6,000 packages of an extremely lethal chemical being sold in Manhattan's Chinatown as rat poison have been seized, and ten retailers have been arrested on state and federal charges. Authorities from the EPA, the city's DA's office, and the state's Department of Environmental Conservation confiscated vials and boxes of brodifacoum, an anticoagulant 61 times stronger than is legal, with the label "The Cat Be Unemployed." A woman who purchased them in the East Broadway Mall last year mistook it for medicine, and lost two-thirds of her blood volume! more ›

A self-confessed pigeon murderer has taken to the Brooklynian message board to chastise the "sinners" who feed the pigeons in JJ Byrne Park. Oh and also, he's slowly murdering the pigeons, claiming it is "for the greater good." FIPS aptly describes this man as the Dexter of the avian world. Here's his proclamation: more ›

Everyone knows: books are boring. So thank heavens that the Library of Congress is doing SOMETHING worthwhile with all our tax dollars: building a "national jukebox!" Spoiler alert—it's not a jukebox, per se, but "a century's worth of audio recordings in a 45-acre vault in Virginia, housing near 6 million rare recording on wax cylinders, paper piano rolls, vinyl and more." And here we were, thinking that we were the only ones who still listened to Handel on our Talking Machine. more ›

Aafia Siddiqui—a neuroscientist and wife of accused 9/11 plotter Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali—was sentenced to 86 years in prison on Thursday after being found in Afghanistan with two pounds of "poison" and plans to attack New York City. The hearing was filled with theories about plotting jailers, "terrorists posing as Hispanics," and Israel being behind the 9/11 attacks. Siddiqui eventually pleaded for forgiveness, saying, "This may shock the Muslims, and I don't mean disrespect...but I do love America, too, and there is no harm." After her sentencing, angry protests broke out at the courthouse and in Pakistan, where protesters yelled, "Down with America!" and threw shoes at pictures of President Obama. more ›

Last week a dog in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx became violently ill just before he died, and just after a walk around the neighborhood. The ASPCA is now investigating, reports CBS Local, and believe someone may be poisoning animals in the area—they've even posted flyers on East 235th Street to alert other pet owners. One woman believes the poison theory to be true, saying, "Make sure dogs don’t pick anything or eat something, could be poison, someone leaving it around for them." Residents think the poison may have been left there for the stray cats in the neighborhood. Earlier this year a Craigslist posting in New York warned: "I am hiding dog poison at dog runs." more ›

Students who were hospitalized yesterday after drinking water contaminated with propylene glycol said they had noticed the water was pink before they drank it, but continued drinking because the water tasted sweet. The water supply at PS 20 in Flushing was contaminated with the nontoxic anti-freeze when a worker from Bayside Refrigeration accidentally got some of the chemical into the drinking water supply. more ›

Summertime is around the corner, and many of the city's vegetarians are gearing up for their rooftop BBQs with their soy burgers and tofu dogs, resting peacefully with the fact that no animals had to die so they could eat. But were other humans harmed in awful factory conditions that exposed them to deadly chemicals? Probably. more ›

We originally thought this Craigslist ad threatening to poison area dogs was a cruel joke, but could there be a real-life Cruella behind it? The listing was put up earlier this month, warning, "I am hiding dog poison at dog runs," and has since been removed—but the NY Post reports that the city’s Parks Department is taking it seriously, and has put dog owners on notice in all five boroughs. more ›

Cheap-o jewelry sold at Walmart, Claire's and at NY-area dollar-stores contains a dangerous metal that could harm children, according to recent investigations. After Chinese toys were outed for containing lead last year, overseas manufacturers were forced to find different building blocks for their products. Some settled on cadmium, a metal that is extremely toxic, even in low doses. And kids don't even have to swallow the jewelry to see its ill effects! more ›

If you're planning on staying at the bar until 8 am on New Year's Day, this might give you pause. About 69 percent of the cocaine recently seized in the United States has been diluted with a de-worming drug for livestock that when consumed by people can cause "fever, swollen glands, painful sores in the mouth and anus, and an infection that won't go away," according to Daily Intel and the SF Chronicle. The drug Levamisole can "significantly reduce the number of white blood cells in the body," causing a condition called agranulocytosis that can leave patients with serious skin conditions that can "make their skin look black." Not everyone who consumes cocaine tainted with Levamisole becomes ill, though poisoning from coke tainted with the anti-parasitic drug is reportedly more likely to affect for women, and is most common when cocaine is smoked as crack. more ›

