[UPDATE BELOW] It's hard out there for a Happy Meal. Two state officials today spoke about separate plans to regulate New Yorkers' caloric intakes. The first initiative comes from City Councilman Leroy Comrie Jr., who wants to follow San Francisco and ban toys from fast-food meals unless the meals meet certain n utritional standards, including that they have fewer than 500 calories. Comrie said in a statement, "By ensuring that toys are only given away with meals which meet the nutritional guidelines set out in this bill, children will be more likely to pick the healthier meals when they do visit fast food restaurants. Children, lured in with toy giveaways at an early age, are more likely to develop a habit of eating unhealthily." more ›

With the rest of the budget looking bleak, parking meters are apparently one of Mayor Bloomberg's few remaining cash cows. The city is anticipating an increase in the amount of money generated by parking meters, bringing earnings to $157 million—up 50 percent from two years ago. That cash, combined with money from towing fees and city-owned parking lots, constitutes a $1 billion revenue stream that shows no signs of drying up, the Advance reports. more ›

After two fires with fatalities and one with a firefighter injury, the Uniformed Firefighters Association and City Councilman Leroy Comrie expressed outrage over the FDNY's response to Queens fires. They say the new pilot dispatch program is endangering lives. more ›

• 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.

A building that formerly housed the Jamaica Savings Bank is total landmark bait. It was even called "the finest Beaux-Arts building in Queens" by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. But now the building's current owner may stand in the way of the third attempt to landmark the building. more ›

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is seeking the dismissal of a civil suit against her filed by Council Member Charles Barron's former chief of staff Viola Plummer. Quinn gave Plummer the boot when the councilman's aide refused to sign a pledge to compose herself while the City Council was in session. more ›

Two bills are facing off in the City Council these days, pitting the rights of landlords against the rights of tenants. Both seek to end legal harassment of one group against the other. In one corner, we have the bill introduced by Council members Daniel Garodnick and Melissa Mark-Viverito. It seeks to curb harassment of tenants by landlords who withhold services (e.g. heat, disrepair) by allowing them to file restraining orders against their landlords. The current system requires tenants to head to housing court. In the other corner, we have a bill introduced by Council members Leroy Comrie and Thomas White Jr. that would protect landlords from legal harassment from tenants. They fear that frivolous lawsuits could bankrupt small-scale property owners. more ›

Retired football great Jim Brown is the president of a new snack food and beverage company and City Councilman Leroy Comrie is not happy about it. Brown's company is called OG Nation, which Comrie says stands for "original gangster." The company currently markets "King Pin" lager and a line of mixed drinks under the brand "Party Dogg." According to Newsday, Arizona-based OG Nation is also developing a line of potato chips, pretzels, pork rinds, and dips that will be marketed as "Thug Chips." more ›

A federal judge dismissed defamation charges against City Councilman John Liu related to an incident last year when Liu called radio personality DJ Star a "sick, racist pedophile." The characterization was a reaction to an on-air taunt at a rival DJ, when DJ Star (Troi Torain), solicited information on where DJ Envy of Hot 97 lived so he could sexually defile his four-year-old daughter. DJ Star also called DJ Envy's wife, who is Asian, several racist epithets. Torain was arrested following the incident and eventually fired from Power 105. more ›

Usually married people, when not fighting, are pretty supportive their spouses, but that's not the case with Congressman Gregory Meeks and his wife Simone-Marie Meeks. Rep. Meeks is backing his congressional aide, Brian Simon, instead of his wife for the City Council seat being vacated by Leroy Comrie because of term limits. The seat for the 27th District represents parts of southeast Queens and Comrie started the movement to ban the N-word and was threatened by Viola Plummer. more ›

Yesterday, we briefly mentioned that Viola Plummer, former City Council staffer under Councilman Charles Barron, was forcibly removed from a City Council meeting. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn fired Plummer, who had heckled her during meetings and referenced an "assassination" of another City Council member (assassination of his career, Plummer later claimed), for not agreeing to behave during meetings. Plummer filed a $1 million lawsuit against Quinn and continues to work for Barron as a volunteer. more ›

Councilman Charles Barron stood on the steps of Brooklyn's Borough Hall yesterday and announced that he would be running to become the first African-Amercian Borough President in Brooklyn's history. The Daily News reports that Barron wasted no time in denigrating the current Beep Marty Markowitz. "We've had a cheerleader. Now we need a real leader in Brooklyn." Barron was referring to Markowitz's seemingly perpetual sunny disposition and love of public appearances while looking faintly ridiculous. more ›

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn fired Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff Viola Plummer yesterday. Quinn had required Plummer to sign a letter agreeing to behave during meetings, after Plummer heckled Quinn during a meeting about street namings and made reference to an "assassination" of Councilman Leroy Comrie, but Plummer refused (she has maintained that she meant a "assassination" of Comrie's character and/or political prospects). And Plummer filed a $1 million racial discrimination suit against Quinn. more ›

When you're a public employee who threatens a City Councilman with assassination, the logical step would be to A) apologize B) lay low and hope people forget about the incident C) accept a temporary suspension D) sue the city for $1 million. Charles Barron's chief of staff Viola Plummer is going with the latter choice and suing New York City for "severe mental anguish and emotional distress." Mind you, this is for an incident that began when she threatened to have a man killed for voting the wrong way in the City Council. Plummer was then suspended from city employment for six weeks by Quinn, initiating the lawsuit. more ›

