Last week, the Post reported that an anti-war protester was arrested outside the 92nd Street Y, after allegedly assaulting a wheelchair-bound teenager. However, according to the NYPD, the protester, Gary "German" Talis was actually arrested for allegedly assaulting another individual--not the wheelchair-bound teen. Police from the 19th Precinct were called to the Y because two individuals were being disruptive during a talk with First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna. One of the Y's......

Erstwhile principal and school founder Debbie Almontaser made the front page of The New York Times today. The article is about how a woman who attempted to found a school based on cultural and religious understanding was forced from her position as the principal thanks to the resistance of spirited opponents. Almontaser founded the Khalil Gibran International Academy, which she envisioned as a dual language --English and Arabic--school that emphasized the cultural accomplishments of Middle......

Who knew that Laura Bush and daughter Jenna Bush's children's book tour would prompt violence? The Post reports a wheelchair-bound girl was assaulted by a Bush protester after the Bushes' 92nd Street Y appearance on Tuesday. Apparently German Tallis, 22, was protesting about Iraq and Iran, and John Lovetro said to him, "What are you doing? Shut up. This is about a child and books...Get out of here! You're being a moron!" But instead of......

Olympics planners and San Francisco authorities made many attempts (making up the route as it went along) to prevent demonstrators from disrupting the Olympic torch's only North American appearance on Wednesday, they couldn't stop a torch bearer from the Bronx from expressing her pro-Tibet sympathies. Majora Carter, a 41-year-old environmental activist from the South Bronx, had tucked a small Tibetan flag up her sleeve, with the torch in the other. The NY Times described her......

Photo by Robert Kreizel After the John Varvatos boutique officially opened its doors last weekend in the old CBGB space, activist Rebecca Moore held court on the sidewalk. This past Tuesday she sat outside the retail shop in protest with a sign that read: "One small loss of a music space, one large step for pants," and was joined by a few other supporters. Moore says her statement isn't about just one music space......

As anticipated, last night's gala event at the Brooklyn Museum honoring real estate developer Bruce Ratner attracted protesters opposed to the $4 billion Atlantic Yards stadium and residential development proposed for a 22-acre site just a stone's throw from the museum. Atlantic Yards Report was at the scene and writes: "The protest organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn last night outside the museum was notably angry, with some 80 people gathering at one point, many......

Brooklyn community groups opposed to the Atlantic Yards project are outraged developer Bruce Ratner will be honored tonight at a gala at the Brooklyn Museum. Ratner's Forest City Foundation gave $100,000 to the museum in ’05 and again in ’06; now the museum's is giving him their highest honor, the Augustus Graham Medal. Brooklyn resident Michael White is organizing a protest, and tells the Daily News, "A museum should be a good neighbor to its......

During a conference call with investors yesterday, Forest City Enterprises CEO Charles Ratner acknowledged that a window of opportunity had all but closed for the ambitious, 22-acre housing, retail and stadium project proposed for Brooklyn. But he also insisted that the delay – brought on by recession and dogged opposition from community groups – was just temporary: The economy sometimes alters the timeline, but we have demonstrated our ability to see these projects through to......

Dozens of protesters stood inside and out of a Community Board 3 meeting yesterday, claiming that a proposed rezoning plan was racist and could result in the displacement of minority community members. At issue is a rezoning plan that places height restrictions on new buildings going up on the Lower East Side and the East Village. Community board officials claim that the restrictions are necessary for the area to retain its innate character. Critics claim......

The NY Auto Show got a jump-start to their week long residency at the Javits Center, with a little help from Reverend Billy and his troupe the Stop Driving Gospel. We're told there was "a little drama involving 'Lady Liberty' ready to finally marry The Automobile after a torrid, 100 year romance. But she leaves Mr. Auto at the altar for her true love, Alternative Transportation, and they elope in a pedicab!" As most good......

Top photograph of Tibetan protesters outside the United Nations building by Mary Altaffer/AP; lower photograph of the riots in Lhasa, Tibet from the AP Roughly 100 protesters, most of them Tibetans, demonstrated outside the United Nations today against the Chinese government, which has been trying to put down protests and rioting in Lhasa. Three demonstrators were arrested for trying, unsuccessfully, to enter the U.N. and six were arrested for disorderly conduct. This demonstration coincided with......

City Council member and probable 2009 mayoral candidate, Tony Avella, is the latest politician to ask for America's withdrawl from the Beijing Olympics if China will not grant Tibet independence. Under China's rule for over 50 years, Tibet has made no headway, even with the support of human rights groups, activists...and Richard Gere. When we interviewed Robert Thurman, co-founder of the Tibet House, earlier this year he touched on the Olympics, saying:The thinking is that......

“Anonymous”, the loose-knit anti-Scientology collective, staged a demonstration yesterday outside New York’s Church of Scientology Headquarters near Times Square; it was part of an international day of protest against the church. Anonymous has been expanding rapidly since their Message to Scientology video was posted on YouTube in January; it's been watched over 2 million times in the past three weeks. Among other things, the video accuses Scientology of censorship for threatening to sue websites who......

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League – a group that exists to promote Bill Donohue, er, prevent “virulent anti-Catholicism” – is leading a protest against Jerry Springer: The Opera, which will be performed at Carnegie Hall on January 29th and 30th and stars Harvey Keitel as Springer. The show chronicles Jerry Springer’s adventures in hell, where he's forced to host an outrageous talk show whose guests include Adam and Eve, Mary, Jesus, and, as......

