himself, in a horrible accident. Now LIRR officials here in New York say they're considering a ban on employees' cell phones, too. Currently, LIRR engineers, who operate the trains, are permitted to bring their personal cell phones on board, but they must be shut off and stowed in a bag. A simpler alternative to an outright ban would be for the LIRR to just hire John Clifford, the famous LIRR cell phone scold, to crack some skulls. more ›

Yesterday, court papers revealed that medical student Philip Markoff is in $130,000 debt from student loans and therefore needs a court-appointed defense attorney. Markoff is suspected of killing NYC resident Julissa Brisman in a Boston hotel room; Brisman was meeting a massage client (via Craigslist). The Boston Globe observes that while Markoff was living off student loans, he was "living in a $1,400-a-month one-bedroom apartment in a luxury high-rise in Quincy." Markoff's fiancee Megan McAllister released a new statement, “In the past two short weeks, my life and what I hoped my life to be has dramatically changed. I also love my fiance and I will continue to support him throughout this legal process. My heart goes out to all of those afflicted by these events. It is my intent to fully cooperate with my fiance’s attorney as well as the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office ... I can only tell them what I know and what is the truth... What has been portrayed and leaked to the media is not the Philip Markoff that I know... My fiance’s fate should not rest in the court of public opinion, but rather in a court of law." more ›

The Boston Globe reports that preliminary tests link the gun found in Philip Markoff's apartment (inside a hollowed-out copy of Gray's Anatomy) with the murder of Julissa Brisman. "Officials also told the Globe that fingerprints found on the plastic restraints and duct tape left at a crime scene matched Markoff's fingerprints." Brisman, a NYC resident, was killed by her apparent massage client at a Boston hotel last week and police arrested Markoff, a 23-year-old medical student, on Monday. Markoff was reportedly placed on suicide watch yesterday after guards found shoelace marks on his neck. His lawyer didn't confirm or dany the alleged suicide attempt but did say, "It's difficult for anybody to go from a life of freedom to being detained, particularly in the first few days." more ›

Yesterday, a wake was held in Washington Heights for Julissa Brisman, a young woman who was killed last week during an appointment with a massage client at a Boston hotel. The Daily News' Michael Daly reports that the aspiring actress's mother wailed in Spanish, "Why not me? Why her? She was only 25. She was just beginning to live her life." And Brisman's friend, Mark Pines, said she would screen clients who responded to her Craigslist listing for massage services but added, "We will use her memory to try to keep other girls from ending up in the same situation." more ›

A SUNY Albany graduate and Boston University medical student was arrested for the murder of a NYC woman who advertised massage services on Craigslist. Boston police believe that Philip Markoff, 22, fatally shot Julissa Brisman at the Marriott Copley Place on April 14 and also charged him with the April 10 robbery and kidnapping of a prostitute, who had advertised on Craigslist, at the Westin Copley place. Apparently a search of Markoff's apartment "turned up guns and plastic ties" (Brisman's hand had a plastic handcuff) and police suspect Markoff may have been robbing—and resorting to violence—to pay off gambling debts. more ›

Boston police say the woman found shot to death in a hotel room was NYC resident Julissa Brisman. Brisman apparently advertised massage services in Craigslist's erotic services section and police suspect her killer was the man who answered her ad. more ›