Hey, the muppets are here to help you prepare for the next big terrorist attack, and other terrors—like nature's wrath! Of course, not even Super Grover can help clean up George Bush's war, but he can lend a brightly colored smiling face to fearmongering. Wired reports that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and his wife Meryl have worked with the Sesame Workshop and the Ad Council to come up with a campaign focusing on preparedness.......

One upside to yesterday's torrential downpour: A few people captured photographs of rainbows around the city. Here's hoping anyone caught after today's rains see rainbows, too.......

This morning's water vapor satellite image, complete with dry tongue of air from Georgia to Maryland, from the National Weather Service You might think that today's forecast, warm with a chance of a thundershower, is a harbinger of spring. You would be wrong. Mother Nature lives up to her cruel mistress moniker by dangling spring in front of us while all the while holding another cold snap in a gloved hand behind her back.......

Photograph of KITT braving the streets of NYC by neps on Flickr Thankfully NBC’s new version of the classically cheesy 1980s show Knight Rider (Sunday 9:00 p.m., WNBC 4) is not a remake, but a continuation of the old in this two hour movie/back door pilot. Of course, this means there are some changes, such as the presence of David Hasslehoff being reduced to a cameo, the two leads are ex-soap stars (the way the......

Photograph of a snowy bench by the idealist on Flickr Oh, Mother Nature. You bring us a couple inches of snow, make the city pretty for a brief spell, and then you send in the rain and turn up the heat a little, turning everything into slush.......

SFist worried over drugstore chain Walgreens celebration of Black History Month.Gothamist was surprised that apparently New York City is the fourth most miserable city in the country, after Detroit, Stockton, CA, and Flint, MI.Shanghaiist finds out what the Chinese think of Hilary and Obama.It was with a healthy amount of schadenfreude that Phillyist reported that former Eagle, and now Cowboy (ew), Terrell Owens owes the Eagles a significant wad of cash.Torontoist is two weeks......

Photo of Reggie Watts by Noah Kalina. The Under the Radar festival ends this weekend, so do yourself a favor and go check out one or more of the many astonishing productions that are passing through town for what is arguably New York’s most exciting annual theatrical event. Even if you’ve had nothing but horrible experiences as a captive audience at boring theater, you’re sure to be turned around by a show like Disinformation, which......

Gothamist reader luzer took some arresting, very "Wild Kingdom"-like photographs of a hawk snacking on a squirrel in Central Park, near the American Museum of Natural History. luzer posted photographs on Flickr and writes that some of the humans who gathered to watch the spectacle "guessed it was Pale Male. I am not convinced (we saw another one later in the park)." While New York is very urban, there are still many places where......

At 93, Ted Kheel could be resting on his laurels as a well-known labor lawyer and negotiator (the NY Times called him the "the most influential peacemaker in New York City in the last half-century"). Instead, he has been crusading, as his Nurture Nature Foundation explains, to address the "fundamental conflict between development and the environment." He has suggested that the subways should become free and will be releasing results from a study to prove......

The most exciting story in New York theater this year had nothing to do with the Broadway stagehands' strike, it was the vibrant growth of what used to be called “experimental theater”, a movement that can now really only loosely be defined by what it’s not: non-naturalistic and not made for TV, with an emphasis on bold physicality, collaboration and, sometimes, multimedia. This aesthetically diverse body of work is generally classified as Off-Off-Broadway (some dub......

SHOP: Still looking for that perfect gift? The Brooklyn Historical Society is holding the 4th Annual NY Creates Craft Fair, and they may have just what you're looking for. Check it out today and tomorrow, and it will be back the 22nd and 23rd for the real last-minute shoppers. Friday and Saturday // Noon to 6pm // BHS [128 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn] ART: Too much is going on the First Friday of every month, so......

Caution: Half the bathrooms at the Tribeca venue currently hosting Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s No Dice are designed for children; the tiny toilets and sinks hover inches above the floor and may give adult users a disorienting sense of vertigo. The actors’ dressing room, which opens directly onto the performance space, is marked with a laminated sign that declares: “No Adults Are Allowed in the Bouncy Castle!” The company inherited these elements from this......

FESTIVITIES: Forget about that big shiny show-off in Rockefeller Center. Tonight the menorah and Christmas tree in Washington Square Park will be illuminated for all. Come bask in the glow of holiday, people. 6pm // Washington Square Park [W 4th St to Waverly Pl between MacDougal and University] // Free FILM: In a week-long tribute to Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (pictured), tonight The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be screening Notes for an......

The snowfall season started off with 1.4 inches of flakes accumulating in Central Park yesterday. That doesn't sound like much but it puts us more than halfway to the December average of 2.6 inches. Unlike in icy New Jersey, rain and increasing overnight temperatures took quick care of what snow did fall across the city. There are a lot of rings around the Great Lakes low pressure system on this morning's surface weather map. The......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: 2007 American Music Awards (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WABC 7) Most awards shows are basically useless and awards shows where people vote on line are even more so. This year this awards show invented by Dick Clark in 1973 gets even more useless. Jimmy Kimmel hosts. Nature: The Beauty of Ugly (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13; Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., WLIW 21) A look at some of the strangest......

Mother Nature is all treats and no tricks this Halloween. With southerly flow around a high pressure system centered to the east today's high temperature should be nearly ten degrees warmer than normal. The day should be mostly sunny but there may be a few clouds and ghouls this evening. The quest for a record warm October has come down to the last day! Gothamist calculates a monthly average temperature of 63.65 degrees if Central......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Nature: Silence of the Bees (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13; Wednesday 8:00 p.m., WLIW 21) The long running PBS nature series Nature takes a look at the recent decline in the honey bee population and the possible consequences of it. Masterpiece Theatre: The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13) The story of a supermarket manager becomes Prime Minister continues with Mrs. Pritchard facing some hard......

