Some new details from the ME's office about slain realtor to the stars Linda Stein. Toxicology tests on Stein, who was brutally bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment in October, show that there were "no traces of marijuana in her system," according to the NY Post. Stein's assistant, Natavia Lowery, has been accused of murdering her employer. At the time of her arrest, police had said Lowery snapped after Stein verbally abused her......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A "large dispute" at JFK Airport; a school bus accident at Broadway and 37th Street in Manhattan; and a car-into-a-house on Murdock Ave in Queens. Rudy Giuliani says people giving him a hard time about rooting for the Red Sox "should give [him] a break." People to Giuliani, "No way, not when you make it so easy!" Awesome Halloween decoration in Greenpoint. A different kind of customized candy to......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water rescue off West St. at Battery Place in Manhattan, missing children on Grimsby St. on Staten Island, and a DOA floater in the Harlem River off Manhattan. New Yorkers may have just seen their water bill rates hiked 11.5% three months ago, but officials are now saying property owners can expect a rate increase of another 18% as early as the start of next year. Idle speculation......

Columbia University has weathered storm of criticism for inviting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at its World Leader Forum yesterday. Columbia president Lee Bollinger had said that critical questions would be posed, and he wasn't kidding: Before Ahmadinejad spoke, Bollinger gave a lengthy speech that attacked the leader's positions and intelligence, said he exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," and called him ridiculous. You can read Bollinger's speech here, but......

Reach out and touch someone - and get fired for it, possibly even if you didn't do the reaching out and touching. The nutty voicemail message left for Bernard Spitzer, father of Governor Spitzer, is reassuring everyone that it's just politics as usual in Albany. The elder Spitzer's lawyers believe that the call was made by GOP consultant Roger Stone, who was recently hired at $20,000/month by NY State Republican (he was consulting with Spitzer's......

Brooke Astor's funeral was held yesterday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, at Saint Thomas Church on 5th Ave. and 53rd St. The lineage and personal generosity of Mrs. Astor and the array of famous attendees at her funeral made it a widely covered news event. The New York Times reported that officiants at the funeral requested that all cell phones be turned off at the beginning of the service, although a Gawker correspondent pointed out......

A developing story from the DRUDGE REPORT: "Radio host Don Imus has agreed to settle his contract with CBS for $20 million, and a non disparaging clause, legal sources claim. The move opens the possibility Imus will soon return to the airwaves -- on WABC in New York! [Top radio executive strongly dismisses Imus will be offered WABC slot]..." Polls - Take Our Poll We all remember that four months ago, Imus was fired......

We've said before that Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend (or companion, which is what the NY Times refers to her as) Diana Taylor seems like a classy lady, unlike some other mayor's girlfriends. But we don't know much about her, except that she went to Dartmouth (Mayor Bloomberg accompanied her on an alumni weekend there), she worked in senior management at Keyspan, she was the state's superintendent of banking under Pataki, she was shortlisted by President Bush......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a large fight on Fordham Rd. and Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, police activity in the employee parking lot at JFK Airport in Queens, and a pedestrian was struck on East 57th St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan. Donald Trump owns almost 20% of Brooklyn's Starrett City that his dad bought for him when he graduated from business school. He now advises lower-income residents of the development that "This......

It's the future, now! The Daily Intelligencer posted this Skidmore, Owings & Merrill/SWIM rendering of Freedom Tower's lobby, and finds out from SOM's TJ Gottesdiener that the lobby will shed "light into the memorial pool." Notice how the way light falls in Freedom Tower's lobby mimics how light would fall in the World Trade Center's lobby. It's wild to think there's a lobby rendering - remember when Freedom Tower was just redesign upon redesign?......

After Attorney General Cuomo found that Governor Spitzer's staffers were using state police records to attack rival Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, everyone agrees on one thing: It's very bad for Governor Spitzer. In a nutshell, Spitzer's aides, including communications director Darren Dopp, leaked information about possible misuse of state aircraft by Bruno to the Albany paper, the Times Union. Spitzers' aides later claimed that they were investigating Bruno's use of state aircraft because......

