Photo courtesy Mike Xinnachs / WCBS 880; image artwork by mattmolnar. Today's a worse-than-usual day to fly American; it’s being reported that the airline’s baggage system is “not functioning” at JFK. Flights were being delayed earlier this morning while workers struggled to fix the unspecified malfunction, but finally the airline just said the hell with it and resumed flights without checked luggage on board. This also means the TSA is manually screening bags. AA has......

Passengers who boarded a Delta flight to Las Vegas at JFK airport at 10:30 a.m. yesterday had plenty of time to catch up on their Sudoku, because they ended up being stuck on the plane for over 7 hours. The flight never left JFK due to scattered thunderstorms on Sunday. Passengers were placated with water and “warm Sprite,” according to one account, and were finally permitted off the plane sometime after 5:30 p.m. A Delta......

The tabloids have caught wind of a bird smuggling operation uncovered by customs officials at JFK airport: For years now people have been sneaking Guyanese finches called Towa Towas into New York. The birds are used by Brooklyn’s Guyanese community for singing competitions; people place bets on two birds, and a judge decides which one has the lovlier song. (Here’s YouTube video of a Towa Towa singing.) According to the Post, a Brooklyn man was......

Get this woman a reality TV show! Christina Szele of Woodside, Queens created such a disturbance during a Jet Blue flight from JFK airport to San Francisco that pilots diverted the plane and landed in Denver, where federal authorities took her into custody. According to an affidavit obtained by the Smoking Gun, things started to go sideways after a flight attendant noticed Szele waiting on line for the bathroom with a book of matches and......

Stewart International Airport in Orange County, NY is losing one of its two major carriers--AirTran. The airline cited rising fuel costs, which are affecting all carriers negatively, as the reason for its ending of routes from Stewart. AirTran carried 315,000 passengers over the last year to Florida destinations and its Atlanta hub. In combination with Jet Blue, AirTran has been critical to the near-tripling of passengers at the airport in 2007. The loss of one......

The Port Authority has decided that the thousands of feral cats that roam JFK Airport's property are best dealt with by way of extermination. The PA claims the wild kitties are a danger to aircraft and passengers, so it has trapped them, with vague explanations of its intentions. It has now made those intentions explicit: The cats will be rounded up and turned over to animal shelters, and since feral cats are unadoptable, this......

Like Starbucks baristas before them, airline workers are going back to school...or at least mandatory training sessions. JFK airport is gearing up for a busy summer of travel, and they're preparing to meet delays and frustrated airline passengers head-on, and with a happy face. At least 500 employees are getting "nice" training; from the AirTran to the parking lot to the ticket booth, travelers should be greeted with a smile -- albeit a forced one.......

An unidentified man was forcibly removed from a United Airlines at JFK before it took off last night because he wouldn’t sit down and stop praying. A San Francisco author named Ori Brafman, who was on the flight, told WNBC the Orthodox Jewish man ignored instructions from flight attendants to remain in his seat. During the minutes before take off, he walked to the back of the plane to pray, and when he continued to......

Photo by Raymond Haddad, at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Broadway and 231st St. in the Bronx, an aircraft alert at JFK at Queens, and a person fatally struck by a train at 57th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan. Entries for the NYC Half-Marathon will start being accepted at 11:59pm on May 29th. Details. And the Design Trust for Public Space is accepting submissions for its Grand Army......

Image of firefighters trying to put out overturned fuel tanker fire in Queens from WNBC A two-alarm fire was ignited on the Van Wyck Expressway when a tanker crashed near North Conduit Avenue - and JFK Airport - around noon. The driver could not escape and died in the blaze. The was extinguished by 1:30PM, but WCBS 2 reported, "A sea of foam covered the ramp and surrounding ground area, even catching fire at......

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......

Some dogs traveling to the U.S. from Iraq weren't dogs of war or trained to sniff explosives. Instead, they provided a little comfort and unconditional love to soldiers stuck in a war zone. With the help of the International SPCA's Baghdad Pups program, two dogs named Liberty and K-Pot have been adopted by soldiers' families. Because the military doesn't allow units to take adopted dogs with them when they move, soldiers either had to turn......

Any color you like, by Unlisted Sightings at flickr; Artist: Jim Lambie at MoMA.Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on East 39th St. in Manhattan, a large fight on 2nd Ave. in Manhattan, and a child in cardiac arrest on Pitt St. in Manhattan. Police in Nassau County are conducting an active homicide investigation in New Cassel, after they were called to a home where three children--all under the age of seven--were found......

Photograph of someone determined to get around in the snow by Charley Lhasa on Flickr After January hype - which resulted in rain - and a brief moment of snow last week, a winter snow storm finally made an appearance this year. Two weather disturbances resulted in many inches of snow falling in the region: By 2PM, more than 6 inches fell in the city, which is the biggest snowfall in two years and......

Workers are almost done dismantling the 317 feet long, 23 feet wide stained-glass exterior to the American Airlines’ vacant Terminal 8 building. The red, blue and white wall, comprised of 900 panes of glass, was designed by artist Robert Sowers and was completed in 1960; at the time it was the world’s largest stained-glass window and the first to heavily incorporate stained glass in a secular building, an aesthetic that soon became fashionable. The 48-year-old......

