• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck at 186th St. and Amsterdam in Manhattan, a child was struck and killed by a car on 130th Ave. and Springfield Blvd. in Queens, and a pedestrian was struck by a Bobcat (motorized work vehicle) on Monroe St. and Catherine Slip in Manhattan.
• Ironic Sans examines the new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and finds specific references to it taking place in NYC, but a very unspecific skyline of unrecognizable buildings.
• A candid admission at the blog dailyheights.com and advice that is is a terrible idea and dangerous to wander off the subway late at night while completely intoxicated.
• Sprint has hired Samsung to install a fourth-generation level of wireless Internet known as Wi-Max in NYC by the end of 2008.
• Republican Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney is presenting NYC to the rest of the country as a paradigm of the ills of illegal immigration. Bloomberg News columnist Amity Shlaes contends that he is badly mistaken.
• A pair of NYC sanitation workers sprinted across three lanes of traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway after witnessing an accident last summer, and then kicked through a car's sunroof to pull a woman and an infant from the overturned vehicle, which was smoking and leaking gasoline.
• Gov. Spitzer's aide Darren Dopp will take some vacation time before returning to work, but his suspension has been lifted following his participation in a scandal to embarrass Majority Leader Joe Bruno with the help of State Police.
• Police are looking for a pair of men who pose as plumbers in Manhattan while burgling the apartments of elderly women.

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Who doesn't love the ice cream man? Not many people. Which is why Matt Allen is pretty popular, since he is, after all, THE Ice Cream Man. Allen drives around the country handing out free frozen treats - so far his travels have taken him (and his '69 Chevy ice cream truck affectionately named Bessie) from St. Jude Children's Hospital to Bonnaroo to McCarren Park Pool (where he'll be this Sunday). Recently, we asked him what life on the good ship ice cream truck is like... more ›

We were glad to see The New York Times giving front-page treatment (of the Metro section anyway) to a group of city employees who probably don't get as much recognition as they deserve. The Times' Ellen Barry was on hand for the 20th Annual Operators' Challenge yesterday, where six teams competed to determine who was the best of the best among city sewer workers. more ›

article about the annual Air Guitar Championships in Oulu, New Yorkers Kriston Rucker and Cedric Devitt traveled to Finland to attend the event and discovered it lacked an American competitor. Back in the States they founded US Air Guitar and held their first qualifying event at the Pussycat Lounge in the Financial District. Little did they know about the untapped, overwhelming enthusiasm for air guitar in this country as hundred of amateur rockers came out for that qualifier and a subsequent one in Los Angeles at the Roxy. more ›

Testimony in the trial of Paul Cortez, accused of murdering ex-girlfriend Catherine Woods, was completed yesterday after the prosecution questioned Cortez. The prosecution tried to prove that Cortez was jealous of Woods' ex-boyfriend David Haughn, who still lived with Woods even while they were broken up and Woods was dating Cortez. Assistant DA Peter Casolaro said, "Your competition was an inarticulate, uneducated, slow, not-much-to-look-at rube from Ohio, right?" after saying that Cortez was "physically fit, talented and articulate" (Cortez thanked him). more ›

Happy Friday the 13th! Get out there and tempt fate this weekend... more ›