Adam Clayton Powell IV, who is trying to unseat embattled Rep. Charles Rangel, was caught taking thousands of dollars of campaign donations from the owner of Bronx strip club Sin City. The Daily News confronted and browbeat Powell into promising to return the money yesterday, telling him about owner Konstantine (Gus) Drakopoulos, who pleaded guilty to insider trading in 2002 and was recently slapped with a racial and sexual harassment suit by dancers at his club. more ›

This one sounds familiar: six ex-cocktail waitresses from Bronx's Sin City strip club have filed a lawsuit, claiming their managers took their tips and routinely groped them. Janelle Denalli tells the Daily News, "I'm not grinding. I'm not giving anyone any lap dances. I'm just serving drinks....This is a workplace." Because if she were grinding all night, all the sexual harassment would be totally acceptable. more ›

makes nice with the stylized visuals giving us the most lush, chiseled, half-naked warriors and warrior wives ever depicted on screen. In particular the actors playing the Spartan queen and king, Lena Headey and Gerard Butler look like they were carved from stone. Word to the wise though, the flick is long on gratuitous, baroque violence and short on three dimensional characters. more ›

Tareyton Williams, who sliced through postal worker Michael Steinberg in early July with power saws he picked up from a contractor's area on a subway platform, was found mentally fit for trial. The Daily News' article's subtext, though, is that Williams must be at least a little off, given that he was "cradling the stuffed animal like a baby" before he attacked Steinberg at the West 110th Street 1 station. In fact, a defense lawyer not affiliated with the case says that doctors who evaluate defendants generally "set the bar very low," though Williams can still use an insanity defense. But there are some things we didn't realize: Williams had a bottle of Nyquil the night before the attack and he had worked as a bouncer at a Bronx strip club, and in an apology letter to Steinberg, he invited him to visit him at "Sin City." Williams is held without bail for attempted murder; prior to the subway attack, he allegedly punched a pedestrian on the street. more ›

If you are stuck inside all day because of the snow, here's a great trove of TMBG videos to help you pass the time. Some of our favorites include the balls-out insane version of Birdhouse in Your Soul from the Tonight Show (performed with the full Doc Severinsen band!), Why Does the Sun Shine from Conan in 1993, and this version of Dr. Worm from Penn and Teller's Sin City show. [Related: there's a ton of TMBG multimedia online-- check out their DialASong, venue songs at TMBG.com (the Hollywood song is the best), TMBG podcasts... the list goes on and on.] more ›

Last week we went on about all the theatre festivals that have found their way to stages lately; this week it seems like there’s a citywide Hamlet-fest or some sort of Shakespeare bug in the air. There are three productions of Hamlet going, so you can choose your poison. Still in previews is what looks like it will be a thoroughly, wonderfully traditional production of the play, at Classic Stage starring Michael Cumpsty, most recently of The Constant Wife and Democracy on Broadway. The other two versions are rather less “classic” in their approach: at La MaMa, Kanako Hiyama not only has pared the play down to an hour and a half, shuffled scenes and told the story from different perspectives, she literally puts you in the action, with the Ghost narrator in the audience and spectators cast as courtiers. Then, at Harlem’s Morris-Jumiel Mansion, Gorilla Repertory is doing the play in full, but *free* and outdoors in a roving, environmental manner. It would be pretty interesting (though pretty exhausting) to see all these adaptations in quick succession – just think how you might be talking after such an experiment. more ›

That Halloween fake fireman story just gets stranger, as if it were made just for a trial by tabloid. First we had the attack itself which was more than gruesome enough to produce the rage of the tabloids (of course, the Post sill managed to make even the initial report extra offensive, but that's why we read the Post isn't it?). Then the details got even more explicit: the shoes, the gas mask, the hours upon hours of torture. And then yesterday the News got the NYPD to admit that their prime suspect was missing journalist Peter Braunstein. more ›