The city will debut a special limited-edition condom package next fall, and the Health Department is holding a contest to pick the new look. They're calling for designs that reflect NYC's "distinctive culture and style while also promoting safer sex." As they put it on the website, "Maybe you’ve admired the NYC Condom’s sleek package design. Maybe you even own one or two of the 41 million the Health Department gave away last year. We’re not about to abandon the now-iconic package, but we want to keep things interesting." (But "not raunchy"!) So what does the winner get? more ›

This ain't your grandfather's rubber: The good old geriatric condom has gotten with the times and joined Facebook here in NYC, where it wants to be your friend (with benefits)! Yesterday the Daily News, in an article headlined "Health Department issues new NYC-branded condoms," mentioned the Facebook page, which went live today. But Celina De Leon, a spokesperson for the NYC Health Department, says the News article (now disappeared) was almost entirely wrong; there are no new condoms being released for Valentine's Day. Welcome to 2007 Daily News; as De Leon tells us, "We did that two years ago." more ›

A German entrepreneur is applying for a federal trademark to use the Freedom Tower to market a line of condoms; the proposed slogan would be "Freedom Tower: Make Love Not War." What, was "Grind Zero" taken? The Post says 9/11 families are "howling" over the proposed rubber, though they only get a quote from Jack Lynch, whose firefighter son died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001: "I find it very offensive. The idea that anyone would use something associated with 9/11 to promote any product is upsetting. But to promote condoms, that goes a step beyond." According to the article, the Port Authority, which owns the tower, is "scrambling to block" the application. If he does get the patent, the entrepreneurial German better hope his prophylactic resembles the Freedom Tower in name only, because so far nobody's been able to get that building up. Hey-oh! more ›