We guess the power of Donald Trump can thwart even ghosts of people buried in the lot where he wants to build a yooge condo-hotel. Trump's Soho project was finally approved by the city yesterday afternoon. The Daily Intelligencer calls it the "last huff of Soho's industrial grit," and spoke to the Trump Soho critic, Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, who had fighting words: "This is a case of the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at Victory Blvd. and Lester St. on Staten Island, a fall victim down a trench at Carlton and Park Aves. in Brooklyn, and a construction accident on West 30th St. and 10th Ave. in Manhattan. If you have Time Warner Digital Cable and are interested in transit issues, get NY1's In Transit on demand; the Daily News' Peter Donahue shared some interesting insights about the transit......

Today on Gothamist Newsmap: A ceiling collapse at Bowling Green/Battery Park on the subway's 4 line this morning, a bank robbery at 206th St. and Bainbridge Ave. in the Bronx, and a report of a missing child at Franklin Ave. in Brooklyn. Imminent end of an era as the actual physical floor of the NYSE gets quieter daily. Original "Buffy" Kristy Swanson to appear on L&O as Anna Nic a drug-addled blonde bombshell with......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A serious MVA on the upper level of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, a suspicious package in Manhattan, and an overturned auto in Queens The things we learn as the Daily Intelligencer questions disclosure on Gawker... then FishbowlNY discloses some stuff about itself and Daily Intel Newly elected City Council members Mathieu Eugene and Vincent Ignizio are still not sworn in The stock market gained 0.4% today Do students really......

We've been wondering about the new public toilets ever since they were previewed last year. When are they coming? And how fast will they get wrecked? The Daily Intelligencer now reports that there are some concerns about the public toilets from City Council members. Members were asked to nominated two sites for potential potties, but some aren't interested. Councilwoman Jessica Lappin who covers Midtown East and the Upper East Side, said, "There isn’t really an......

There is tons of speculation all over the Internet about the Oscar nominations for films released in 2006. As an Oscars fiend, we're not going to digress about the calculus of vote-splitting. Instead, we'll point out a couple things we noticed: - Best surprise nomination: Ryan Gosling's Best Actor nomination for Half Nelson; Gosling plays a drug-addicted teacher in Brooklyn trying to help one of his students...it'll be on DVD in three weeks - see......

We got this email:I was just curious if you guys heard anything about the noise coming from the Con Ed plant at 14th Street and D last night. I live in Stuy Town, on 14th between B and C (well, I'm actually inside a bit, but between those blocks). Last night a little before 11 there was a ridiculously loud roaring sound coming from the plant. It seemed to be controlled because it would be......

Being mugged outside his Park Slope home is prompting Douglas Rushkoff and his family to consider moving from the Slope. Now, there's another case of a moment in your neighborhood that makes one want to leave: Bagel in Harlem blogger Rachel Nathalie Klein has decided to leave Harlem:I'm subletting my place in Harlem. I've left the neighborhood. I need a break. It's no secret that I move around a lot and in a previous post......

Yesterday, the holiday windows for Louis Vuitton were unveiled and no perfect-for-fashionistas monogrammed bags were on the display. Instead, huge lamps peering out onto the street are in the windows, in a work designed by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. Eliasson, who frequently uses lights and lamps (he designed the Weather Project that was a sensation at the Tate Modern in 2004), explained the holiday windows work, Eye See You, in the LVMH magazine:"Essentially, what I......

Yesterday's Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing over 980 Madison Ave. was a relatively staid affair. On the second floor of the Surrogate's Court building on Chambers Street, Lord Norman Foster told the 150-plus audience that 980 Madison Ave. was about one thing: regeneration. But Foster, wearing a bubblegum pink tie, took it one step further, characterizing the Upper East Side as a neighborhood with "a tradition of radicalism." He compared 980 Madison Ave.'s role, architecturally,......