Connecticut police arrested a 38-year-old woman for risk of injury to a minor for leaving her five-year-old son in a casino hotel room so she could gamble. And police found out what happened because her son called 911. more ›

After the bus crash that killed 15 in the Bronx on Saturday and the crash that killed two in NJ on Monday, lawmakers are becoming more and more concerned with the cheap buses that ferry people from Chinatown to various points on the East Coast. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have now co-sponsored a bill that would require bus drivers to receive training. That's right, as NY1 reports, "Currently, federal regulations do not require drivers to have training." more ›

The driver of the bus that overturned crashed into a highway sign pole, killing 15 passengers, met with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and State Police today. Ophadell Williams, 40, left his home in Brooklyn with reporters swarming him (video) as his claims that he swerved to avoid a tractor trailer seem to be refuted by witnesses and as reports of his criminal past surface. more ›

The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched a team of investigators to look into the fatal bus crash that claimed 14 lives on I-95 in the Bronx over the weekend. The bus, operated by World Wide Tours, was traveling from Mohegan Sun back to Chinatown when it overturned and slid hundreds of feet into a highway sign pole; the pole then sliced the bus in half, killing and maiming passengers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the NTSB said "investigators hoped that a black box that records data about how fast the bus was going and other factors would tell them if the driver was speeding. They also planned to look at footage from a camera pointed at passengers on the bus." more ›

In any story about a prostitution ring there are a few things you can expect to find. Fake massage parlors. Queens. Gambling. And this one has the added benefit of the madam in question being featured on "America's Most Wanted." An Soon Kim (aka "Big Sister Kim") has been wanted since 2006 for bringing Korean women into America with false documents and making them work as prostitutes in a ring reaching from Washington D.C. to Rhode Island. more ›

Did you know that the owners of a billion dollar-grossing casino needed federal stimulus money? According to ABC News, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) helped support the measure which will benefit the "politically well-connected Mohegan Indian tribe." more ›

Between obstructed views, the return of alcohol sales and just simply the newfound ability to walk around the entire stadium, the Yankee Stadium Bleacher Creatures may end up missing out on quite a bit of on the field play this year. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Utica Ave. in Brooklyn, an attempted bank robbery on East Fordham Rd. in the Bronx, and a large tree down on East 114th St. and 91st Ave. in Queens..
• Buzz over the much-anticipated J.J. Abrams feature code-named "Cloverfield" has precipitated to something much more solid: a feature named "Cloverfield." The Internet's been speculating about the horror-thriller with a trailer that includes the decapitation of the Statue of Liberty for months.
• Writers' strike be damned, late night hosts like Letterman, Leno, and Conan may be back on the air sooner rather than later.
• ConEd is shutting down its last direct current power plant in New York, which was located in Midtown East Manhattan. New York's first power plant was on Pearl St. and founded by Thomas Edison himself, who favored direct to the more currently prevalent alternating current.
• A Brooklyn man was arrested for allegedly marking cards at CT's Mohegan Sun casino in a game of Texas Hold 'Em.
• Today was the last day of New Yorkers for apply for relief aid after August's damaging storms. Applicants can call 1-800-621-FEMA, or apply through www.fema.gov.
• A thief shot himself, after attempting to shove a gun in his pants during a Long Island home invasion.
• Sen. Fred Thompson and L&O alumnus returns to NYC.

New York may have a casino in Vegas, but it has never had one in...New York. Well, not in quite some time -- though it is documented that there were casinos on Broadway in SoHo in the early 1800s (and of course in the 1900s there were places like Chumley's that secretly served as gambling dens). To legally gamble within city limits these days you only have a couple of options: OTB or the NY State Lottery. more ›

Yesterday morning, Pamela Haahr-Oribe was jogging near Third Avenue and Bergen Street when a bus hit her. The Daily News reports she had slipped on snow around 8:40AM before a Bestway Coach bus collided into her. Haahr-Oribe suffered head injuries and is in critical condition at Lutheran Medical Center. more ›

Oh, to be a child again! The NY Times has a story about the city's efforts to develop a new playground concept for lower Manhattan. The city has been working with designer David Rockwell on a playground that would include things like foam blocks, water, cardboard tubes, burlap bags, ramps, climbing nets and even "play workers" to help kids, uh, play.

Developers of the Lower Manhattan project envision groups of children collaborating, for instance, loading containers with sand, hoisting them up with pulleys and then lowering them down to wagons waiting to be wheeled off to another part of the park. more ›