The police released a sketch of a man suspected of attacking two women early Sunday in the West Village. In both incidents, the women were exiting cabs when he attacked. Around 2:15 a.m., a 30-year-old woman got out of her cab at 240 Bleecker Street, near Our Lady of Pompeii school. According to the Post, the "hooded thug lunged from behind, threw her to the ground and smashed her head on the ground." Though the......

This photograph was spotted in Carroll Gardens; presumably there's someone someone named Sal who has a knack for busting evil spirits. We called to see how the paranormal business was going in Brooklyn, but the landline reached a woman who was utterly confused at our request to speak with Sal the Ghostbuster; while calling the cell phone landed us in voicemail. However, we're thrilled to report that since the call to the cell was made......

Kaki King (MySpace) is a guitar player and singer-songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia. She lived in Brooklyn for 7 years until last summer, when music started taking her on a permanent tour around the world. Her upcoming album is called Dreaming Of Revenge and will be released March 11th on Velour Records. King was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Score for the music she played in the Sean Penn film Into the Wild,......

ART: Come help open up the new Chelsea gallery, Honey Space, tonight. Check out their inaugural exhibition whilst you nosh on fondue. The space is unique in that it will present "regular programming of site-specific installations and special events...and during normal daytime hours, the space will be open to the public, and unmonitored." Suggested attire for the evening is red (well that's not very creative!). 6pm to midnight // Honey Space [148 11th Ave]......

Happy Lunar New Year: Photograph of today's Chinatown festivities by Beatrice LeeToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a school safety officer injured on Corporal Kennedy St. in Queens, a double stabbing on Madison St. and Seneca Ave. in Queens, and a stolen DHL truck in the area of North Henry St. in Brooklyn. A family-owned hardware store at Bergen St. and Flatbush Ave. has been open since the 1940s, but they now find themselves in......

The fight over the right for school children to bear cell phones in schools moved to the Appellate Court, where lawyers for NYC and public school students' parents appeared before a five-judge panel. This comes after the City Council passed a bill allowing cell phones in schools, which the Mayor vetoed. Many parents believe cell phones are critical for keeping in touch with their children, in case of an emergency or just to check in......

Photo by kerfuffle & zeitgeist. An East Village woman says she was punched in the face by an unhinged cabbie when she insisted on using the taxi’s credit card machine to pay her fare. Tamara Perez had arrived outside her apartment when she realized she was out of cash, so she told the driver she’d be paying with plastic using the self-automated card reader installed in the back. Apparently, the hack couldn’t hack it,......

Some more details surrounding Heath Ledger's death have emerged, even though the autopsy is inconclusive for the actor's cause of death. Though CBS 2 initially reported that a rolled up $20 bill in Ledger's SoHo apartment had narcotic residue on it and that cops had found unidentified drug packets, the NYPD now confirms that lab tests found nothing to indicate the bill had been used to snort drugs and that no illegal drugs were......

Photograph of cab driver in Times Square by nschaden on Flickr The Taxi and Limousine Commission has announced that it and the NYPD will be embarking on an undercover program to crackdown on bad cabbie behavior. Cabbies are supposed to let passengers pay with credit cards, not to mention not be rude and chatting on a cell phone during the ride, but the TLC says they hear otherwise. The program is named "Operation Secret......

Say, did you hear anything about this movie that opens today, Cloverfield? No? Yeah, it’s kind of a [Spoiler Alert!] obscure art-house thing, all shot with a camcorder from the perspective of a few friends fleeing a massive monster smashing Manhattan. We attended a screening earlier in the week and deemed it top-shelf disaster porn; though the main characters are rather annoying and the apocalypse takes a little too long to blast off, “by the......

As a counterpoint to the tale of the mugging in pre-gentrification Bushwick (or East Williamsburg) in New York magazine, we bring you this mugging story from gentrified Park Slope. From the Morgan L station to the popular Grand Army Plaza stop, a woman gave a first person account of being mugged on Sunday with Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. The woman says she had left the subway station around 10:30PM at night. While she......

At the stroke of midnight on January 1st, New York comedian Amy Borkowsky began her cellibacy project, a temporary resolution that she explains is "not about giving up sex. I’m giving up something much harder than that.” She's casting aside her cell phone, after questioning how much her dependency on it has affected her quality of life.She also notes that the so-called communication device often keeps her from truly communicating, citing the familiar scenario of......

The idea was a cross between a voodoo ritual and what an ex does behind closed doors -- and it was all about excorsizing bad memories. Yesterday locals and tourists alike gathered in Times Square for what was dubbed Good Riddance Day. They hauled in medical bills, photographs and floppy disks (remember those?), all to be destroyed, shredded and wiped from their memory. The NY Times reports that "the alliance, a business group that works......

When a deal is too good to be true, remember, it might not be true - that it might be a nightmare. On Long Island, there have been two incidents where people are enticed by a Craigslist ad selling a Porsche, only for "sellers" to beat up and attempt to rob the potential buyers. Newsday reports that two Suffolk County residents were interested in buying a 2002 Porsche, which was listed on Craigslist for $44,000.......

Yesterday, a woman was found shot to death, clutching a knife in her hands. It turns out that 23-year-old Shauna Sanders was killed on Jordan Avenue in St. Albans after fighting with a date about her cell phone. According to the Daily News, Sanders and her cousin met two men at a bar and went home with them Friday night. On Saturday morning around 6:30AM, apparently Sanders and her date, Donnell Dunson, got into an......