In the shadows of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, residents of Greenpoint will soon be able to go on a nature walk. The Department of Environmental Protection, which operates the sewage plant, is officially opening the Newtown Creek Nature Walk this Saturday. The 800-foot nature walk along Newtown Creek, which took 9-years and $3.2 million to complete, is landscaped and features access points to the polluted creek. The Times even observed a school......

Start sharpening your spurs, gays and gals, because Jake Gyllenhaal is coming to Broadway! If director Mike Nichols has his way, you’ll soon have your chance to stalk the sensitive heartthrob as he flees through the stage door of Farragut North, a new play about presidential campaign hardball penned by a former Howard Dean staffer. According to today’s Post, Gyllenhaal (who made his stage debut in a Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed production of Cats in their parents’......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: The Kill Point (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., Spike TV) The debut of a hostage drama miniseries starring John Leguizamo as a leader of a group of bank robbers who’s plans went wrong and Donnie Wahlberg as the Pittsburgh Police negotiator tasked to deal with them. Saving Grace (Monday, 10:00 p.m., TNT) Another cop show with a twist, this time Holly Hunter stars as an Oklahoma City Police detective......

Reader Spencer sent us these photographs of a red-tailed hawk who frequents a terrace outside his Brooklyn apartment. And if we could fly, we would too, because that's some sweet view. These photographs are particularly well-timed, as the NY Times' FYI column explained that there are many hawks all around the city, though Manhattanites Pale Male and Lola are the most famous. Some good hawk-related websites: PaleMale.com, Marie Winn's Central Park Nature News, and......

Con Ed is laying the blame on Mame Mother Nature for the two power outages this past week. The utility issued a statement saying that the 48-minute blackout on Wednesday - the one that hit the Upper East Side and South Bronx - was caused by a "strong lightning strike." This is what the Con Ed statement said:Information obtained from real-time lightning tracking data show that detection instruments measured a lightning strike of 34,000 amperes......

Wednesday power woes weren't just for parts of the Bronx and Manhattan: Over 4,000 (or 8,000, depending on what you read) Queens residents were without power when last night's storm made its presence known. In fact, two hours after the MTA said LIRR service was a-okay after the Bronx-Manhattan power outage, the rain screwed up Long Island Rail Road track signals, causing hours of delays after service was suspended. In this instance, we feel......

The city's Health Department is investigating three hepatitis C infection in people who "received intravenous (IV) anesthesia from the same NYC-based anesthesiologist." Oh, dear. The incidents occurred in August of last year, and it seems like the anesthesia was given in an out-patient (not a hospital) facility. The DOH is contacting about 4,500 patients who received IV anesthesia between December 1, 2003 and May 1, 2007 at the 10 outpatient facilities the doctor worked in......

Much to our forecasting chagrin, clouds instead of sunshine have been the rule today. Luckily the clouds are breaking up a bit as tonight is one of Mother Nature's great astronomical spectacles. Yes, this evening is Williamsburghenge, the night when the sun's setting rays are parallel to the streets, well the numbered streets from North 3rd to North 15th, in Williamsburg. Many readers have asked us how astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson calculates the......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Nature - Dogs That Changed the World: Dogs by Design (Sunday, 8:00 p.m. WNET 13; Wednesday 9:00 p.m. WLIW 21) The second and final part of the story of the dog looks at how humans created the various dog breeds and the modern day consequences. Today (Monday, 7:00 a.m., WNBC 4) Another outing of Where in the World is Matt Lauer starts Monday morning. The Mormons (Monday......

FESTIVAL: The New York Ukulele Festival has arrived. The weekend includes: "nonstop Ukulele Fun! Concerts, Vendors, Workshops, Jams! 40,000 Square Feet, Two Concert Stages! FREE BEER ALL WEEKEND. FREE UKULELE DOOR PRIZES AT EVERY CONCERT!!” Friday through Sunday // Noon to 5pm // Theatre for the New City [155 1st Ave] EVENT: Clock out early and head to the Apple Store this afternoon to catch producers/screenwriters/directors Joel and Ethan Coen (pictured). They'll be discussing the......

Patrick Cullina is the VP of Horticulture and Facilities at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and New York's go-to guy for cherry trees (there are over 200 trees and 42 species at BBG alone!). Anita Jacobs is responsible for all of the programs that go along with the garden, speaking of which... The two-day Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival (New York's Rite of Spring) enters its 26th year at the Garden this weekend. Just after the......

A look at some noteworthy television programs this week: Nature: Dogs That Changed The World: The Rise of the Dog (Sunday, 8:00 p.m. WNET 13; Wednesday, 9:00 p.m., WLIW 21) The first of a two part look at man's best friend, the dog. Part one looks at the origins of domesticated dogs and inquires about the theory that links domestication to human's trash. A behind the scenes podcast looking into the challenges of filming dogs......

Yesterday's storm brought flooding, closed roadways, delayed mass transit, difficult drives, soaked clothing, upended umbrellas and 7.46 inches of rain to Central Park. There were winds of 48 MPH at Kennedy Airport, as hundreds of flights in the area airports were canceled. And some environmentalists noted the irony of Saturday's Sea of People demonstration while the mayor was issuing emergency flood warnings for downtown Manhattan. Con Edison reported about city 1,700 households were without......