FADE IN: A 50-yr-old beatnick heads west from New York City, hobo stick slung over shoulder, humming Tom Petty's "Last Dance With Mary Jane" while the lyrics run through his head. "Well, I don't know, but I've been told, You never slow down, you never grow old. I'm tired of screwin' up, tired of going down, Tired of myself, tired of this town." It's looking bleak. Enter: Pittsburgh! more ›

Allen Weber says he went to Pittsburgh last month to photograph the street protests at the G20 summit, but police say he behaved like just another anarchist. According to Pittsburgh police Officer Brian Nicholas, Weber was one of hundreds of demonstrators gathered in a plaza on the evening of September 24th, after police had ordered everyone to disperse. Nicholas was in the front seat of an armored SWAT truck, and he dropped a smoke grenade from the truck, about 15 feet from the crowd. more ›

That's right, a Twitter crackdown. A lawyer for Jackson Heights social worker Elliot Madison, 41, says that the feds searched his client's house for 16 hours on Thursday after Madison was arrested on September 24th at a Pittsburgh hotel room with another man. What were they up to? Sitting at laptops sending Twitter messages advising G20 demonstrators about riot police activity in the streets. And yet real Twitter threats like Lindsay Lohan and Courtney Love remain at large. more ›

Have you seen this intense outtake from Children of Men, showing riot police blasting "fugees" with some sort of horrible "sound cannon"? Oh, actually, this isn't from a fictional movie about a dystopian police state; it's from last week in Pittsburgh, where G20 protesters had dared assemble without a permit from the government. For that, they were dispersed with the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which some fear is loud enough to damage eardrums and even cause fatal aneurysms. Like Freedom Rock, you really need to turn it up, man: more ›

Mr. Met already has enough to worry about when his team is in town, what with fans disgracing his wholesome image, drunkenly attacking him to the point that he's ready to snap. Now the poor guy's going to pick up the papers today and be as green as the team's commemorative St. Paddy's jerseys when he finds out that his Amazins have been canoodling with a whole throng of other mascots while on their road trip down in Pittsburgh. more ›

For the Giants, the opening of free agency saw them lose three players. Kawika Mitchell went to the Bills, Reggie Torbor to the Dolphins and Gibril Wilson to the Raiders. The loss of Wilson will hurt the most, but remember he was once a fifth-round pick. GM Jerry Reese proved last year that he is very good drafting players and won’t overpay in the free agent market, so don’t panic the Super Bowl champs will be just fine. more ›

• Devils 5, Hurricanes 1: To be fair, Carolina was without three of its best players, but even a full-strength Hurricanes team would have had trouble with the Devils. New Jersey allowed only 22 shots the entire game and blew by Carolina for its seventh win in nine games. That makes them tied for the Eastern Conference lead with Ottawa and Montreal and two points clear of Pittsburgh in the Atlantic Division. The Senators and the Penguins, however, have a game in hand. Travis Zajac, Mike Mottau, Jay Pandolfo, Johnny Oduya and Zach Parise all took part in the scoring. This was classic shutdown mode for a team peaking at the right time.
• Islanders 3, Sharks 2: If you can't beat the opposing goaltender, why not bloody his face and then get the puck into the net? That more teams haven't tried this method is one of the world's biggest unsolved mysteries. Radek Martinek couldn't get the puck home, but he did do enough damage to Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov's mask that the netminder had to get stitches. He probably should have stayed in the dressing room. Andy Hilbert and Mike Comrie helped tie the game in less than a minute, and then Freddy Meyer did the glamorous work to give the Islanders a home win. They're one point out of a playoff spot, but they've played more games than Buffalo, Boston and Philadelphia, the teams above them in the Eastern Conference standings.

Former Ranger, Mathieu Schneider scored first and although New York tied things up at 1-1, they never got back in the game. The Ducks scored two times in the second to break things open and Todd Bertuzzi iced it at 12:13 of the third with his 12th goal of the year. more ›

• Clippers 103 Knicks 94: New York Giants Sam Madison, Kevin Dockery and R.W. McQuarters showed up for the game, which provided a great diversion from what happened on the floor. Leading 60-51 at halftime, the Knicks were blown away in the third quarter, getting outscored 28-14 as the Clippers cruised to the win. more ›

As of this month, New Yorkers will have an easier time finding their long lost gloves. A website called One Cold Hand has launched to reconnect bare hands with missing mittens. The site first launched in Pittsburgh (New York is the second city to get a helping hand) and their mission is simple:

We are connecting the community of the five boroughs through one unfortunate event – the loss of a glove. This site creates a method for dealing with the conundrum of finding these lost articles. Do you leave it and hope the owner comes back to find it? Do you pick it up? Throw it away? With onecoldhand-nyc.com, the abandoned object now becomes a symbol of benevolence and hope.