Senator Barack Obama might be back in Iowa on the campaign trail, but New Yorkers are still buzzing over his coffee - and bacon and eggs and toast - klatsch with Mayor Bloomberg on Friday morning. The meeting was supposedly caught Senator Hillary Clinton off guard - and not just because it was two blocks away from her midtown offices. Bloomberg's press secretary Stu Loeser said Bloomberg wanted to talk national policy with Obama,......

It's no shock that many drivers aren't totally on the ball when driving, but it turns out that one in three New York drivers multi-task in their cars. According to a Hunter College study (PDF) conducted at 50 intersections in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, of the over 3,000 drivers observed, 23% were talking on a cellphone, 5.7% were smoking, 4.5% were drinking, 3.1% were drinking, and 1.7% were grooming. Time to quote Rihanna:......

Yesterday, the police arrested the personal assistant to "broker to the stars" Linda Stein in connection with Stein's October 30 murder. Stein, who had also managed the Ramones and later parlayed her connections to sell real estate to celebrities, had been found bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment by her daughter. The police revealed that assistant Natavia Lowery confessed to them that Stein's abuse pushed her over the edge. Police Commissioner Ray......

One of the economic incentives that Mayor Bloomberg supports for students that perform well in city schools could include free cellphones and airtime. Previously, incentives included cash rewards for students passed AP exams. Any plan to encourage cellphone use by student may come as a surprise to those familiar with the Mayor's strong aversion to allowing students bringing their phones to school. A small cottage industry has even sprouted at bodegas nearby public schools who......

For the past few years, the officials have been warning that NYC's Off-Track Betting, or OTB, has been on the verge of going broke, whether it's former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi or City Comptroller William Thompson. OTB doesn't give the city any revenues and recently pinned its hopes on attracting more customers by making over OTB parlors and allowing bets to be placed online and by cell phone or Blackberry. Yesterday, the Post revealed that......

Nannies tattling on the foibles of their well-to-do employers are very last year. The Internet has spawned a forum that makes hidden cameras and GPS tracking seem like child's play when monitoring the people monitoring one's children. ISawYourNanny is a site where people can post incidents that they found suspect, and some of the descriptions of the people and places are meant to be specific enough that parents can figure out if it's their child......

A retired cop who can't abide cell phone users or loud talkers on his daily LIRR commute to and from Manhattan has made it his business to intimidate fellow riders into being quiet. Standing six foot four inches, John Clifford can be an imposing figure, especially if he's yelling at you, slapping a phone out of your hand, or throwing food or a beverage on you. Clifford's been arrested a number of times, but he's......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water main break on Pacific St. in Brooklyn, an armed robbery on Jamaica Ave. in Queens, and a burn victim on West 165th St. in the Bronx. Spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy reportedly accomplished many feats during his life, but still died at his home in Queens, NY. A fight among members of a group of men, who were turned away from a Chelsea nightclub because they didn't meet......

The hilarity never ends when talking about cell phone service in the subways. The City Council spoke to the MTA about the agency's upcoming cell phone service plans, and apparently some members suggested that there should be "quiet cars" on the subway. We cannot stop laughing! City Councilman Oliver Koppell suggested that quiet cars would be a haven from the chattering masses who would use cell phones in the cars. (Let's not forget that the......

Volatile Dutch actor Youssef Sjoerd Idilbi did two things that are almost unheard of during a Sunday performance of the play Is.Man at St. Ann’s Warehouse. The first warms our heart: He stopped his performance to confront an audience member about a ringing cell phone. His second move brazenly defied the theatrical tradition of ‘the show must go on’. Technical problems with the sound board had caused the cancellation of the previous night's performance; when......

Now that cell phone service in the city's subway platforms seems like it will really will happen, the Post reveals that the service will also help authorities track down 911 callers underground. Since the subway system's amplifiers installed underground will be covering a much smaller area than, say, abovegruond amplifiers, callers can be located to the exact platform and end of platform! Interesting fact: Back in 1991, NY State added a surcharge on cellphone bills......

Eighteen-year-old Steven Molinaro, grandson of Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, was found guilty of criminal contempt of violating an order of protection. His family says that the jury made a bad decision and James Molinaro said, "I think being my grandson hurt him." Maybe so, but Steven Molinaro has been getting into trouble on his own. Last year, Steven Molinaro was arrested after beating up a 14-year-old Staten Island Advance newspaper boy Mark Veras,......

A bus full of students from Hunter College High School was pursued by a hammer-wielding road rager yesterday afternoon in Queens. It's unclear what made the driver so irate, but bus driver Jose Bautista noticed a man driving crazily in his rear view mirror and pulled over to the left. That is when the angry driver got out of his car and kicked in one of the panes of glass on the school bus's front......

MUSIC: Last week Craig Finn made a solo appearance amongst the books at Barnes & Noble, tonight he's with his rock band, The Hold Steady, playing another free show. Joining them are the Old 97’s, and newer band, Illinois. A triple-threat lineup with a can't-be-beat pricetag. 5:30pm // 7 World Trade Center [250 Greenwich St] // Free READING: Possibly known more for her role on Project Runway than her fashion direction with ELLE magazine, Nina......

Jesse Eisenberg was still in high school when he struck indie-film gold with his performance alongside Campbell Scott in Roger Dodger, one of 2003’s funniest and most affecting films. He’s since gone on to pull his weight in Noah Baumbach’s Park Slope rhapsody The Squid and the Whale, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and, currently in theaters, The Hunting Party – to name a few. (He’ll soon enjoy an even higher profile thanks to his......