Widely-respected critic Clive Barnes lost his battle with cancer yesterday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. He was 81. The British-born, Oxford-educated Barnes began his career assailing what he perceived to be an ignorant provincialism pervading dance criticism post-World War II; while other critics turned up their noses at pioneers like Martha Graham, Barnes was an early champion in England. He began covering dance for the New York Times in '65, then took over the......

There was a fatal bicycle accident last night on the Williamsburg Bridge bike and pedestrian path; an initial report tells us that the accident involved "a cyclist vs. a guardrail" and that the cyclist was DOA at the hospital. [Update below.] Unlike last autumn's death of Sam Hindy, who accidentally pedaled onto the Manhattan Bridge roadway, this incident took place on the designated area for cyclists and pedestrians. But sections of the Williamsburg Bridge......

Tenants of 64 Troutman Street in Bushwick were joined by City Council members at City Hall Friday to announce a lawsuit against their landlord under the Tenant Protection Act. Passed last March, the law is intended to protect tenants whose landlords are trying to drive them out of the building using such tactics as turning off the hot water or ripping out the toilet. Residents of 64 Troutman say conditions at their building have become......

Former TV producer Julie Horner Lankamp was found dead in her Gold Street apartment Tuesday with "her crying young daughter clutching her legs," as the Daily News sensationally puts it. Relatives say they hadn't spoken with Lankamp since Sunday and police don't know how long the two-year-old had been stranded with her mother's body, which had begun to decompose. Lankamp had a broken jaw, bruises, and dried blood pooled near her nose and mouth, but......

Looks like trouble is following Lil' Kim into her 33rd year, or at least the headlines are: A 24-year-old woman, Ingrid Rivera, was found dead last night in a rooftop utility closet of midtown club Spotlight Live, where she attended the rapper's birthday party on Sunday. It is believed she was "beaten with a blunt object — possibly a champagne bottle — and left for dead." The NY Post reports that Rivera, a JFK ticket......

While you were sleeping, the Montauk Monster story kept spinning, this time landing on PlumTV, Newsday and...CNN. In an attempt to reassure a jittery public, the CNN quotes "experts" who say it's either a dog or raccoon; some think it may have washed up from the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. Newsday got a hold of another photo, which some people think makes the "monster" look much more canine (maybe that Corwin guy does know......

The media is observing the recent death of influential New York Magazine founder Clay Felker with a predictable avalanche of eulogies. New York has an elegant essay from Tom Wolfe (who also double-dipped his B material for Time), rounded out with a big collective tribute from colleagues and friends ranging from Gore Vidal to Tim Zagat. Elsewhere, Jon Carroll recalls Felker comparing feet with Milton Glaser, Voice theater critic Michael Feingold recounts his discourteous first......

Clay Felker, founder of New York magazine – a publication he once described as a guide to “how the power game is played, and who are the winners” – died this morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 82 and had been battling cancer of the throat and mouth. Felker started New York in 1964 as a Sunday supplement to The New York Herald Tribune; when that paper folded he collaborated with graphic designer......

George Carlin, a native of Morningside Heights, died of heart failure yesterday in California. He was 71. The iconoclastic comedian was famously arrested (pictured) after doing his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine during a 1972 performance in Milwaukee (you can see video of a 1978 performance after the jump). When the words were later aired on WBAI, the ensuing lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court, who ruled in......

A former city employee could face seven years in jail and a lifetime of ghoulish haunting if convicted of stealing $3,300 from a dead person’s safety deposit box. Arthur Orikher pulled the scam while working as an accountant for a Kings County office that administers the estates of those who die without a will or families. Assuming it’s the same Arthur Orikher who owns this gorgeous Siberian cat, can you really blame him for wanting......

Groundbreaking postwar artist Robert Rauschenberg died last night at the age of 82. The adventurous painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, set designer and composer was born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg on Oct. 22, 1925, in Port Arthur, Texas, a small refinery town with little cultural stimuli. (In his adult life he took the name Robert.) His father worked for a local utility, and the family’s lifestyle was so financially tight that, according to the Times, Rauschenberg’s mother......

The Justice Department is denying federal benefits to the families of the two auxiliary police officers who were brutally killed by a marauding gunman in the West Village last year. Yevgeniy Marshalik's and Nicholas Pekearo's families each applied for $300,000 in benefits, part of the 2003 “Hometown Heroes” Congressional bill for families of first-responders killed in the line of duty. But the DOJ doesn't think they qualify, because NYC's “auxiliary police are not recognized as......

Okay people, time for your morning update on The Ledge – come on, you know you want it. Even Daniel Day Lewis says there’s nothing else to talk about. (Scroll down.) Sorry we’re late, but there are a lot of new developments this morning. First and foremost, Heath Ledger is, sadly, still dead. Second! Before calling 911, Diana Wolozin, the unlicensed massage therapist who found Ledger’s body, used Ledger’s phone to speed dial Mary-Kate Olsen......

Actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his downtown Manhattan apartment by the police. Some reports say he died from an overdose. UPDATE 5:00PM :According to the NYPD spokesman, Ledger, who was living in an apartment at Broome street, "had an appointment for a massage...The housekeeper who went to let Ledger know the masseuse was there, and found him dead at 3:26 p.m" with "pills strewn all around him." The housekeeper and masseuse tried......