A 7-year-old New York City boy has joined a growing number of children who’ve had the horrifying experience of getting their feet mangled by escalators while wearing popular plastic clogs made by Crocs. The boy’s mother says the accident happened in a Kentucky airport: ”All of a sudden I hear this excruciating screaming from Nicky and I turn around and his little foot is being sucked into the side of the escalator. It's just like......

Photograph of Fidel Castro from 2006, proving he was alive after intestinal surgery and wearing an Adidas tracksuit Cuban president Fidel Castro resigned his position after nearly 50 years of rule. The 81-year-old Castro has been battling illness since 2006, notably turning over power to his brother Raul and other ministers temporarily. Though he was still ruling after his 2006 surgery, Castro was little seen. Now it is expected that Castro's resignation positions Raul......

"The skin was peeled off her toe; it's a pretty horrifying injury,” says the lawyer representing the family of a 3-year-old girl in a $7 million lawsuit against the Colorado-based footwear company Crocs. The girl, Emma Hochberg of Westchester, was wearing pink clogs when she got caught in an escalator at JFK Airport, chewing up her big toe and causing “severe and permanent” injuries. There have been similar incidents of children getting stuck in escalators......

Just how well do you know your morning snack? [Cue ominous music] Find out tonight at KGB Bar when Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, reads from his book. Koeppel’s dedication to unpeeling the history of the fruit (turns out it’s actually a berry) admirably resists puns like the one found at the beginning of this sentence, and what seems at first to be another “single item......

Queens DA Richard Brown announced an off-duty NYPD detective and his girlfriend were charged with promoting the prostitution of a 13-year-old Brooklyn runaway. Brown said, “This case is every parent and every child’s worst nightmare – made even more frightening by the fact that one of the defendants is a police officer who swore to uphold the law and protect the community he serves.” Detective Wayne Taylor and a woman he claims is his wife,......

Charles F. Luce, who was Con Ed's chairman and chief executive between 1967 and 1982, died last week at the age of 90 in California. The Bronxville, NY resident died of prostate cancer. The NY Times notes that unlike most "big business executives," Luce was a liberal Democrat and environmentalist. He took a considerable amount of heat for a NYC blackout during the summer of 1977 and faced angry shareholders who didn't appreciate their dividends......

The Post is reporting about a disturbing crime: A woman who took a cab from the Lower East Side back home to Brooklyn says the yellow cab driver assaulted her. The victim, a 38-year-old real estate agent who lives in Park Slope, left a lounge at Rivington and Bowery around 4AM (the lounge's bouncer helped her hail the cab). The driver apparently asked her repeatedly to sit in the front passenger seat, which she declined.......

from her to you, by lisa.lisa at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 173rd St. in Manhattan, a robbery/assault on 13th St. in Brooklyn, and an aircraft emergency at JFK airport in Queens. Barnard at Columbia has a new incoming president, snagged from Harvard Business School. Don't miss the Super Bowl sitting in your local precinct's drunk tank. Get your Super Brawling out of the way early the next time someone......

A man posing as Heath Ledger's father managed to get free hotel rooms and talk to Tom Cruise and John Travolta after the actor's death last week. The Post reports the "twisted impostor" got Tom Cruise to console him on the phone and almost "got John Travolta to buy him a plane ticket to the United States." Why does this sound like a radio shock jock prank? With Ledger's father Kim (pictured) rumored to arrive......

graffiti internet, by Rob Hoey at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an aircraft fire at JFK terminal 4 in Queens, a robbery on Central Park West in Manhattan, and a missing child on Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn. Surf cams (permanently installed cameras monitoring surf conditions) are a great way to notify surfers of conditions, until one realizes that surfers don't want conditions notified for fear of crowds. No matter what you've ever seen......

Staten Island Ferry, by General Erin at Flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: missing children on 12th Ave. in Brooklyn, an overturned tractor trailer on the eastbound BQE in Queens, and an armed robbery on West 42nd St. in Manhattan. The contraband room at JFK International: it's like a freegan's vision of heaven. The clock atop the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower (now One Hanson Place) started ticking today at noon. A man was......

After talk of flight caps to help ease airport congestion that leave many travelers very irritable, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced another policy to help ease airport woes. The DOT will let airports charge airlines based on the time of day and volume of traffic their planes are landing in. Previously, aircraft was only charged based on plane weight. The hope, per the USDOT, is that "airports would be able to spread traffic more......

Jaunted took a jaunt over to the new Terminal 5 (not the music venue) at JFK. The terminal, with design by Gensler, will house JetBlue and is set to open in September of this year. The original T5 was the Eero Saarinen-designed TWA terminal and will be incorporated into JetBlue's, which is set behind and connected to it (Jaunted notes that "airline reps say that at minimum there'll be check-in kiosks in the TWA......

Would a bridge by any other name, bring you to JFK Airport just as smoothly as the Triborough? In all likelihood, yes, but the big question here is should it be renamed after JFK's younger brother, former New York senator Robert F. Kennedy. The NY Sun reports the Governor will address this during his State of the State address today, making him the latest governor to consider it. Governor Carey planned to rename it after......

John and Annette Ferranti certainly did not feel they were in good hands with the Allstate Insurance Company, after Allstate refused to pay their homeowners damage claim they insist was caused by an Air France Concorde jet. The insurance company, which had wanted to appeal appeal a jury award of $1.15 million to the Mill Basin couple, finally agreed to pay the Ferrantis $995,000. On July 21, 2002, the Ferrantis say that the Air......