The Staten Island Advance has been following the turmoil brewing between a Wiccan family and their neighbors. The South Shore home at the center of the controversy is a duplex, half belonging to the Wiccan devotees, Ivy Colmer Vanderborgh, her husband and mother (the husband isn't Wiccan). Not hiding their practices, their property is decorated with a "witchy weather vane and cauldron out front," along with a massive stained-glass pentacle. Before the front yard cauldron......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: smoke inhalation victims at Centre and White Sts. in Manhattan, a shooting on Neptune Ave. in Brooklyn, and a truck vs. overpass at 155th St. and South Rd. in Queens. Design firm EDAW was chosen to plan the Steeplechase Plaza for a now-vacant lot near the Coney Island boardwalk. The development beneath the Parachute Jump may include a water park and a platform for viewing Cyclones minor league baseball......

On Sunday, the worldwide running community lost an institution: Vic Navarra, a FDNY lieutenant who organized the NYC Marathon's start for 26 years, died at his home in Staten Island. He was 55 and had been battling sinus cancer. Navarra, a lifelong runner, fell into the job of organizing the NYC Marathon's start when he couldn't run (a rib injury from responding to a fire) in 1980, when he wanted to help out and he......

There are a couple construction-related accidents today. WNBC reports that a construction worker fell off the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge around 1:38PM: "A retaining wall on the edge of a bridge roadway under construction had collapsed, but it was unclear if the worker had fallen from that area." The SI Advance reports that the worker is "believed to have fallen on the Brooklyn-side, landing on the ground near the entrance to Fort Hamilton Army Base." We're......

A 17-year-old girl was killed after a drag racing incident on Staten Island last night. According to the Advance, a 2003 Honda Accord and 1994 Ford Mustang crashed into each other on Veterans Road West near a Charleston shopping mall. Six other teens were injured. The Ford, which had a tank of nitrous oxide (to help it go faster) in the trunk, swerved across the road. The Honda "smacked into a metal stanchion protecting a......

Last night, a Staten Island resident was critically injured when a 19-year-old driver hit him on Mosel Avenue (it's the Staten Island incident on the newsmap). The SI Advance says that the driver, Leon Wilson, had been fleeing undercover police when he crushed 47-year-old Juan-Han Guan with the car. A source says that Wilson was driving around 100mph at one point. Guan's bike was described as being "embedded in the hood of Wilson's car, the......

The city's Water Board approved to raise the water and sewer rates starting in July. The rate hike, which AMNY calls the biggest increase in 15 years, means that an average household's water bill will go from $623 to $700 annually. The water board says that the new $700 average water rate is still below the national average (apparently Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Atlanta have average rates of over $1000 a year) and that......

A Queens pastor spoke to the NY Times about what he feels are misunderstanding from the police about the suicide of Staten Island resident Hejin Han and the subsequent charge that her husband, Victor, helped promote her suicide. A week ago, the Han family, including their 3 and 5 year old daughters, went to Bear Mountain, where Hejin Han drove their minivan off a cliff with the girls in the back. The girls were......