The City Council may have passed an electronics recycling law recently, but Mayor Bloomberg says it's lame and illegal! The bill requires electronics manufacturers to establish recycling programs for their products and establishes fines of $100 by 2010 for people who throw their computers, printers or other electronics in the trash. Manufacturers will also be penalized $50,000 if they fall behind set recycling requirements. The mayor said he would refuse to enforce such a law......

Before the first model walked down the runway, Naomi Campbell spoke out about the lack of minorities at this year's Fashion Week. The Daily News follows up on her initial accusation as the tents emptied out this weekend, saying that "a campaign to promote diversity on the runways during New York's Fashion Week appears to have failed miserably." According the paper, out of 1,584 model slots, 94 (6%) went to black models, 17 (1%) to......

There's been a lot of noise lately about the horse-drawn carriage industry in New York. In early September it was announced that the city comptroller audited how well the city polices the carriage horse industry (surprise: not well!). This was almost immediately followed by the death of a horse who was apparently spooked by the drums of a nearby street musician. Now all eyes are the industry, and PETA is bringing the message to a......

As The Daily Show and Colbert Report are just moments away from filming their first shows in quite some time, picket lines are standing strong outside of their studios. WGA spokeswoman Sherry Goldman tells us, "These pickets will be against the media conglomerates – NBC and Viacom - and not the specific hosts who we understand were forced to return to the air without their writers who remain on the picket lines." Just because the......

Thousands of commercial office workers, such as janitors and doormen, voted to strike on January 1 if building owners do not agree to give them raises. The workers, part of Service Employees International Union's Local 32BJ union, believe that building owners can afford to give them "significant raises" because owners have been benefiting from high rents. However, the owners says the economy is too shaky to give them raises. Members of the union marched from......

Naked Guy at Ted Leo Concert It's a tad early for year end awards, but this story is making a strong, late push for the greatest live moment of 2007. At the Ted Leo show at The Music Hall of Williamsburg Wednesday night, some dude from Jersey took off his shirt and threw it on the stage. Not satisfied with merely being topless in a crowd on that snowy night, he eventually followed the shirt......

Entertainment Weekly’s #1 “smartest” Hollywood player, Judd Apatow, says “it doesn’t look good” for an end to the writers’ strike any time soon. The well-connected catalyst behind hits like Knocked Up has told the Toronto Star that the studios and producers are prepared to dig in and crush the union’s demand for payment for Internet downloads and movie streaming, “which are expected to become a big part of the industry in the coming years.”It would......

Elizabeth Currid's new book, The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City, posits that the city's culture is the key our fiscal well-being. With insights culled from many of New York's leading players in the worlds of art, fashion and music, she draws a detailed blueprint of how these creative processes become big-money industries. Currid's thesis is that the conditions that have made New York one of the cultural capitals of......

Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D, 51st District) wants to ban alcohol ads on buses and subways. The ads provide just $3 to $5 million of the $100 million in revenue the Metropolitan Transportation Authority gets from ad sales and the MTA has not taken a position on the proposed legislation. The state’s Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services did express support for the legislation calling it "consistent with our strategy of preventing alcoholism......

The Village Voice is questioning the merits of some top designers suing Forever 21 for "ripping off" their style. Over 20 designers in all are calling the store out for their fashion faux-pas, and they're led by Diane Von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, who has brought the case to Washington "attempting to get federal legislation passed that would make clothes-copying clothes a criminal offence." This isn't the first time......

Recently Williamsburg doc Jay Parkinson unleashed his revolutionary idea onto Brooklyn -- a doctor for the uninsured, medical advice through emails, and the return of the housecall. The word spread fast and now much of the world is looking his way to see if he can change the way healthcare is provided. How did your non-conventional idea come about and become a reality? I don’t really fit in very well to the traditional doctor mold......

The NY Sun takes a look at the impact of graphic design firm Pentagram on the city’s arts institutions. The article focuses mostly on partner Paula Scher, who has created identities for the Public Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, the High Line, the Asia Society and a host of others. Scher, who designed the original “Boston” album in 1976, is now designing for the Park Avenue Armory and Drill Hall,......

As history tells it, in the early 1900s "the presence of 120,000 horses in New York City was declared 'an economic burden, an affront to cleanliness, and a terrible tax upon human life.'" Today the horses are fewer (there are 221 licensed horses, 293 drivers and 68 licensed carriages), and a bit more popular -- albeit amongst the tourist set. The NY Times has a piece on the New York City comptroller finally (for the......

If Public Law 19 takes effect on its scheduled date of September 20, the number of New York City pedicabs will soon be capped at 325. Half of the pedicab drivers will lose their jobs, pedicabs will be banned from bridges and bike lanes, and small electric-assist motors will also be banned. The lottery to determine who in the industry will survive and who will be shut down is scheduled for this month. Earlier......