The Parks Dept. decided to throw in the towel on litigation that's been going on for three years and conceded to reevaluate its requirement that no more than 50,000 people could gather on Central Park's Great Lawn at one time. Aside from six allotted exceptions (per year) that include four reserved for performances by the Metropolitan Opera and the NY Philharmonic, the city's rationale for crowd-size restrictions was that very large crowds could damage the......

Isiah Thomas thinks he deserves more time. Not that much more, just two weeks, but time to show he can turn this club around. Of course, he has had four years already, but at this point who is counting? Maybe Isiah noticed that the next two weeks contain six games, but only two of those teams currently have winning records. The two-week timeframe came up as Thomas was asked what he would do to a......

What is Rudy Giuliani getting for the new year? It looks like he's in for some campaign tactics from families representing firefighters that died on 9/11 that The Post is calling "Swift Boat" like. James Riches, a deputy fire chief who's son James Jr., a firefighter who died at Ground Zero, is organizing the campaign against the former mayor. Riches told The Post that things should be "up and running" for January 1st and......

In some good news, the bigwigs at Viacom have heard the angry cries of their permanent freelancing employees, and today announced they were ready to concede. Just over one week ago the company Scrooged over a large portion of their workforce when they announced permalancers insurance benefits and their 401K plans would soon be a ghost of Christmas Past. Demanding equal treatment with full time employees (which the permalancers basically are), the group took......

MTV network freelancers took their beef to the streets yesterday in protest of changes to their benefits plan; about two hundred of the workers spent the afternoon picketing outside the Times Square headquarters of MTV's parent company Viacom. According to Gawker, an initial chant of “What the fuck?!” was revised into the catchier “We care about our 401(k)s!” after a reportedly winsome young rabble-rouser climbed atop a garbage can and helped brainstorm new chant......

The New York Film Critics Circle met yesterday to vote on their “Best of” list for 2007; widely viewed as a barometer for the upcoming Academy Awards, the critics pride themselves as “a principled alternative to the Oscars, honoring esthetic merit in a forum that is immune to commercial and political pressures.” But if one anonymous member is to be believed, the meeting sounds more like a “principled” excuse for an Aint It Cool News-style......

Last night, the Nets lost a rare game to their cross-river rival in which both teams were without key players. Normally, the story would be Marbury missing the game to grieve his father's death and Curry embarrassingly spraining his ankle during a walkthrough, but instead, the Nets troubles were the talk of the town this morning. Jason Kidd missed the game last night due to what he said were migraines, but several people at the......

First responders gathered in front of the NYC Medical Examiner's office to protest how the ME has classified deaths seemingly related to Ground Zero illnesses. State Senator Eric Adams said he would introduce legislation making sure first responders who worked at Ground Zero will "get the same line-of-duty benefits" as September 11 victims. Recently, the ME's office has not named two rescuers, who worked at the World Trade Center site after September 11 and later......

A report released by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that foreign born immigrants living in New York are socioeconomically closer to the average citizen than elsewhere in the country. The study says that New York immigrants are more likely to be in the country legally, have health insurance and tend to be better educated. The New York Times reports that the states with the widest income gaps between immigrants and citizens are California, Texas,......

On November 25, 2006, groom-to-be Sean Bell and his friends were leaving the Kalua nightclub in Queens when undercover police confronted them. In the confusion that ensued (the police thinking the men were armed or were going to the car to retrieve a gun, uncertainty over whether the police identified themselves leading Bell and his friends to think they were being carjacked) five undercover cops fired 50 times at Bell's car. His friends Joseph......

Hallelujah! Yesterday the judge presiding over the Reverend Billy case dropped the charges that claimed he harassed public officials. The Rev was arrested in June while reciting the First Amendment in Union Square during a Critical Mass ride which coincided with the protest of the proposed MOFTB rules. Turns out the prosecutors didn't meet their deadline to file papers explaining the arrest and its justification. The Reverend's (whose real name is Bill Talen) lawyer, Earl......

That group of Columbia University students staging a hunger strike is at least a little victorious, if starving, today. Last night, the university agreed to a number of demands relating to the students' concerns that not enough was being down to encourage ethnic studies and understanding other cultures (especially in the wake of recent hate crimes). From the Columbia Spectator:The University has committed to pay for the expansion of the Office of Multicultural Affairs......

The Columbia University students' hunger strike to protest Columbia's non-inclusive attitudes about redevelopment and curriculum continues with one less striker. Just after midnight on Sunday, a post went on up on the Columbia Hunger Strike website saying, "This evening, one hunger striker was admitted to St. Luke's hospital. She will not continue the strike for personal medical reasons." The student, Aretha Choi, who attends Barnard, later wrote:...my disappointment increases as I remember the bitter......

The city is showing the door to a daycare facility that has called P.S. 122 its home for 26 years. The Children's Liberation Daycare Center (CLDC), which serves 88 kids between the ages of 2 and 6, is going to court later this month to object to its ejection from the building, with no plan for the daycare center's return. The CLDC shares P.S. 122 with three arts organizations and it's the city's Dept. of......

Cops have a suspect in the shooting of orthodontist dad Daniel Malakov and released a sketch of his playground shooter. Malakov was killed by a gunman who shot him at point blank range with a pistol; the shooting left a handmade silencer fashioned from a bleach bottle wrapped in duct tape. The killing is believed to be related to a bitter custody dispute between Malakov and his ex-wife Mazoltuv Borukhova. Because the murder took place......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing patient at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, a car vs. overpass on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, and a truck explosion on 64th Rd. and 108th St. in Queens. A sharp-sighted deckhand on a Staten Island Ferry spotted a pistol sticking out of the pocket of a dim-witted passenger snoozing on a Sunday morning ferry. The passenger, who was arrested, had a long record of criminal weapons possessions.......