Following the lead of Mayor Bloomberg and other city councilmembers, Queens State Senator José Peralta says he will introduce legislation this week that will require local health departments to set up a letter-grade systems for food carts. Perhaps this will allow the food vendors to end the siege that is the Great Food Truck Crackdown of 2011 and literally come clean. more ›

Through the confusing maelstrom of the Bin Laden news deluge, comes clarity. Taiwanese animation studio Next Media Animation has released a subtle account—if subtle involves a slow-motion, John Woo style shoot-out and U.S. forces urinating on a corpse—of Bin Laden's final moments, and the jingoistic reaction of the American people in its aftermath. more ›

It's rough out there for a street vendor. Three men were arrested recently after allegedly threatening to kill a rival halal food vendor if he didn't find a new corner to work. Yacine Aouimer, 36, and two accomplices are accused of attacking Mohamed Ismail, 34, at knifepoint in Crotona Park in March, holding the knife to his throat and yelling, "If I see you again, I will kill you!" Police sources tell the Post they also stole $422 from Ismail's apron pocket, then slashed a tire on his food cart for good measure. more ›

The man suspected of stabbing and killing a college student who cut in line at a Midtown food cart told cops that the victim's brother put a knife to his neck moments before the fatal altercation. Ziad Tayeh, 26, is on trial for manslaughter after a 2006 dispute with 19-year-old victim Tyrone Noel Gibbons, his brother Shannon Gibbons, and a friend at the Halal Chicken and Gyro stand at 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue. After the three men cut in line, they exchanged words with Tayeh: "I was hungry," he told police during a videotaped confession screened for jurors. "They called me a punk!" more ›

The man accused of fatally stabbing a teenager who cut the line at a popular midtown gyro and chicken cart told the officer who arrested him that he was acting in self-defense. The violent incident took place one night around 4 a.m. in October 2006, after Ziad Tayeh, 26, accused two brothers, Shannon and Tyrone Gibbons, of cutting ahead of him in line. Shannon says, "We just ignored him," but after they drove off with their food, Tayeh allegedly chased them in his white Lexus SUV. more ›

The NY Times has an article about the city's slaughterhouses, noting how many have sprung up "because of the demands of immigrants from countries where eyeballing your meat while it is alive is considered common sense." A native of Trinidad explained, “I like to see it fresh and choose what I want." There's also a slideshow inside a few of them, which hold various types of animals, like cows, goats, chickens (and where, sometimes, a few escape). Still, some Queens residents weren't thrilled "about having mom-and-pop abattoirs next door"—one "feared [a potential] stink would ruin backyard barbecues"—and managed to get a law passed banning new slaughterhouses from within 1,500 feet of a residence for four years. And there's plenty of other bureaucracy for live animal markets; Tom Mylan of Marlow and Daughters butcher shop in Brooklyn blames the meat lobby and mourned, "We’re used to going into the grocery store and there’s not even a butcher counter, just a bunch of foam trays with a lot of anonymous blobs of meat in them." more ›