Remember the lady who tried to argue her way onto a plane last April by bringing up her already checked bags: "What if I had a bomb in my bag? Well, I have a bomb in my bag, so are you guys going to turn the plane around cuz I need my bag" Well, Rosalinda Baez ended up paying JetBlue $23,000 for the plane's emergency landing (they had to be safe, of course). And though......

Police suspect that a strange van filled with mysterious explosives found in Sunset Park may be linked to a landlord with a history of bomb-making activities. On Thursday, a career criminal broke into the van, intending to rob it but decided to tip off the police after moving it to a more desolate location. The NYPD's anti-terror task force responded, as did Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and the FBI, to the scene. WABC 7 reported......

Brooklyn prosecutors have charged a landlord with trying to kill a tenant. Yung Tang is accused of attempted murder, assault and arson for the 2002 incident. According to prosecutors, Tang wanted to evict tenant Israel Halberstam, who was $100,000 behind on rent on an electronics showroom space. Tang planted a homemade bomb under Halberstam's minivan; when the tenant moved his vehicle, the bomb exploded and he lost a leg. Initially, the incident worried people that......

Starting today, teams of six NYPD officers will be patrolling the subway system in 12 hour shifts to thwart would-be terrorists. You’ll be able to easily identify the squads – called “Torch Teams” – by their rifles, MP5 submachine guns, handguns, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs. The program is being paid for with $151 million from taxpayers nationwide, allocated through D.C. The Torch Teams will function like the similarly equipped NYPD “Hercules Teams” (pictured) above......

A business consultant is accused of "falsely claiming there was a bomb in her suitcase" after she was unable to get onto her JetBlue flight at JFK Airport last week. According to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Rosalinda Baez was trying to argue her way onto the plane after the jetway closed. Baez allegedly told a flight attendant, "What if I had a bomb in my bag? Well, I have a bomb in......

In hopes of more leads, the NYPD has re-released the photograph of the bike they believe belongs to the person who bombed the Times Square army recruiting center on March 6. The police also revealed more details about the circa 1980s bike. From the Daily News:"Someone might have sold this recently at a garage sale in the fall, when they were cleaning up," NYPD Lt. Dennis Briordy said of the 10-speed Ross bike. "The......

The police have taken fingerprints from the bike believed to have been trashed by the Times Square bomber. They are also looking for traces of DNA left on the bike and checking cellphone transmissions in the area during Thursday early morning, which is when a bomb exploded outside the army recruiting center. First, the police are " trying to eliminate nonsuspect fingerprints" because a number of people handled the bike when it was discovered and......

Some Capitol Hill offices received letters claiming responsibility for this morning's bombing in Times Square. WNBC reports that the letters, which arrived today, included a photo of the Army recruiting center "before it was bombed and...the words 'We did it.'" According to the AP, Senator Dianne Feinstein's office sent this email to other lawmakers:"A few offices on the House side have received a letter today addressed to 'Members of Congress' with a picture of a......

Images from surveillance footage via WNBC The NYPD released surveillance footage of this morning's explosion near the Army recruiting center in Times Square. The footage shows a bicyclist approaching the building and an explosion taking place after he leaves. The bicyclist is of interest because a witness told the police he/she saw a bicyclist acting suspiciously. Earlier today, Police Commissioner Kelly said, "The individual (on the bicycle) was wearing a hood and dark colored......

Portions of Francis Lewis High School were shut down yesterday after a teenager said he had a bomb. In reality, it turns out that it was more like a rocket. Nonetheless, the teen was charged with placing a false bomb. School security (they're useful for something, apparently) overheard students talking about a bomb, so they inspected 16-year-old Victor Vergara's bag where they spotted the suspicious device. When they asked Vergara what it was, he told......

It’s said that when Dick Cheney was tasked with vetting potential Veeps for the Bush campaign, he carefully considered all the applicants before recommending the best man for the job: himself. Perhaps tearing a page from Vader’s playbook, Dark Lord Balthazar – AKA Gawker Media Czar Nick Denton – has found the ideal replacement to helm his flagship website in the wake of managing editor Choire Sicha’s resignation: an eager young go-getter from sector 7G......

The two men who fell more than 40 stories, when the window washing rig they had just stepped onto collapsed, were brothers. Edgar and Alcides Moreno were Ecuadorians who had come to the U.S. and lived in Linden, NJ. They worked for City Wide Window Cleaning and were regular fixtures at the Solow Tower Apartments building on East 66th St. The brothers were just starting work yesterday morning when they may have stepped on to......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a severed limb on 55th St. in Brooklyn, a person fatally struck by a train near the East Tremont Station on the 2 line in the Bronx, and an armed robbery on Bradhurst and 147th St. in Manhattan. A mother brought her 15-year-old son to the hospital when she discovered him assembling what appeared to be a bomb in their home. The ER at Hoboken University Medical Center was......

A middle-aged man held several workers hostage at Sen. Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office in the town of Rochester yesterday, before surrendering to police. The alleged bomb he had taped to his chest turned out to be simply a number of road flares. Leeland Eisenberg's motivation for seizing Clinton's field office is unclear, but he appears to be a disturbed individual. The New York Times declined to speculate on Eisenberg's purpose ("[Police] would not discuss......

