• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an officer struck on 42nd St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a bomb threat on 76th St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, and a shooting on Mayfair Dr. in Brooklyn.
• Don't speed (108 m.p.h.), at night (2:30 a.m.), while drunk (.113 BAC), while tailgating and driving erratically, on an urban highway (Staten Island Expressway.) One young Brighton Beach resident didn't get the memo it seems.
• Councilman Leroy Comrie's efforts to halt the branding of soft and alcohol-based drinks "OG Nation," was recently successful, with the renaming of Larry Johnson and Jim Brown's snack and beverage company "Hall of Fame Beverages." No word on what the fate of the"Thug Chips" snacks brand is.
• After Hillary Clinton put her own money on the line by loaning $5 million of her own cash to her campaign, backers have ponied up $7.1 million in additional funding. The beauty of democracy: it brings a tear to our eye.
• Unfortunately, as police arrived at the Staten Island 9/11 Memorial today, a man shot himself in the head and died.
• The FDA is now questioning the safety of a widely used Botox [botulinum toxin] in injection as a beauty treatment. Thousands of New York women would love to express outrage at the revelation, but simply can't.
• Grub Street points out that one can do more than just eat at IHOP, one can now wear IHOP. And that means much more than just throwing up a half-stack of flapjacks on yourself at 5 a.m. after too much "syrup." We're talking IHOP apparel.
• Good question: New York City has its Bravest, Finest, Strongest, and Boldest, but what about the lawyers employed by the City. Do Jack McCoy and the legions of actual city attorneys who've served as his inspiration deserve an appellation? Suggestions welcome.

To no one's surprise, Senator-turned- actor-turned- presidential- candidate-wannabe Fred Thompson has dropped out of the hunt for the Republican party nomination. Thompson had not done very well in any of the early caucuses or primaries and his exit may actually mean a bump for Mike Huckabee, who has a similar more-conservative-than-the-others platform. more ›

Law & Order returned for its eighteenth season with two episodes last night. As producer Dick Wolf is wont to do, things on the show have changed. The cast changes have definitely skewed things younger and has made the show seem more like Law & Order: The Next Generation. Which isn't a bad thing, since it seemed more like a natural evolution. And don’t worry, we won’t reveal the endings of the episodes in case you TIVOed it. more ›

Law & Order is back for its eighteenth season and it is back in its traditional home of Wednesday at 10 p.m., although this week we get two hours starting at 9 p.m. and thanks to a stockpile of scripts written ahead of the writers strike, we can expect oodles of new episodes into the spring. Also thanks to the WGA strike, it will be the best thing on television for the for the foreseeable future. more ›

Robert Morgenthau's stranglehold on the position of Manhattan District Attorney has lasted 33 years but today's Post tittered that he was mulling an "early exit." Page Six reported that a "well-connected legal source" said the 88-year-old DA was orchestrating a retirement to have Cyrus Vance Jr. installed for a few years. Apparently Morgenthau wants Vance Jr., once an assistant DA, in place to block his former protegee and 2005 Democratic primary opponent Leslie Crocker Snyder,... more ›

Members of the Writers Guild of America have been striking in Los Angeles and New York this past week over details of a basic contract between writers and producers - one of the biggest sticking points is the amount of residuals writers get from DVD and new media distribution. The NY Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd asked Seth Meyers (who we spoke to on Tuesday) to give her a weekend update about the strike:... more ›

This might be the first time a British actor has played a Law & Order regular: Linus Roache will be playing the new Executive District Attorney. (Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy is getting a promotion to DA, since Fred Thompson has left the show to pursue a presidential campaign.) We foresee sexual tension between his character and Alana de la Garza's Connie Rubirosa! Is it a coincidence that Roache is the second star from short-lived NBC show Kidnapped to join the L&O cast - Jeremy Sisto is the new detective, accompanying Jesse L. Martin. Martin is only signed on for about half the season, so there may yet another cast change. Wolf said that he wants to attract a younger demographic and teased some of what Jack McCoy may face. From the Daily News:

Sam is not going to be the pragmatist the elected politicians have been. He's also going to be someone who goes through changes in his own attitude because he is doing a different job, and a lot of it is going to be fascinating because we talked openly about what happens to men of a certain age and a certain stature when the next generation comes in. There's a lot to play here.

