Members of NY's Urban Search and Rescue team used power tools to help pull four Haitians from the rubble of Port-au-Prince this weekend. Among them was a young girl who survived four days trapped in a grocery store. Another group, the Church of Scientology, used the texts of L. Ron Hubbard in their rescue efforts. more ›

Last weekend, NY Times reporter Ariel Kaminer wrote about her experience taking the Church of Scientology's personality test and almost managing to go a little deeper into the mysterious group. This weekend, the Post tries to up the ante by speaking with a former member: "MANDY MULLEN, 20, a shop assistant from Old Bridge, NJ, joined Scientology last year when the religion claimed it could fix her spinal disorder, Scoliosis. But, she tells The Post, it did nothing but destroy her finances and mess with her mind — forcing her to break free a few months ago..." more ›

Well, NY Times reporter Ariel Kaminer was encouraged to join until someone at the Church of Scientology Googled her name and realized that she was a reporter for the NY Times. But she still got enough material for a piece titled, "In Scientology’s Door, but Not Much Farther." Kaminer went to the group's Times Square building and took the "personality test with 200 sometimes puzzling questions": more ›

Bad idea pubic hair: The Daily News got word of 18-year-old Matt Connor's recent Scientology prank involving Vaseline, toe nail clippings, and yes, pubes. After getting all slathered up, Connor (a member of Anonymous, an anti-Scientology group, who told cops his name was Mahoud Samed Almahadin) headed to the West 46th Street Scientology center and "tossed a number of books around, then smeared the petroleum jelly on a TV set, shelves." Words don't really do the scenario justice—just watch the video below (though be warned: it's not for the weak of heart, or stomach). more ›

Yesterday, police in the Bahamas said that the 16-year-old son of actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston was found unconscious in a hotel room, after apparently having a seizure and hitting his head on a bathtub. The hospital was unable to revive Jett Travolta, who had, the Post reports, "a long history of seizures and other medical problems, including complications resulting from Kawasaki disease, a rare lymph-node disorder." People adds that Preston blamed household chemicals on Jett's health issues and "credited a detoxification program" based on Scientology found L. Ron Hubbard's writings for helping. Police said that Jett was last seen going into the bathroom on January 1, but wasn't found until yesterday by his nanny—prompting Travolta's lawyers to speak out and disagree with that version of events. They told TMZ "it appears Jett's fatal injury was the result of hitting his head on the bathtub, toilet seat, or both" and "say the intimation that Jett went undiscovered for hours is absolutely false." An autopsy will be performed and then the body will be flown to Florida for burial; a lawyer said Travolta and Preston's pain is "unimaginable and unquantifiable." more ›

As expected, Scientology protesters turned out last night to demonstrate at the red carpet opening of Arthur Miller's tragedy All My Sons, which, you'll recall, features Katie Holmes, Scientological wife of big shot Operating Thetan Level VII Tom Cruise. The Risky Business star wasn't in the audience last night (he caught an earlier preview), but other boldface attendees included Patricia Clarkson, Barbara Walters, and Isabella Rossellini. One of the protesters told WPIX, "Our main focus right now is getting Katie out of Scientology. There's been news going around the tabloids saying she would like to get out." As for her Broadway debut, Big Ben Brantley at the Times says she "delivers most of her lines with meaningful asperity, italicizing every word...and I didn’t believe for a second that she really loved the honorable, naïve Chris." [Photo cred.] more ›

While NYC continues its battle with Tom for Katie, All My Sons, the Arthur Miller play Holmes has been working so hard on, will soon open on Broadway. She may not have sold many tickets, but The Daily News reports that the anti-Scientology group Anonymous will be turning out in droves wearing their V for Vendetta masks (they should really look in to wearing the Tom Cruise Vanilla Sky masks). When the play had its first preview performance the group paraded on the outskirts with signs that read: "Scientology Kills" and "Free Katie, keep Tom." No doubt a pack of Scientologists will also be on hand; last time they reportedly taunted the Anonymous group by chanting: "Let's break all the windows at the Org," (the Scientology headquarters on West 46th Street). Which is kind of a confusing taunt, but what do you expect from people who actually read Dianetics? more ›

The addition of Katie Holmes to the cast of the upcoming production of All My Sons has done zilch to boost advance ticket sales, according to the Post. "I bought 1,000 tickets to the show," says one broker. "I still have them." Another wonders, "Where are all the Scientologists? Don't they want to see her?" Sure they do, but who has money left for theater after all those expensive classes on the way to OT VIII? The Post also has it that the cast has been forced to sign confidentiality agreements to keep them from blabbing about Holmes’s behavior to evil SPs. more ›

All My Sons, Arthur Miller’s tragedy about wartime profiteering, will be coming to an undetermined theater on Broadway at an unspecified date this fall. But nothing generates more buzz than when a Hollywood celebrity joins the cast – in this case that boldfaced name is Katie Holmes, who will try to inject a little integrity into her career by performing live onstage, just out of reach of her Scientology "chaperone." more ›

At 8:30PM (following a half-hour red carpet special), the 80th Annual Academy Awards ceremony will begin, finally putting an end to the "There Will Be Oscar" or "Oscar Country for Old Men" type headlines. more ›

href="http://londonist.com/2008/02/air_bound.php"> remove one man from Gatwick.

