On the day that MySpace agreed to work with 49 states to stop sexual predators from using the social networking site to find young victims, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown was announcing a disturbing 56-charge criminal complaint against a couple accused of rape, sexual abuse, and forcing two young teens into performing sexual acts at a Manhattan strip club. Julio Rojas, a stripper, is being held on $500,000 bail while his wife, Sophie Soto, also......

Brooklyn is all "Fuhgeddaboutit," but Staten Island can be "Hey, what about us!" at times. Take, for instance, a recent angry letter from the Richmond County Young Republicans who have asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to recognize the borough in its software. You can read the entire letter here (PDF), but check out this excerpt:We often send out event invitations to members of The Richmond County Young Republicans' Gacebook group, but we have come across......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at 1 Broadway in Manhattan, a person under a train at the Queensboro Plaza station in Queens, and a child struck by a city bus on Parkside Ave. in Brooklyn. Thieves are targeting open houses across the Upper West Side--stealing personal possessions after gaining access to homes. Oddly, one of the two woman thieves is suspected to actually be a man in drag. Chants of "No......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a scaffolding collapse on Vernon Blvd. and 51st Ave. in Queens, an unstable building on East 102nd St. in Manhattan, and a homicide on Tompkins Ave. in Brooklyn. Probably one of the worst group of employees one should try to steal IDs from for bogus credit cards is cops. A civilian employee of the NYPD was arrested for doing just that at her second job as a clerk at......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at the Washington Mutual on Sheepshead Bay Rd. in Brooklyn, a worker fell into the water off Pier 11 on Governor's Island, and a bank robbery on 57th St. and Broadway in Manhattan. Additional charges could be in store for the woman who allegedly shot a Staten Island commune leader before fleeing to Philadelphia. Maya Rudolph is not returning for the new season of Saturday Night......

Unfortunately, what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas. Last night MTV took over the Strip and filled it with up and comers, the standard rock, rollers and rappers and of course...the token has beens. Last week The New York Times reported on some problems at the network over the past few years. For one thing, critics say the Video Music Awards, intended as a raucous counterpoint to more staid ceremonies, has become stale......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

The Wall Street Journal has an absolutely hysterical/mortifying column today about what happens when one's boss wants to be your "friend" on an online site like MySpace or Facebook. Normally reserved for friends or total strangers, members feel free to share compromising photos or statements on the site. So what does one do when a "Michael Scott"-like boss wants to get tight with his employees and invites you to be in his Friendster circle? Refusing......

A new website is launching next week to help New Yorkers share cabs to and from area airports. The hitchsters.com press release notes how cabs are the most convenient - and expensive - way to get to airports. Here are details on how things would work:After a user enters in some date, time and other travel information, the patent pending matching system begins looking for a suitable co-rider who matches the user’s criteria. Once......

If you missed Saturday Night Live this weekend, you're in luck. The best part about the show was the cold opening - a plea from Borat Sagdiyev to visit Kazakhstan and to see his film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan - and the video is available on NBC.com. There are also some other skits from Saturday's episode: A requisite Halloween skit - is it us or has......

This week brings us a few new techno-food finds: First, there's FoodCandy, touted as "Friendster for Foodies." It is a recently-launched, multi-functional site that brings together message boards, RSS feeds, restaurant reviews, a food events calendar, and a social networking component. According to dB, the site's founder: FoodCandy is for foodies, but it places you in the center of attention. And it's only about food unlike other social networking sites that will also talk......

Yet another story about how social networking sites can be dangerous! And this one involves a Brooklyn man who posed as various female Facebook members' friends to get them to somehow give him nude pictures and force them to be his friend. The Post reports that 20 year old Elvin Chaung was charged with identity theft, computer trespass and tampering, coercion and grand larceny after it turned out he was using his Facebook account to......

- The Place restaurant is engaged in a dispute with their landlords, Edith Rappy and Taube Management, who have decided not to renew The Place’s lease without any explanation. The community is rallying behind owner Alexander Achilleos and his restaurant at www.savetheplace.com; we encourage you to sign the petition if you'd like to help out this local favorite, which gives 10% of its proceeds to charity. The Place at W.10th Street is not impacted by......

Just before the New Year, Extra Tasty a new site by The Skinny Corp (perhaps best known for the tee-shirt site Threadless) launched so "you'll never be sober again." Besides cataloging recipes by tags, liquors, mixers and garnishes, the site lets you build your own bar and spits out recipes of what you can make with, say, only rum and coffee liqeur (answer: Black Cuban). Of course, in order to build your bar you need......

Duncan Watts, Columbia Professor...