Stand clear of the platform edge and then some: A 14-year-old boy fell into the tracks at the Kings Highway subway station when the platform partially collapsed. Avi Katz was able to get away before the approaching Q train made it into the station. Katz had been at the station around 6PM on January 29 and, per WABC 7, "stepped onto the edge of the platform to see if his train was coming." The platform,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an officer assaulted on Church Ave. and 53rd St. in Brooklyn, a car into a coffee shop in the area of Skillman and 50th in Queens, and two people shot on Park Ave. and 17th St. in Manhattan. An insurance broker pleaded guilty to idiotic target practice that launched arrows from his compound bow on the Upper East Side. Bono and Bloomberg's mutual admiration society. Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov......

After weeks of media attention about the rising incidence of people, especially students, being afflicted by an antibiotic-resistant strain of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, more commonly known as a staph infection, MRSA has struck NYC. The Health Department confirmed that Omar Rivera Jr., a 7th grader at I.S. 411 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, died of MRSA on October 14. When the school found out about the child's death last week, it contacted the DOH to investigate.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a confined space rescue at The Beverly Hotel on 50th St. in Manhattan, a pedestrian struck on West 145th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, and a fall victim on West 24th St. in Manhattan. Former NY State chief judge Sol Wachtler got his law license back, 14 years after pleading guilty to being a stalker. Some Jewish leaders are angry that Mayor Bloomberg met with London mayor Ken......

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting Columbia University today to give a speech for the World Leaders Forum. And he continued to get a big New York-style welcome: The Daily News has its "The Evil Has Landed" cover while Assemblyman Dov Hikind told protesters outside Columbia's gates yesterday, “He should be arrested when he comes to Columbia University, not speak at the university, for God’s sake. I call on New Yorkers to make the......

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad headed to New York today, but not telling Iranian state-run TV, "The United States is a big and important country with a population of 300 million. Due to certain issues, the American people in the past years have been denied correct and clear information about global developments and are eager to hear different opinions." He added that the U.N. General Assembly was an "important podium" for Iran's views to be......

The State Assembly voted in favor of allowing same-sex marriages in New York. Newsday said it was the first time a gay marriage bill was "debated publicly in one of the houses of the State Legislature Tuesday." However, the bill is not expected to make it pass the Republican-controlled Senate. Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said, "We're not doing gay marriage by [tomorrow's adjournment], that's for sure." The Sun had a breakdown of how the......

Yesterday, NBC News revealed that Virginia Tech shooting gunman Cho Seung-Hiu sent them a package of photographs, writings, and video - a "multimedia manifesto." The network turned over the materials to the authorities but also shared the package's contents during the evening news last night and on its website. Quickly, the images of Cho holding guns in both hands, pointing a gun at his head, pointing a gun at the camera, and more, started......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Broadway in Queens, a water rescue from the Bronx River, and a retaining wall collapse on Waterview Ct. on Staten Island. A judge awarded equal custody of a 17-month-old infant to the child's father, the boyfriend of Jennifer Rubell. She is the daughter niece of the late club impressario Steve Rubell, and previously claimed her boyfriend was a stoner mooch, who refused to leave her......

Chief of Police Joseph Esposito apologized for his remarks during the Borough Park protest-riot Tuesday night. Esposito doesn't mention using Jewish slurs (as some have charged him), but did say that he used the F-bomb to intimidate crowds to stop, as they were angry over rough treatment (real? perceived?) of a 75 year old Hasidic man pulled over and arrested for driving while talking on the cellphone and not responding to the police. Assemblyman Dov......

The NY Civil Liberties Union is filing a lawsuit against New York City that questions whether the NYPD's subway bag checks are constitutional. The NYCLU argues that the bag checks are "virtually certain neither to catch any person trying to carry explosives into the subway nor to deter such an effort" and "unprecedented in terms of the threat it poses to core constitutional rights." There are five plaintiffs on the suit, one who is......

Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind made some controversial remarks over the weekend, saying the subway bag checks were ineffective and that the NYPD should use racial profiling to look for suspected terrorists. Now, Gothamist agrees with the former point, but terrorists can come in all shapes and sizes - the people of Oklahoma City would probably like to remind him of that. Sure, no one wants to have to search the "75-year-old grandmother, with sloping shoulders,......

Last night, Gothamist threw our mail on the table and ignored it while we made some Very Important Calls (to discuss the impending panda pregnancy - twins! - in San Diego, the newborn panda in DC, and tiger cubs nursing on sows). And the next thing we realized was that we had been staring at Mayor Bloomberg's face for five minutes - AUGH! It was his reelection flyer, and let's talk about a Photoshop......