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Yesterday’s protest outside the headquarters on 46th Street amounted to roughly 100 masked gadflies cracking wise and chanting anti-Scientology slogans like “Tax the Cult”. Besides objecting to Scientology’s tax-exempt status, the protesters also blame the church for the death of adherent Lisa McPherson in 1995, their alleged use of child labor, and their “fair game” policy of aggressively silencing critics. Yesterday would have been McPherson’s 49th birthday. more ›

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We checked in with some folks recently for a little end of '07 "exit interview" before we enter a new year. Thomas Onorato was the subject of a tell-all titled Confessions From the Velvet Rope last year -- but what has the self-proclaimed "door bitch" been doing in 2007? more ›

The NY Post has another story in the ongoing ogling at Theresa Duncan's death. The East Village artist apparently "fell into suicidal depression after telling friends that oddball rocker Beck backed out of her movie project." So now we have yet another baffling peek into the paranoid mindset Duncan and her long time boyfriend Jeremy Blake were in when they committed suicide, just one week apart from each other. In the January issue of Vanity... more ›

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. more ›

With considerably less fanfare than Diddy or Lance Armstrong, Katie Holmes ran the NYC Marathon in 5 hours, 29 minutes, and 58 seconds. She wore an FDNY baseball cap, black pants and a purple tank top - and was possibly surrounded by a security detail who might have been running alongside her. Mega-star husband Tom Cruise and child Suri Cruise, as well as her parents and mother-in-law, were on hand to give the former... more ›

REMINDER: Don't forget about the Atlantic Antic Festival, which we wrote all about yesterday. more ›

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take her medicine and offered their own suggestions to how the city should capitalize on the local music scene. And everyone thinks that a suggested tax on bottled water is a great idea. more ›

Rev. John Carmichael is the President of the Church of Scientology in New York. We recently asked him a few questions about his church, New York, Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake and the subway stress tests. more ›

Just last week Jeremy Blake's body was identified after being found off the coast of New Jersey. In July he and his girlfriend committed suicide one week apart from each other, and since then stories of their lives, fears and final days have surfaced. more ›

The blog Boy Culture ran into (an all too common these days) "Travolting display" in the subway system over the weekend. Scientologists! The religion cult "legendarily opportunistic Church Of Scientology" is back underground giving out free stress tests. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: shots fired early this evening on Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, a homicide/suicide on 225th St. in Queens this afternoon, and a sexual assault early this morning on West 120th St. in Manhattan.
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants black activist Sonny Carson stricken from the list of nominees for proposed street names because she thinks he was divisive and anti-white. Former Black Panther and current Brooklyn Council Member Charles Barron disagrees with the exclusion, noting that Brooklyn is full of streets named after racists and slaveholders, and calls Carson a hero.
• City Council members will vote on a proposal to restrict the growth of pedicabs in the city the day after Earth Day (Sunday the 22nd). Opponents hope the proximity of the two events will sway Council Members in favor of the pedicabs.
• The founder of the Zone Chefs diet service plead guilty along with several mobsters of running a boiler-room stock scheme designed to thin investors' wallets.
• Mayor Bloomberg reactivated a portion of the Staten Island Railroad in order to shift waste transfer from New York to New Jersey away from trucks and towards rail transport.
• Rep. Jerrold Nadler and City Councilwoman Gale Brewer are two more politicians who wrote letters in support of a class trip to Cuba, that wasn't actually a school event and that no one knew anything about at the time.
• Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff says the plan for a Santiago Calatrava-designed gondola is still in the works. The elaborate cable car system would transport passengers to and from Manhattan and Brooklyn via Governors Island.
• Despite pouring boiling water all over his victim to destroy DNA evidence, the Washington Hamilton Heights rapist did leave some at the scene and the police are in possession of it.
• The Tom Cruise-hosted fund-raiser to support a 9/11 rescue worker detoxification program isn't until tomorrow, but the City Council has already issued a proclamation honoring the late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for contributing his vitamin and sauna therapy program to the world.

• Today on Gothamist Newsmap: a barricaded emotionally disturbed person/stabbing on Parsons Blvd. in Queens, an overturned auto on Bushwick Ave. in Brooklyn, and a stabbing on Staten Island's Taylor St.
• City Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens) is a big fan of Tom Cruise's Scientology detox program that is being offered free to firefighters. He's done it and it made him feel "100 times better", which is pretty good.
• City Island residents contemplate life on the water without the repetitive "thock, thock, thock" sound of gunfire drifting across Eastchester Bay.

Have you ever wanted to rub shoulders with Tom Cruise and learn about Scientology's detox treatment for 9/11 workers? Then you'll be excited to learn that the superstar will be in town for an April 19 fund-raiser. The Post reports that while the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project hasn't been approved by the NYPD or FDNY, some swear by it. However, even those involved with the fund-raiser are conflicted. more ›

READING: Mira Jacob and Alison Hart host yet another of Pete's Reading Series. Tonight they welcome Nell Freudenberger, author of "The Dissident", which focuses on lives in the aftermath of 1970s radicalism. more ›

The official Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wedding photograph has been released. First thoughts: more ›

Starting yesterday at the cavernous St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York City is getting its first chance to experience “Hell House”, an interactive spectacle that is fast becoming a Halloween tradition in churches across America. more ›

After seeing the photographs of the Family Cruise-Holmes, yesterday Gothamist tried to buy a copy of Vanity Fair. We went to three different newsstands, where the owners, after laughing at us, told us they were sold out. Apparently everyone wanted 22 glossy pages of Hollywood family values (Scientology! Children before marriage! Scuttlebutt over whether a baby looks Asian!) as soon as they hit the stands! We're sure we'll be able to get our hands on a copy of Vanity Fair, but in the meantime, we could examine the photographs in the feature thanks to Just Jared. Our conclusion: The baby is cute, a positive outcome of couch-jumping. Now all we want is for Fametracker's Mediator to analyze this issue - their analysis of the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue was brilliant. more ›