Despite having been defeated in a City Council vote, where his chief of staff heckled Council Speaker Christine Quinn and threatened a black councilman with assassination, Councilman Charles Barron renamed a street in Brooklyn "Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue" anyway, declaring that the renaming "is official whether they [presumably the city] take that sign down or not." Sonny Carson's name was struck from a list of people who would get honorary street signs earlier this spring. Council Speaker Quinn felt he was too divisive a figure in the city's history. This sparked a City Hall battle that frayed nerves and invoked additional police protection. more ›

As if the whole failed Sonny Carson street naming proposal brouhaha needed more wackiness! Today, The New York Sun takes a look at City Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff, Viola Plummer. During the Sonny Carson street naming debate, Plummer heckled City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and later threatened an assassination "on" another member, Leroy Comrie, who abstained from voting. Barron had laughed the incident off as political squabbling between political opponents, but one couldn't help be reminded of the assassination of Brooklyn Councilman James Davis in 1994 more ›

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn struck Sonny Carson's name from a list of of New Yorkers to be honored with a street named after them because she thought the political activist was too divisive a figure. Carson was a proponent of black economic empowerment and was distemperate in his views of other New York groups (e.g., whites, Jews, Koreans). Councilman Charles Barron, who shares Carson's past as a radical activist, thought Carson's exclusion from the list was more divisive than anything Carson had ever done, and indeed, voting on an amendment Wednesday to re-add his name split almost entirely down racial lines and the session was extremely acrimonious. more ›

Things got heated in the City Council yesterday as former Black Panther and Council Member Charles Barron squared off against Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who had removed the name of Sonny Carson from a list of people to be honored with having streets named after them. Sonny Carson was an activist who railed against Korean grocers and, not wanting to limit himself to an accusation of anti-Semitism, said he was anti-white in general. Quinn feels that Carson was a divisive figure in New York's history and Barron thinks he was an important individual who united his community. more ›

The best rapper in the Mets organization might be Lastings Milledge, but he shouldn't be expecting a call-up because of his music anytime soon. Milledge a 22 year-old outfield prospect for the Mets who was briefly in the bigs last season. While with the Mets last year, some criticized him for his showiness at times, being late, and not running hard on the basepaths. In 166 at bats, Milledge had a .241 average. Though he's currently in the minor leagues and on the DL, it doesn't mean he can't cause controversy. Besides playing baseball, Milledge dabbles in the music business as the CEO of Soul-ja Boi records, a label he co-founded in Florida. Milledge raps as L Millz (is that for millions or Milledge - the double entendre is brilliant!) in "Bend Ya Knees," a track by Manny D, the label's "premier artist". The lyrics in the song (which you can listen to at their website) have shocked some people with lyrics that the Daily News excerpts as: "rich (N word)," "wealthy (N word)," a "top-notch ho" and having "a different bitch for every night." Gothamist could swear we heard something about getting high in the song too. more ›

The melt-down in the sub-prime mortgage market has gotten a lot of ink this month-- but until you look at this map, it's hard to understand the true impact of these kinds of loans on the city. These subprime companies target low-income families with teaser-rates and special promotions, and often get them sign to up for mortgages without even checking to see if they have enough income to make the payments. The Daily News reports: more ›

Today, Mayor Bloomberg met with the Bronx fire victims' families and later held a press conference about the tragedy, which is the deadliest fire (aside from September 11) since 1990 . The Mayor has been under fire for leaving the city yesterday - after a Thursday press conference about the fire - for a scheduled appearance in Miami, where he made jokes about "Mayors Gone Wild" in South Beach. more ›

After many months of discussion, the City Council passed a bill to regulate the pedicab industry. Pedicab advocates, who agree that the industry should be regulated, are upset about the City Council's battery of regulations, such as a cap of 325 pedicabs and being banned from Midtown during the holidays. Additionally, $2 million insurance plans will be required, which is similar to what taxi cabs have, and pedicabs with electric motors would be banned. Read the list of regulations at On NY Turf. more ›

Yesterday, the City Council passed a "symbolic ban" on the n-word. City Councilman Leroy Comrie introduced the resolution earlier this month, and he said, "I'm hoping this is the beginning of a move forward to a place where the use of the N-word is simply unacceptable. So many people have been quietly seething about this for a long time. It's time to bring it into the open." more ›

City Councilman Leroy Comrie wants the city to ban the n-word. Comrie said he hoped that a dialogue would be sparked by his resolution and that society can move "toward a place where the n-word is simply unacceptable to be used in any context." And hip hop pioneer Kurtis Blow, who joined Comrie at the press conference, said, "We need to stop looking at ourselves like we are niggas or niggers, so that we can elevate our minds to a better future. So I challenge the hip-hop community, I challenge you to abolish that word during the month of February - Black History Month - and beyond." more ›

Well, you can't blame City Councilman Leroy Comrie for lack of optimism. Comrie, who represents the 27th District, had considered introducing a bill that would have banned cellphones in restaurants. Seriously. However, the NY Sun now reports that bill will probably not be presented at all, after Comrie heard complaints from the restaurant industry.

"I was surprised at the feedback from the restaurant owners, that they didn't like it," Mr. Comrie, a Democrat of Queens, said. The idea for the law came out of discussions with his staff, as well as the annoying experiences of having restaurant meals disrupted by rude cell phones users, including one, he recalled, in which a patron appeared to be conducting play-by-play of a baseball game over the phone. more ›