It took all of 45 seconds on Sunday to tell you that the Giants were in trouble. Lawrence Tynes sent the opening kickoff out of bounds and Minnesota scored on a 60-yard bomb on their second play of the game. It was a harbinger of things to come as Minnesota thrashed the Giants 41-17 on Sunday. You can blame the entire team for this one, but the quarterback deserves special consideration. Eli Manning was terrible......

A deal with an undercover operative quickly turned deadly yesterday for a man looking to sell a hand grenade in the Bronx. Federal agents and an NYPD detective were monitoring a conversation being held in a car yesterday between the grenade seller and operative. It was not expected the seller would have the grenade on him at the time, so when he produced it, agents rushed the scene in the interest of public safety. The......

The holiday-time movie releases are starting to pile up with their usual feverish frequency. Some have Christmas themes, like the widely reviled Vince Vaughn vehicle Fred Claus that’s already roadkill on the lost highway of cinema history; others, like Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, are timed to make an impression as close to Academy Award-voting season as possible. Here are some of the biggest gorillas set to dominate New York’s screens in the next six......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at 1 Broadway in Manhattan, a person under a train at the Queensboro Plaza station in Queens, and a child struck by a city bus on Parkside Ave. in Brooklyn. Thieves are targeting open houses across the Upper West Side--stealing personal possessions after gaining access to homes. Oddly, one of the two woman thieves is suspected to actually be a man in drag. Chants of "No......

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.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an officer assaulted on Church Ave. and 53rd St. in Brooklyn, a car into a coffee shop in the area of Skillman and 50th in Queens, and two people shot on Park Ave. and 17th St. in Manhattan. An insurance broker pleaded guilty to idiotic target practice that launched arrows from his compound bow on the Upper East Side. Bono and Bloomberg's mutual admiration society. Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov......

Yesterday, a group of longboard skaters raced down Broadway from West 116th Street all the way to the bull in the Financial District for the "Broadway Bomb." Sacha Lecca took photographs of the skate, which seemed to have at least 100 skaters. Sacha tells us there were around 70 last year and 30 in 2005; according to the website, the race started in 2002. The race was postponed from Saturday to Sunday because of......

Last night, an unoccupied five-story hotel at 22 West 24th Street collapsed; no injuries were reported. The former La Semana Hotel "fell into itself leaving a giant, although relatively tidy, pile of rubble," according to the Post. Witnesses said the 8PM collapse sounded like a bomb explosion and that "floor by floor, the building simply gave in." A fire official told the NY Times, "If this happened during the daytime, during a workday when......

Two explosive devices detonated outside the Mexican Consulate at 39th St. near Madison Ave. in Manhattan early this morning, breaking several windows but not injuring anyone. The devices were believed to be replica hand grenades of the sort that are normally sold as novelties, but in this instance were packed with gunpowder. The explosions occurred around 3:30 a.m. and a resident on the block called the police reporting them. It wasn't until employees at the......

Newspaper photographers usually tend to contribute to the story - not be the subject of them. But today there happens to be two stories about the NY Post's shutterbugs. One photographer, Jason Nicholas, who served almost 13 years on a manslaughter conviction (he was 19 when he fired a rifle at a man, who later died), was arrested last month while covering a story. Apparently the cop told him not to use his flash while......

The Onion News Network has a parody broadcast on what would happen if country music stars challenged Al-Qaeda to "just reduce New York City to a pile of rubble," saying it wouldn't affect them much. The challenge comes in the form of a patriotic number called "Bomb New York." At least the Dixie Chicks will probably still have our back.......

READING: Our interviewee from yesterday, Adrian Tomine, will be reading tonight at Book Court. The graphic novelist not only has his work in some of the more prestigious rags, he's also got a full length graphic novel, titled Shortcomings. 7pm // Book Court [163 Court St, Cobble Hill] // Free At a very different reading in Manhattan, Chris Matthews will be promoting his new political memoir Life's a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About......

There's a group of guys, younger than Tony Hawk but older than your average skater punk, who refuse to give up their skateboards -- though admittedly they say they have nothing to rebel against anymore. Skateboarding doesn't have to be about rebelling though, sometimes it can just be about...commuting? Bikers aren't the only ones finding a better way to move around this city, turns out the skateboard is helping grown men get to work --......

It's been six years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Chinatown residents are getting frustrated that a security measure to protect New York City's police headquarters has tied traffic in their neighborhood in knots. One Police Plaza is located on Park Row in Chinatown, a street that links the financial district with one of the oldest ethnic neighborhoods in the city. Park Row has historically been a major four-lane artery linking the financial district to......

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting Columbia University today to give a speech for the World Leaders Forum. And he continued to get a big New York-style welcome: The Daily News has its "The Evil Has Landed" cover while Assemblyman Dov Hikind told protesters outside Columbia's gates yesterday, “He should be arrested when he comes to Columbia University, not speak at the university, for God’s sake. I call on New Yorkers to make the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 126th St. in Manhattan, another shooting on Intervale Ave. and East 163rd St. in the Bronx, and a stabbing on Rockaway and Pitken Aves. in Brooklyn. Atlantic City's Borgata casino was in flames this morning. Connecticut's Governor suspended parole for inmates convicted of violent crimes after NYC cops shot a convict who drove a car stolen at knife point into the city. A Norwegian Cruise Line......