Now that Law & Order has been renewed for four more seasons, shakeups to the cast have been expected. And the most notable one is that Fred Thompson, who plays District Attorney Arthur Branch, is leaving the show to pursue a presidential campaign. We hope the writers work that in! more ›

Now that he's been found medically fit to stand trial, jury selection has started in the trial of Peter Braunstein, the journalist who allegedly posed as a firefighter and molested a former co-worker on Halloween in 2005. The thing is 70% of the jurors questioned yesterday had heard about the trial and left, thanks to the moment-to-moment coverage of the case (exhibit A, B, C). But the NY Times said 30 prospective jurors who would be able to be fair remained. Can you imagine if you were on called to serve on that jury? more ›

Fans of Late Night with Conan O'Brien are familiar with the hilarious Pale Force cartoons that feature comedian Jim Gaffigan and O'Brien as very pasty crime fighters. But recently, the series hit a new high with the Law & Order: Pale Face story arc. more ›

] Attractive young actresses who look great in a suit, beware: If you're cast as the new assistant district attorney to work with Jack McCoy, your character might come to some sort of strange end. Last year - yes, just January 2005 - Elisabeth Rohm(bot) left the show and uttered those classic words, "Is it because I'm a lesbian?" and Annie Parisse filled her shoes as ADA Alexandra Borgia. But that's nothing compared to dying from aspirating through your duct taped mouth in a car trunk with blood all over your face, to be found by your boss and other police officers. A poster on the Television Without Pity forum (though not the "Earthy European Sexuality: ADA Alexandra 'Bertha' Borgia" forum) asked if she was forced to leave the show because she was heterosexual. Good question - insurance policies at the DA's office must be crazy. We can't wait to find out who is cast next, so we can write fanfic about how they'll be written off! more ›

Oh, to be a district attorney in NYC! Yesterday, at a rally outside Criminal Court, Sam Waterston voiced his support to get more funding for city DA's. He said, "The real DAs and ADAs deserve a lot of credit and not just for providing us the stories that keep us on the air," according to the Post. Yeah, we remember the episodes where the rich defendants or high profile defense attorneys belittle Jack McCoy's paltry executive assistant DA's salary - that's always a low blow. Anyway, it's smart to have Sam Waterston on your side, as it always seems like he's going to give you the best advice possible - that's probably why TD Waterhouse has now turned him into their spokesman. TD Waterhouse's ad agency says, "We decided he is a valuable, credible spokesman for the idea of independence. In his role on 'Law & Order,' he is the voice of critical, independent thinking." Waterston plays lawyers and dads really well - remember him as D.A Forrest Bedford in I'll Fly Away, the great NBC drama he was on before Law & Order? more ›

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Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes sure does have a lot of enemies. One of his rivals is pointing out many of his top assistant DA's don't live in Kings County, which might violate their "duty as public servants to live in the city where they work," as the Post puts it. John O'Hara filed a complaint with the Conflict of Interest Board; the Post notes that O'Hara has been "prosecuted three times for the felony crime of voting from an address that wasn't his primary residence," so it's a tit-for-tat deal. O'Hara hopes that many defense lawyers will try to get non-Brooklyn-residing assistant DA's recused from cases. As for the other boroughs, both Bronx and Staten Island ADA's live in their boroughs while Queens and Manhattan ADA's can live outside the city. Manhattan DA's were given an exception to the rule that says "at face value...assistants should be living in the five boroughs," according to the Staten Island DA's office. Interestingly, there was an interview with Annie Parisse about playing new assistant D.A. Alexandra Borgia on Law & Order. Parisse's backstory for Borgia is that she's "...unmarried...I live by myself in Brooklyn. I have a cat. I think my family is maybe a little hoity-toity and that I didn't want anything to do with that. A loner, who's maybe even socially defensive and not trusting." No word on if she's a lesbian; we'll probably find out on her last episode. Anyway, who knew that top ADA's made over $100,000? We always thought Jack McCoy made less than that for some reason. more ›

In the world of television, there is one television program that has been entertaining people for fourteen seasons and has attracted a wide following, hooked on the self-contained stories, doses of New York cynicism, and fight for justice in this crazy world, with some fans veering on the obssessive. This is a story about two of obsessive fans who got to visit the set of Law & Order. more ›

Check out the second batch of pictures from our visit to the set of Law & Order as well as the gallery of photos Jake took until the Gothamist post. more ›

Gothamist proudly displays our autographed picture of Sam Waterston in our home.
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Choire, if you're in locked up for contempt of court, Gothamist will be sure to have our good friend, Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy see what he can do. Oh, wait, he's not real...okay, we'll start a tip jar for your legal fund. more ›

Watch the ad here on AdAge. more ›