Investigators are hunting for the man who attempted to poison an infant by delivering "toxic" breast milk to the child in a Brooklyn hospital. more ›

The Brooklyn mother of four suspected of trying to abort and poison her husband's lovechild told investigators she would never hurt a kid. Prosecutors told the Daily News that 38-year-old Kisha Jones said she didn't trick her husband's pregnant mistress, Monique Hunter, into taking a labor-inducing medicine, nor did she try to give the child tainted breast milk after his premature birth: "I know [Hunter] and I don't like her, but I wouldn't hurt a baby like that." more ›

Last we heard Bret Michaels had fractured his nose and got three stitches to his bloodied lip (luckily the hair extensions went unscathed). He's denied the Tony Awards accident was his fault, saying he hit his mark, leaving conspiracy theorists to wonder if a Rock of Love reject got behind the wheel of that particular piece of stage scenery. Probably not. But now Michaels continues to draw attention to the blunder, posting photos of his injuries up on MySpace and proving that nothing compliments stitches like a subtle soul patch. more ›

The Tony Award broadcast usually amounts to a night of boring Broadway boosterism which most Americans happily ignore to watch basketball, but last night viewers actually got a few seconds of drama to go with all the backslapping, as Poison lead singer Bret Michaels got into an exciting accident with a piece of scenery. The "Rock of Love" star was on hand to perform a song with the cast of hair band jukebox musical Rock of Ages; but as you can see from the last few seconds of this video clip, that bit of cross-promotional synergy nearly cost him his life. more ›

If only the Williamsburg area had the occasional hipster grifter to worry about, and not the much uglier problem of machete attacks. For about a year now we've been reporting on the machete and alleged gang attacks in the South Williamsburg neighborhood, and now the Village Voice takes a closer look at the weapon of choice there. more ›

What ever happened to itching powder in the jock strap? NY Mag is reporting that two sophomore J.V. football players became violently ill after drinking Gatorade spiked with copper sulfate, a chemical fungicide. One of the kids started coughing up blood and had to be taken to the hospital! Police arrested one suspect, a sophomore, and charged him with reckless endangerment. Happily, both of the sickened players recovered in time for the big homecoming game three days later. In September, a 13-year-old student at the Talented and Gifted School for Young Scholars was arrested after spiking his teacher's water with calcium hydroxide, sending her to the hospital. And in June, students at the Brooklyn School for Global Studies were arrested when their laxative-spiked cake sickened teachers. Isn't it high time for an After School Special on this? Oh, ABC stopped making After School Specials. Which explains a lot about today's poison-prone youth. more ›

Emerson wrote that the "surest poison is time," but for Dru D'Amico, a teacher at the Talented and Gifted School for Young Scholars, the white powder a student slipped into her water bottle was also pretty cruel. D'Amico was taken to the hospital Wednesday after a pupil spiked her water with calcium hydroxide. The substance is used to make cement, but in this case it went to enhance that special bond of mistrust and contempt that's the hallmark of any real teacher/student relationship. Also, ingesting enough can cause internal bleeding, hypertension, and skeletal muscle paralysis. D'Amico was later released, and police have charged the 13-year-old with reckless endangerment, NY1 reports. Of course, this isn't the first time teachers have been poisoned by their scheming, bloodthirsty students: Remember the hilarious laxative cake prank? more ›

The FBI arrested Manhattan resident Anton Dunn today after he posted a series of videos on YouTube in which he claims to have used an employee at Gerber to poison baby food with cyanide. The Post reports that Gerber has been receiving a flood of calls since the videos first appeared on YouTube; the feds say Dunn wore a ski mask and boasted of a “plan in motion” to kill black babies, while also acknowledging that white babies would die as well. more ›

Five NJ residents have been hospitalized and one has died after drinking oil used to light tiki torches. Apparently the victims from Burlington and Bergen Counties believed they were drinking apple juice, but it's actually a kerosene-like substance (one victim was an 8-year-old girl who now has permanent lung damage; another person "mistook the oil for bottled water and tried to make coffee, but didn't get sick"). NJ Poison Information and Education System executive director Steve Marcus says, "During my 40 years in medicine, you get an occasional kid who ingests kerosene, but I have never seen this kind of cluster." The product is Tiki Torch Fuel from Lamplight Farms Inc. more ›

Health officials say his death was caused by a hardened resin, made partly from venom collected from toads of the Bufo genus, which contains chemicals called “bufadienolides” known to disrupt heart rhythms. The aphrodisiac is supposed to be applied topically, not eaten, but authorities warn that even that use can be harmful. more ›