Photograph of a Chinese couple and child in a stadium-turned-shelter after the earthquake by Andy Wong/AP With the death toll over 13,000 and still tens of thousands missing or buried under debris, plus aftershocks near the epicenter today, the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that devastated the Sichuan province of China has prompted New York City's Chinese community to react. Many groups have received donations and City Councilman John Liu said:"As always in the past, anytime......

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......

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......

Congratulations, America! You're having less sex than almost anyone else! According to the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey, Americans get it on less often than most, with only 53% having regular, weekly action (and with only 44% actually reporting being satisfied with their sex lives). In fact, the average American gets it on only slightly more often than the Japanese who were at the bottom of the list. Greeks preferred to be on top with......

drunkie the snowman, by brainware3000 at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an officer shot on Vandalia Ave & Ardlsey Loop in Brooklyn, a gas leak at Dongan Pl. off Broadway in Manhattan, and an aircraft emergency at JFK in Queens. The City's investigating whether its artificial turf fields are poisonous. The Brooklyn Paper finds Obama did get votes in many Brooklyn districts (here's the congressional district breakdown for all of NYC). Blogging by......

No, he's not blushing from all the attention. Mao Mi is a Red Panda and the newest addition to Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn. He arrived last week from Michigan's Binder Park Zoo as part of a Wildlife Conservation Society breeding project. Red Pandas are an endangered species with fewer than 2,500 adults thought to remain in the wild in Bhutan, China, India, Laos, Nepal and Burma. Mao Mi will probably be mated with this......

Photo credit: sniderscion Torontoist spent its week uncovering who was behind mysterious ads for a drug called "Obay" that popped up across the country (Scientology? Frank Shepard Fairey?), first tracing them to an advocacy group called Colleges Ontario and then confirming their suspicions a few days later.Phillyist learned how to put on a puppet show – it's not as easy as you might think!Shanghaiist discovers that the average starting monthly pay for fresh graduates......

Maybe you've received a flier to see a show at Radio City Music Hall called Chinese New Year Splendor, which is promoted as a holiday celebration of China’s diverse cultural riches. But mixed within the traditional Mongolian dancing, orchestral music and Buddhist parables are dramatizations of the Chinese government’s oppression of Falun Gong, a qigong-based spiritual practice that is banned in China. And the show’s political content is prompting audiences to walk out by......

Professor, author and activist Robert Thurman is widely regarded as the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism, having been a major force in the widespread introduction of Tibetan culture and religion to the west. In 1962, Thurman became the first American ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, but after a few years he shifted from strict monasticism to the more conventional lifestyle of an academic. Though currently on sabbatical to write another book, Thurman remains......

It’s never to early to start planning for the future One World Government, and one great way to fill the odd hours is by building websites about it, as one group of visionaries have done with their Reservoir Project. The pseudo-serious website is dedicated to securing New York City as the capital of the “Earth Government” and converting the Central Park Reservoir into “the Biggest, the Tallest, the most Elegant and Innovative Structure in the......

“It’s horrible. I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Arye Lewkowitz, owner of Daniel’s Bagels on Third Avenue, recently told Metro. “We’re going to have to sell a bagel for over $1.” Lewkowitz isn’t alone; bagel and bread prices are soaring nationwide due to the skyrocketing cost of wheat, which more than doubled in the past year in New York, from $5.31 a bushel to $14.22. The main reason for the spike is drought......

Photograph of the Trump Soho by Riccardo Sinti Gothamist went to the scene of the Trump Soho construction collapse, which left one construction worker dead and others injured (an indirect culprit - Manhattan's hot real estate market, causing rushed construction jobs).Shanghaiist is confused by media reports as to whether Playboy will be available in China during the year of the Olympics.LAist got fugged in an interview with the Go Fug Yourself girls.Torontoist set hearts......

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg speaking at the State of the City address by Mary Altaffer/AP Mayor Bloomberg sounded some broad themes in his seventh State of the City address. Held at the new ice skating rink at Flushing-Meadows Corona Park in Queens, his speech outlined initiatives the city and various city agencies will undertake (digital 911 so you can send the NYPD photos from cell phones by this summer! reforming the Board of Elections!......

You know how Hispanic cooks have been replacing Italians in a lot of pizza joints? The same fate could be in store for the city’s Chinese restaurants, as the booming Chinese economy now gives chefs little incentive to take work in a declining America. Many area restaurant owners are distressed by the trend and blame it on the fact that executive chefs’ salaries in China are matching or even surpassing the U.S. pay grade. Salaries......

LAist listed a top ten list of sorts: things they hope not to see in Los Angeles in 2008. (one example, pictured above). Shanghaiist was surprised to learn that "godless," "atheist," and "commie" China is soon going to be the world's largest supplier of Bibles! Torontoist picked some of their favorite photos of 2007. Londonist was relieved to hear the fire at the Royal Marsden hospital didn't harm any of the patients even though......

Some time ago the New Yorker ran an amusing “Talk of the Town” feature on nightlife crusader Roy Den Hollander, who, unlike most nightclub scolds, isn’t fighting against excessive noise and loose morals – he’s out to put a stop to the scourge that is Ladies’ Night. And not because he disdains the ladies or the night, but because Den Hollander, attorney at law and self-styled pick-up artist, sees it as yet another way The......

