A Jersey City mom was arrested this week after her six children were found home alone, running amok naked in the streets. Francine Davis, 40, faces child endangerment charges after neighbors discovered that her children, between the ages of 3 and 14, had been left alone for more than a day. She had left her autistic 14-year-old in charge. "They didn't know how to eat with forks," said Aaliyah Glover, the 16-year-old who took charge of the situation after she saw the kids nearly getting run over by cars. more ›

So what if you give your 13-year-old kid enough cash, credit cards and food for a week while you're in a foreign country for business because the police will still arrest you. Winnie Chaffee found out the hard way after spending a week in Taiwan—and keeping her adolescent daughter solo in their Croton-on-Hudson home without adult supervision—when she was charged with misdemeanor child endangerment. Her lawyer calls this an "unfortunate situation" for the single mom. more ›

At her bail hearing yesterday, Judge Philip Maenza agreed to cut Sarah Haines' bail from $100,000 to $10,000. Haines has been charged with second-degree child endangerment after leaving her 12-year-old daughter home alone for a week with $10 and three dogs. Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Meg Rodriguez agreed with the bail reduction, but said the state would need help in assuring Haines would return for future proceedings. She told the court, “This is a defendant who recklessly abandoned her child and abdicated her parental responsibility,” and noted there were “prior incidents where this defendant left the child home with other people (to care for the girl) and left the area for long periods of time." more ›

The New Jersey mom accused of leaving her 12-year-old home alone for a week while she flew to Washington to get married is expected at a bail hearing this afternoon. Though a friend checked in on Sarah Haines' daughter three days after she left, neighbors became worried for the child and called the police. Investigators found the house a mess and reeking of animal urine. Haines claims she never intended to stay away that long, but her flight got canceled and she was forced to take a bus home. She was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and is being held on $100,000 bail. more ›

Come to think of it, this is probably how all of those "Home Alone" movies would have really ended. A New Jersey mother was arrested and charged with second-degree child endangerment after leaving her 12-year-old daughter by herself for a week so she could fly to Washington to get married. Sarah Haines, 31, left her daughter in their Mount Olive home with three dogs and $10 to last her all week, and court papers say her daughter was "afraid to shower because she was scared since the front door unlocks itself." Perhaps the mom was just trying out this whole free range kid trend? more ›

An 11-year-old boy perished in a high-rise fire in Coney Island on Tuesday when he was left alone in his family's apartment. The fire broke out on the 15th floor of the Ocean Towers building on W. 24th street at around 12:15 pm, according to the Daily News. The boy's grandmother had left the apartment to go to the store just before the blaze broke out, and reportedly "broke down and wept when she returned home and saw the boy's lifeless body." The boy's name has not yet been released. "They were pumping his heart," witness Elphine Ahrendts, 14, told the tabloid. "His eyes were red [and] he only had on underwear ... He wasn't breathing ... They couldn't help him." more ›

Yesterday, a two-alarm fire broke out in a Corona home and after firefighters put it out, they found the body of 5-year-old Jason Guallpa, curled up behind a TV. The police later arrested his 24-year-old brother Diego with endangering the welfare of a child. more ›

The NY Times' Styles section describes the lonely existence of new residents of the Plaza Hotel condos. Why lonely? Well, if you can afford the pricey digs ($6,400 per square foot!; an owner interviewed paid $5.8 million for a two bedroom), your neighbors are also rich people who probably have other residences and don't live there very often. more ›

Two quite controversial and buzzed about movies hit New York theaters this weekend. So far the critical opinion of raving lunatic Mel Gibson's new foreign language feature, . Now we finally get to see the film they thought was going to be such a public relations nightmare. Leo plays a South African diamond smuggler who teams up with a Sierra Leone farmer (the always excellent Djimon Hounsou) to outwit a syndicate of businessmen. From the trailers it looks pretty heartpounding, and not just because the lovely Jennifer Connelly is also in it. more ›

Well, perhaps it's not a wise idea if you have a studio. Today is the last afternoon you can view various objects on sale from the Plaza Hotel at Christie's (the viewing is open until 5PM), but you can look at the catalog online and get ready for tomorrow's auction. Gothamist imagines some restaurant or hotel - or maybe a props department - will go for the furnishings, as well as some people who may have gotten married or engaged or met at the Plaza, because most of the stuff is really rococo - gilded, clunky and big. Maybe the buyers will have a 30,000 mansions they need to furnish. There are bellman uniforms available ($200-300), as are some red shoes from Eloise and even towels, while a Louis XVI style table is the most expensive (starting bid at $12,000). Want a Savonnerie style carpet? You got it. But what's certain is that none of this stuff will appear at Fishs Eddy. more ›

Maybe it's been a while since you sat down with some Law & Order Franchise and you've been missing your facetime with your Dr. George Huang, portrayed by the preternaturally calm B.D. Wong. We know we've been missing him lately, so tonight's the night to head over to Symphony Space (95th and Broadway) to check out Wong and Stephen Lang read stories from Roald Dahl and J. Robert Lennon, as part of the Selected Shorts series. Wong's a frequent reader for them, so if you can't make it tonight at 6:30PM, there's always another time. more ›

The condo-conversion at the Plaza wasn't going to be surprise anyone with a hefty pricetag. But who knew that a one bedroom would cost $4.5 million? Oh, okay, that 1155 square-foot one bedroom has Central Park views - one with inferior views goes for $2 million. The viewless two-three bedrooms are $3.75-8.5 million, while the park views means the asking price is a few million more. And the triplex duplex - $32.5 million. Upside: There is a subway station right at the Plaza, and you're not quite on the East Side. Downside: You could buy a couple residences for that money, plus have enough left over for some stupid fun shopping on Fifth Avenue (but people buying these apartments probably have millons under the pillow, so it's not a big deal for them). Gothamist just wants to know how much apartments that look like the hotel suite in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York would go for? more ›