Burn After Reading: How Some Tech-Savvy Firefighters May Be Putting New Yorkers in Danger
A Reasonable Man: How Track-Suited Firebrand Al Sharpton Became the Most Thoughtful Voice on Cable
Brazilian Broker Busted Moving Money Offshore After Burger King Charge
No More 'Quote Approval' at The New York Times
SPURA Spat Sweeps Council: After 40 Years, Disbelief Abounds
Monica Lewinsky Tells the Rest
NYPD Video of Lindsay Lohan vs. Pedestrian Incident May Help Starlet's Case [Video]
The Village Voice Seeks EIC
Pols 'Sound the Alarm' Over Voter Confusion
Brazilian Broker Busted Moving Money Offshore After Burger King Charge
Have it your way: A Miami-based broker accused of insider trading in Burger King stock started transferring assets out of the country, so the Securities and Exchange Commission hit him with a court order.
Waldyr Da Silva Prado Neto, a Brazilian citizen and former Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley employee, was tipped by a client Read More
No More ‘Quote Approval’ at The New York Times
The New York Times announced today that they are banning the practice known as “quote approval.” The newspaper of record is now officially against giving sources the power to approve quotes and alter language after an interview has taken place in exchange for access to the sources.
“So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit,” said the memo (full text below). Read More
SPURA Spat Sweeps Council: After 40 Years, Disbelief Abounds
Yesterday, at a City Council hearing on the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, more commonly known as SPURA, the proper pronunciation of acronym—s-pure-rah? spur-ae? spewer?— wasn’t the only point in contention. The other question, the one the public, very many of them, had come out to answer was: Could New York finally take real steps, after nearly 40 years of waiting, to develop a long-neglected series of parking lots on the Lower East Side while still maintaining the famed spirit and character of that neighborhood. Or, as some would have it, would SPURA become just another in a long chain of missed opportunities.
The hearing, chaired by council members Steve Levin of Brooklyn, chair of the zoning subcommittee, and Margaret Chin, the local rep, was a packed affair with the honorable Mr. Levin often reminding people to show their appreciation by, “doing the Occupy Wall Street thing,” as he wiggled his fingers in the air. “Jazz hands” is the technical term, we believe. It was a gesture that would be seldom actually seen during the next three and a half hours, with many of the speakers, both for and against the project, receiving their own rounds of loud supportive applause. The truth was this crowd came to be heard and many of them had been waiting for a very long time. Read More
Monica Lewinsky Tells the Rest
So you thought that Kenneth Starr and Linda Tripp already discovered everything you never wanted to know about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky’s affair back in the 1990s? Think again.
Ms. Lewinsky, the woman who will forever be the intern with a stained blue dress, has decided to capitalize on her long-lived fame and sullied name. The Post reports that she got a $12 million book deal, although the publisher has not been disclosed. That’s a lot of money (especially in these days of austerity and low book advances) but apparently Ms. Lewinsky has the goods. Read More
NYPD Video of Lindsay Lohan vs. Pedestrian Incident May Help Starlet’s Case [Video]
Today the NYPD released surveillance footage of the Wednesday-night incident that left actress Lindsay Lohan accused of striking a pedestrian then leaving the scene. The video may be more useful in defending Ms. Lohan than prosecuting her. It shows a typical late-night street scene, several people milling around a parking area entrance. Ms. Lohan’s vehicle noses through then leaves the frame and no one seems alarmed or concerned. Take a look: Read More
The Village Voice Seeks EIC
Are you an editor in chief in need of a publication? Well, The Village Voice is hiring.
The Voice needs to replace Tony Ortega, who jumped ship/got pushed out of the alt weekly last week and is now focusing on Scientology-related pursuits. The ad for the position (below) was posted today on JournalismJobs.com. Read More
Pols ‘Sound the Alarm’ Over Voter Confusion
On the steps of City Hall earlier this afternoon, council members and good government advocates gathered to “sound the alarm” over problems that occurred during the September 13th primary elections and urged both the Board of Elections and legislative bodies to act promptly to rectify the situation before November’s presidential election, when far more people are set to vote.
Councilman Jumaane Williams, who tweeted up a storm of frustration last Election Day and led today’s event, urged everyone to pay particular attention to the tiny font size used on the ballots, which he said was significantly smaller than in past elections and created substantial problems for seniors unable to read the letters. To prove his point, he pointed to a poster that illustrated the smallness of the font. His colleague, Councilman Vinnie Gentile, channeled Jimmy McMillan, exclaiming, “The font is too damn small!” Read More
Big Apple Idolatry: Celebrities are Fat, on Drugs, Possibly Pregnant
— The Church of Scientology has written a strongly-worded letter to Vanity Fair about Maureen Orth’s cover story on Tom Cruise and the woman auditioned to be his girlfriend, Nazanin Boniadi. It’s eight pages long. In it, the church threatens, “If Vanity Fair goes forward with publication of such defamatory allegations, now that it is on notice that the story is false, the stain on its reputation will last long after any reader even remembers the article. The sting of the jury verdict will last longer still; far longer than any pleasure from racing to publish a poorly researched and sourced story.” Read More
Bloomberg to High Line Haters: Cities Change, Get Over It
The High Line. Rejuvenator of neighborhoods, destroyer of neighborhoods.
Those are basically the two media narratives surrounding the elevated park on Manhattan’s West Side, which just held the groundbreaking for its third and final phase today. Most of the attention in the past has been on how great the design-y new park is, but as locals learn to live with the millions of visitors who flock to the park each year, some of them have started to complain, most notably in the Op-Ed pages of the Times, that the High Line has actually ruined, or at least Disneyfied, the neighborhoods surrounding it.
Asked about these changes today, Mayor Bloomberg did not necessarily disagree with the situation, just the sentiment. Read More
Paris Hilton Says Gay Men Are Disgusting, Have AIDS, Because She’s Worried for Their Health
This is one of those cases where no one comes out looking good: a cab driver in New York thought it was his lucky day when Paris Hilton flagged him down, and seeing an opportunity to make a couple extra bucks, secretly recorded her entire conversation with a friend to sell to TMZ. Classy! Of course, if the heiress had just been discussing her latest perfume line, or the singularity, or how much money she plans on donating to the Tesla Science Museum (you know, normal Paris Hilton things), than the guy would have gone home empty-handed, like sleazeball citizen paparazzi deserve to.
Unfortunately, Ms. Hilton was interrupted in her meditation of quantum physics by her friend, who brought up the gay men friend finder, Grindr. “Gay guys are the horniest people in the world … they’re disgusting,” Ms. Hilton said, according to TMZ, which obtained the tape, obviously. Unfortunately, the quote continues.
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