Reader Joel sent us this photograph of some billowing black smoke in downtown Brooklyn (he took it from Manhattan--see a bigger image here). While it looks ominous--and there is a lot of smoke--it turns out it is a truck fire on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, where it comes out near Middagh/Hicks Streets. The truck was reportedly carrying construction materials, but nothing hazardous.......

A fatal car accident late Friday night left body parts strewn across the BQE in Williamsburg after a man was hit by two separate cars while trying to cross the highway. The accident took place near Wythe Avenue just before midnight . The first car that hit the man sped away from the scene while there were no charges for the second car which remained until police arrived. The victim was a 23-year-old Massachusetts native......

Around 5:45 a.m., a tractor-trailer crashed into a livery car on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at Morgan Avenue, near the Kosciusko Bridge. The vehicles were Brooklyn-bound, and the collision caused the tractor-trailer to jackknife across the divider and hit a Queens-bound car. One person is dead and two others are seriously injured. Traffic was initially closed in both directions, but now there's one lane open in each direction. There are still considerable delays. Officials are investigating......

Earlier this morning, a tractor trailer overturned on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The tractor trailer's cargo - an assortment of live chickens - spilled onto the highway and broke open, leaving crews to chase a lot of fowl for hours during clean-up (a worker estimated there were 500!). It's unclear whether all the chickens were retrieved, so if you live near Flushing Avenue and see a feathered friend more suited to a coop than a......