Stephen Hawking, the British theoretical physicist, does believe in aliens—and he's worried. For his Discovery show, he says, "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach." He thinks contacting alien races is "a little too risky... If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans." The episode airs tonight—see a clip. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing child at Richmond Terrace and Franklin Ave. on Staten Island, a stabbing on Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, and a patient went missing at Parkway Hospital at 113 St. and 70th Rd. in Queens.
• Physicist Stephen Hawking is writing an adventure novel aimed at middle-grade readers called "George's Secret Key to the Universe."
• After-school programs at city schools, which help kids with academic tutoring and offer music and art instruction that are no longer part of schools’ curricula, will likely have to close due to lack of funding.
• Former New York Giants linebacker LaVar Arrington was injured in a motorcycle accident, after he lost control of his bike and hit a guard rail while exiting I-495 in Maryland.
• Sean Bonner’s list of vegan restaurants and places with vegan menu offerings around NYC.
• New York City pools open June 29th, and the Parks Dept. has a borough-by-borough guide to all 51 one of them.
• Elle magazine editorial coordinator Nina Weiss is letting local students and teachers conduct their classes in her Brooklyn apartment - 9th grade boys in the living room, 6th graders in the kitchen nook - after they lost their usual space in a nearby church to a fire.
• Curbed notes that lawyers for 1 Sutton Place are suing New York, after plans were announced to make the building’s formerly private park on city-owned land open to the public.

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. more ›