But, it wasn’t just the top guys. Chris Drury had added two points and the defense held Pittsburgh to 18 shots. Henrik Lundqvist looked solid in net, coming up some big saves when he was finally tested in the third period. more ›

Jamal Crawford led the way with 32 points and Zach Randolph added 20. Even Eddy Curry looked interested with 23 points and 9 rebounds, only his third game of the season with more than 8 rebounds. Add it all up and the Knicks got out of the cellar in the Eastern Conference. more ›

After seeing the Jets take Pittsburgh by surprise Sunday, the Cowboys weren't going to be ambushed. They dominated the Jets in every way in a 34-3 Thanksgiving Day whupping. Anyone who sat down to dinner after the Jets' first two series didn't miss much. Tony Romo led Dallas on a quick-strike scoring drive to start the game, and then Leon Washington fumbled the ensuing kickoff. Kellen Clemens couldn't get comfortable in the pocket when... more ›

Rangers 2 Tampa 1: New York got back on track quickly, coming out in the first period with intensity and jumping to a 1-0 lead thanks to Fedor Tyutin. Henrik Lundqvist wss his usually brilliant self, making 32 saves including several huge ones while the Rangers clung to a one-goal lead. It wasn’t until Colton Orr hit a knuckleball off the stick of a Lightning defenseman at 2:05 of the third period, that the... more ›

Bye weeks can do wonders for football teams. Time off certainly helped the Jets. They held their own against the Pittsburgh Steelers and then secured a 19-16 win in overtime after trailing by three with two minutes, 23 seconds to go in regulation. For the second straight game, Kellen Clemens engineered a game-tying drive capped by a Mike Nugent field goal -- although this drive probably should won the game. The Jets finished the job... more ›

After a much-needed bye that followed six straight losses, the Jets return to the Meadowlands field Sunday to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers, the first of three Super Bowl-caliber teams on their schedule in the second half. A win in any of those games -- they are also at Dallas on Thanksgiving and at New England on Dec. 16 -- would be a major surprise. That's the only way the Jets can affect the NFL... more ›

Rangers 4 Philadelphia 3 (Shootout): The Rangers have overcome their slow start and moved into a tie for first place. Brendan Shanahan had a goal in regulation and the game-winner in the shootout to power New York. Henrik Lundqvist kept the Flyers off the board in the shootout, stopping all three shots he faced. Marc Staal played another solid game paired with Rozsival and Marek Malik has to be worried about regaining his starting spot.... more ›

Hornets 84, Nets 82: As much as the Nets appreciate the start to the season Antoine Wright has had, they probably don't want him taking their final shot at the buzzer. But Wright did just that after starting for Vince Carter -- out with a sprained ankle -- and the result wasn't pretty. Carter's injury will have him out the always mysterious "indefinitely," and the Nets will have to find offense elsewhere. Richard Jefferson (32... more ›

Rangers 4 Pittsburgh 2: That’s not a misprint, the Rangers really scored four goals tonight. Scott Gomez got things started for New York with a goal 7:35 into the game. But, Pittsburgh came right back and tied things on a Sergei Gonchar slap shot. But, Sean Avery did what he does best, get under opponents’ skin and he goaded Gary Roberts into a double minor. Roberts should know better and his mistake setup Michal Rozsival’s... more ›

Rangers 2 Philadelphia 0: These teams really do not like each other and it was evident early on Monday night. The gloves came off just 54 seconds into the game and another fight broke out seven minutes in. That ended the boxing portion of the evening, but both teams continued to hit hard and often in a physical contest at MSG. The Rangers dominated the first period, but would have had nothing to show... more ›

That’s all that Henrik Lundqvist needed as he recorded his 3rd shutout of the season by making 31 saves. Lundqvist has played every game of the year so far for New York, but at some point they will have to let Stephen Valiquette play a game in goal. They are going to try and get the offense going before that, but with back-to-back game coming up Monday and Tuesday, time is running out. more ›

Henrik Lundqvist cannot feel too comfortable these days. The fact is if he makes one mistake, his team is going to lose the game. That is the sorry state of the Rangers’ offense, which while suffering from bad chemistry and untimely injuries has in turn vanished from the face of the ice. more ›

Saturday the Rangers couldn’t score again, despite 26 shots. Manny Fernandez played very well for the Bruins and when things went to a shootout, Shanahan, Drury and Jagr all failed to convert, but Phil Kessel didn’t. His wrist shot won the game and New York heads to Pittsburgh with a lot of questions, including one about the health of Martin Straka. more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

Jesse Eisenberg was still in high school when he struck indie-film gold with his performance alongside Campbell Scott in Roger Dodger, one of 2003’s funniest and most affecting films. He’s since gone on to pull his weight in Noah Baumbach’s Park Slope rhapsody The Squid and the Whale, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and, currently in theaters, The Hunting Party – to name a few. (He’ll soon enjoy an even higher profile thanks to his starring role in Adventureland, the next movie by Superbad director Greg Mottola.) You can currently catch Eisenberg onstage at The Atlantic Theater Company’s production of Scarcity, a gritty black comedy about low-class domestic strife in moneyed Western Massachusetts. After repeated attempts to interview Eisenberg were stymied by his malfunctioning cell phone, we said the hell with it and e-mailed him our questions. (Happy ending: after telling Verizon they were jeopardizing his Gothamist interview, Eisenberg got a new phone for free.) more ›