Mayor Bloomberg continued his whirlwind tour through Asia yesterday with a stop in Bali, Indonesia to talk to United Nations officials about the global effects of climate change. This is after a foray to China, that brought to mind Ed Koch's Beijing inspiration for bike paths in NYC to The New York Times' Clyde Haberman. Like NYC, Bali was the victim of a devastating terrorist attack that killed and injured hundreds of people. True......

So much for halting the hike! Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Spitzer have both given their approval of the MTA's proposed 4-7% fare hikes for subway and bus riders. The base fare will remain $2, but the unlimited Metrocard prices will increase. The Mayor (from China apparently) said, "Based on the information that my staff and I have received and reviewed over the past few weeks, I am now satisfied that the MTA budget is a......

Mayor Bloomberg will be speaking at a United Nations conference in Indonesia, but he made a stop in Beijing first. He said to the audience at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "Some people believe that by mid-century, as [much] as 75 percent of China's population may be city dwellers. Even an occasional visitor to China, like me, is struck by this rapid urbanization. It is one of the largest internal migrations by people in......

On the front page of the NY Times section A, there was a photograph of some workers in Haoro, India and an article titled "New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India." And in fact, the workers are barefoot, bare-chested, bare-handed, and bare-headed as they work in an iron foundry, making manhole covers for Con Ed and other cities. The Times explains that a photographer, J. Adam Huggins, who works with the newspaper brought......

Irene Boland, the co-author of Wind the World Over, works in the sustainability office of the EPA. Her office covers Region 2 (New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) helps people pursue green living through their built environment. You can find out more about her office at the EPA on their website. Irene resides in Brooklyn, "under the BQE." How did you and your co-author, Vanessa Kellogg come up with the......

Earlier this week, a National Labor Committee report claimed that crosses sold at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity Church and other churches were made in Chinese sweatshops. The NLC said that the Singer Company employed young women at 26 cents an hour and forced them to work a 100 hours a week; plus, the woman are docked pay for food and boarding, leaving them with pay of just 9 cents an hour. You can read......

It’s been legal for individuals to bring absinthe into the U.S. for some time now, but only this year are authentic varieties of the spirit made with 19th-century distilling methods legal to produce in America and sell in stores. The complete end of prohibition – which, as the Times reports, has already taken place in the E.U. – is thanks in part to studies concluding that the chemical thujone, found in wormwood and often blamed......

Just a day before the running of the NYC Marathon, the U.S. Olympic trials for the men's marathon were marred by an untimely death today. 28-year-old Ryan Shay died while competing in the Olympic trials in Central Park, just a few miles into the 26.2 mile race. Shay collapsed at the 5.5 mile mark of the race and was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital where he was declared dead. The cause of death has yet......

Does China make anything that isn't chock full of lead anymore? The US Product Safety Commission announced today that 43,000 Chinese-made fake teeth are being recalled because of very high levels of lead paint. The "Ugly Teeth" party favor retails for about two bucks and has been sold throughout the country since 2006. Consumers are asked to return the fake teeth to wherever they purchased them for a full refund. Lead paint ingestion is particularly......

There’s activity over at the old Jade Mountain space on East 12th, the restaurant with the iconic neon CHOW MEIN sign. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York (via Eater) reports that an on-scene workman offered up this tidbit: “It’s going to be a restaurant.” Jade Mountain closed earlier this year after much-missed owner Reginald Chan was struck by a vehicle while delivering food. Here’s a photo of the restaurant’s landmark sign taken by reader Jay Jaffe: Red,......

The NYPD is investigating six police officers suspected of trying to improperly obtain steroids. According to WNBC, the NYPD and State Health department have been raiding Brooklyn pharmacies - and the NYPD's Internal Affairs has now turned an eye on its own. The NYPD's Paul Browne says that news reports that dozens of officers were being investigated were "wildly distorted and exaggerated." He does not believe the suspects to be arrested; rather they will face......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a carjacking at Tompkins and School Rds. on Staten Island, a person was killed by a 5 train at Bowling Green station in Manhattan, and an armed robbery at 51st Ave. and Northern Blvd. in Queens. Bidding closed at $2,600 for the new owner of the Seinfeld ASSMAN license plate prop on eBay. Another Mister Softee driver was busted for selling drugs out of his ice cream truck, this......

An immigration judge was criticized by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit panel and taken off the immigration case of a Chinese man, in what the NY Times reports is a "rare step". Apparently her cold-hearted reaction to his testimony concerned the panel, as well as her dismissal of other evidence. In 2004, Judge Noel A. Ferris (pictured) had been hearing the asylum plea of Jian Zhong Sun. According to the Times, Sun......

A week ago, Gothamist was rhetorically asking if our days of 80-degree weather were behind us until next spring. Now it is looking like we will have at least one more warm spell before fall sets in. That got us to wondering what the latest days were that Central Park reached 80 or 90 degrees. We churned through the daily temperature data from 1971 to the present to plot the graph above. The latest......