Police are searching for a man who allegedly hit his three-year-old daughter with a brick in Brick, NJ. Edward Smith, 25, destroyed the child’s mother’s cellphone and stole her car after the Saturday night incident, and has been on the run since. Authorities believe Smith wasn't intentionally trying to hurt the little girl, who lost a tooth and needed stitches for a cut on her upper lip. more ›

For four hours this morning, a protester sat atop the 70-foot orange sculpture on the southeast end of Zuccotti Park until police used a cherry picker to bring him down. According to NBC, the protester was Canadian citizen Dylan Farenhorst, who scaled Mark di Suvero's "Joie de Vivre" at 5 a.m. "He's making a point," one protester who met Farenhorst two days ago, and admitted that he was "not the sharpest knife in the drawer." But he's uh, the loudest bongo in the drum circle! more ›

For some reason, it really does seem like former New York governor George Pataki is serious about running for president. After sources told media outlets he's ready to jump into the shark tank a few days, now it turns out Pataki is going to be at a Republican picnic in Iowa this weekend and there's some sort of George Pataki 2012 prototype website. more ›

After (graphically) describing the photos and voicemails Favre allegedly sent her, Sterger, who insisted she never "met [Favre], saw him," became wary about divulging the evidence and going on the record. Daulerio agreed not to run the story, "but still persisted because I'm a dick and it's an incredibly funny story, but one that didn't really hold any real weight unless she either gave us the A.) photos B.) voicemails C.) attached her name to it." more ›

Sigh: WCBS 2 reports that a passenger who flew into LaGuardia Airport last night "was questioned by FBI agents" because he allegedly boarded the flight with a 4" long, 3/4" wide firecracker: "Officials confirmed Monday that a crew member on board Piedmont Airlines flight 4126 was cleaning the plane after it landed in New York around 7:30 p.m. when he found [the device] wedged between two seats. Port Authority officials contacted FBI agents, and the passenger from that seat location, identified as 67-year-old Thomas Ouelette, of Bonita Springs, Fla., was tracked down and taken into custody." While terrorism is not suspected (at this point!), "Ouelette already had two outstanding warrants in Florida for 'unlawful flight.'" more ›

Pork and bacon, of all things, are decidedly the new engines of charity events: First off, Tom Mylan and Brooklyn Kitchen have decided to auction off 10 upcoming seats at Mylan’s immensely popular pig butchering class to benefit Just Food and the Greenpoint Interfaith Food Team, according to Serious Eats. Secondly, the “Park Slope Pork Off” next month at Loki Lounge will garner the winner $100 and bragging rights; moreover, all proceeds benefit survivors of toxic waste in the Philippines. “Fakin’ bacon,” the organizers advise, is also acceptable, however “you best fool us but good.” We hear that Jonathan Proville, winner of last month’s epic Bacon Takedown, is angling for a second victory at next month’s event. More information on the “Pork Off” here. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the New York Times has an excellent piece this week on vegan advocate and author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, and across the pond, BBC correspondent Richard da Costa has spent four days eating, cavorting, and sleeping 24/7 in a sty with pigs. The resulting documentary called My Life as an Animal plays tonight; more information here. more ›

We've been getting more and more tips about broken crosswalk signals showing both the Don't Walk symbol ("Red Hand") and the Walk symbol ("White Man") simultaneously. Today a reader e-mails: "My girlfriend and I have noticed an ongoing problem of the 'Walk/Don't' walk signs actually 'freezing' in place when it gets cold out. Both a bright red hand and a walk sign stay up at the same time, presumably opening the city up to some serious lawsuits should something go awry. We must have seen it about 30 times in the last month, prompting my email." more ›

A Wired reporter bemoaning the pizza backwater that is San Francisco rang up Mario Batali to find out why New York Pizza is so magnificent and got an intriguing theory out of the celebrity chef: New York’s old pizza ovens “capture the gestalt of beautifully cooked pizza.” A food development consultant believes Batali’s abstract ‘gestalt’ is, to scientists, vaporized ingredients that become “volatilized particles and attach themselves to the walls of the baking cavity. The next time you use the oven, these bits get caught up in the convection currents and deposited on the food, which adds flavor." more ›