Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A boat in distress at the Roosevelt Island Bridge, a homicide on Howard in Brooklyn, and a stabbing on Jamaica Avenue and 161st Street in Queens Hillary Clinton out-fund-raises Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama in New York, which makes sense since she's been building her donor list as a Senator from New York. The big mystery of NYC: Where the middle class live. A man was fatally hit by......

It's our favorite July 4th tradition, this side of smiley-face fireworks: The Annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, held at Nathan's in Coney Island. And this year's competition is particularly tantalizing: Current champion Takeru Kobayashi has been having jaw pains, while Joey Chestnut broke the hot dog eating record, by scarfing down 59.5 at a June event. So we shall begin our liveblogging, and Jen Chung and Tien Mao will be providing other commentary......

Gothamist has decided to liveblog this year's Nathan's Famous July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest. Jen and Tien will be providing color commentary; Tien will also be attempting to eat hot dogs competition-style 12:00PM - Announcers say there are 15,000 spectators at Surf and Stillwell. Crazy! And the media loves the Takeru Kobayashi-Joey Chestnut matchup. And did you realize that there are 320 calories per dog with bun!!! Tien: Man, I hate George Shea.......

Tomorrow is one of the biggest sporting events of the summer. The 2006 Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest is less than 24 hours away, and it's truly being billed as an international match-up. Reigning champion - and world record holder for chowing 53.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes - Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi of Japan returns to defend his five consectuive titles against American challenger Joey Chestnut. Chestnut, who......

Hmm, perhaps Gothamist should stop complaining about how much we ate yesterday: Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas won the Thanksgiving Invitational at Artie's Deli by eating 4 pounds, 3.1 ounces of turkey in 12 minutes. And she's only 100 pounds! The prize was $2,500 and the satisfaction of beating beating a lot of beefy men. It's unclear whether or not gravy or cranberry sauce was allowed to make the turkey go down faster, or whether......

When most people see forty nine hot dogs, it's usually behind the counter at Gray's Papaya. But at Coney Island yesterday, it was the gold standard, as the reigning world hot dog eating champion, Takeru Kobayashi, won his fifth consecutive hot dog eating belt at Nathan's, eating forty nine hot dogs in twelve minutes. And Gothamist thought our acid reflux this weekend was bad! The 27 year-old Kobayashi didn't beat his world record of 53.5......

Takeru Kobayashi has done it again. He has defied physics (though maybe not gastrophysics) by chowing down 53.5 hot dogs in twelve minutes to a new new world record in hot dog eating, breaking his 2002 record of 50.5 hot dogs. Kobayashi told the crowd, "I feel wonderful." American challenger (and a conductor for the 7 train) Eric Booker tied for 5th place with 27 hot dogs, explaining his digestion, "I was at the point......