As the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park enters its fourth week, some local residents and small business owners feel like they're the ones be occupied. At a Community Board 1 meeting Wednesday night, Committee Chair Ro Scheffe told representatives of OWS, “Whatever your political views are, it doesn’t matter, because once again our neighborhood has been taken from us. We have a right to peaceful enjoyment of our homes, which we are being denied." Also being denied? The right to sanitary bathrooms, as Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee reports: more ›

Last night The Daily Show's awesome Samantha Bee reported on the NYC parks smoking ban from Union Square park, where she ironically juxtaposed the health-conscious smoking ban against the rather unhealthy realities of the park's "methadone alley." After shot after shot of stumbling, spaced-out drug addicts upstage her interviews with anti-smoking advocates, Bee finally asks, "You know what else inhibits my enjoyment of the park? This giant undulating pile of human sorrow. I have to go home at the end of being in this park and scrub myself with a metal barbecue brush just to get all the sadness off. Are you fucking kidding me? Smoking?" more ›

Last month, a few Long Island lawmakers called for a study to examine the possibility of Long Island statehood. Suffolk Comptroller Joseph Sawicki had said, "The state of Long Island has always been a romantic idea, its been fun to talk about and exciting to discuss. Now, it's become a matter of economic survival," and pointed out that Albany gets $3 billion more from Long Island than it gives back. Last night, Samantha Bee of the Daily Show decided to tackle the issue, speaking with Suffolk County Legislator Edward Romaine (pro-Long Island as the 51st State), State Senate Carl Marcellino (con-Long Island as the 51st State), and a three, um, typical Long Island guys who suggest that the Long Island state bird could be "flipping the bird." more ›