You may have many opinions of Senator Charles Schumer. A man who gives weekly press conferences by way of making the rounds on Sunday morning news shows, someone who will "put a bullet betweens the president's eyes," the senior Senator of New York, orchestrator of the Senate's shift back to the Democrats, husband of a recent Department of Transportation commissioner, imaginer of middle class couple the Baileys, cereal hog. But defender of hedge funds' and......

The NY Taxi Workers Alliance says that its drivers will strike in September over GPS tracking systems will be coming to taxis starting in October. The city has said GPS systems will help passengers retrieve lost items (even if they don't have receipts or medallion numbers) because the Taxi and Limousine Commission will be able to find the taxi that dropped them off at a certain location. But taxi drivers worry that GPS will be......

WCBS is offing Jack FM, the station format it abrubtly switched to two years ago, and turning back the clock to its former oldies format. The 2005 switch upset a lot of listeners, who were outraged both at the loss of a long-beloved source of classics and the abruptness of the change, which occurred with only an hour's notice. It also led to the immediate dismissal of well-liked on air personalities like Cousin Brucie, Don......

Since the only truly green event is the one that doesn't happen, Live Earth is certainly being met with some criticism - but either way it's going to cast some green over the world tomorrow. If you aren't heading over to the "New York" event yourself, NBC Universal will be bringing the concert to the world with a three-hour primetime special Saturday night on NBC, 18 hours of live coverage on Bravo, seven hours on......

Last week at the 92nd Street Y some people took time to hear the fantastic Mike Colameco host the legendary chef Jacques Pepin, critic Gael Greene (now of the Insatiable Critic blog), food maven Arthur Schwartz, and old-school restaurant mogul Michael Whiteman hash out whether NYC dining scene was better then ever. Pretty cut and dry, no? Schwartz and Greene mostly argued that it is not a better scene today, lamenting the arrival of the......

Expect some changes at the Museum of TV and Radio. Today the museum announced it will not only no longer be referred to as a museum (the word didn't test well with the under-40 crowd!), but that it's throwing the "TV and Radio" out of its moniker for good, too. Good-bye, MTR. Hello, The Paley Center for Media. From the press release:The thirty-one-year-old institution will be renamed The Paley Center for Media to better......

With a million ways to buy tickets these days, it still seems almost impossible to get your hands on those to sold out shows. Perhaps texting for tickets will make this easier, or perhaps...making scalping legal is the answer? Today, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill that would do just that, it was already passed in the State Assembly. From NY1: Lawmakers are easing current restrictions on the practice, hoping that will......

Elliot Spitzer has a whole new attitude about the financial companies inhabiting Wall St. now that he is governor. At one point in time and as state attorney general, Spitzer was a relentless critic, and his mere mentioning of a company's name was enough for tens of billions of dollars of market capitalization to disappear in a few hours. Spitzer strong-armed industry reform by threatening companies and individuals with prosecution while he was the state......

Developer Larry Silverstein is probably sleeping better: Yesterday, seven insurance companies agreed to pay $2 billion in payments, which brings the total insurance payout to $4.55 billion and allows all the constructions projects to move forward with what Governor Eliot Spitzer called "certainty." He also said, "It permits access to the capital markets, it resolves and eliminates one of the outstanding hurdles that had remained and it brings to closure years of litigation." Apparently......

The Bancroft family, who owns a controlling interest in publicly traded Dow Jones & Co., Inc., is considering an unsolicited bid from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to purchase The Wall Street Journal. Trading in Dow Jones shares was halted temporarily after their price jumped 57%, or nearly $21 during the day. Murdoch is reportedly offering $60 a share for the company, which would make the total offer worth approximately $5 billion. The New York Times......

Last week after his appearance on Oprah, Russell Simmons and other music industry execs met to discuss the state of rap lyrics. Following this secret meeting, a rep for Simmons made the following statement (in lieu of the press conference that was going to take place) saying this is a: "complex issue that involves gender, race, culture and artistic expression. Everyone assembled today takes this issue very seriously." Yesterday, Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis (on......

On Tuesday "The Oprah Winfrey Show" became a platform for the Hip-Hop community to respond to the Don Imus controversy with a panel discussion featuring Russell Simmons, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Kevin Liles, Common and more. Should musicians lose their jobs or their contracts for using words that are considered racist and sexist? As seen in the video clip below, the former EIC of Essence Magazine thinks so. She is met with many who disagree, however,......

On March 13, 1967 Channel 5 launched the first prime time newscast in the tri-state area, just a few months after sister station WTTG in Washington D.C. became the first station in the United States with one. Since then, a lot has changed but there are still a few constants like the seemingly eternal question, “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” In 1967, channel 5, then called WNEW-TV, had been......

After many months of discussion, the City Council passed a bill to regulate the pedicab industry. Pedicab advocates, who agree that the industry should be regulated, are upset about the City Council's battery of regulations, such as a cap of 325 pedicabs and being banned from Midtown during the holidays. Additionally, $2 million insurance plans will be required, which is similar to what taxi cabs have, and pedicabs with electric motors would be banned.......

Hello, cellphone vigilantism! As part of his State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg announced some new technology for New Yorkers. This year, we'll begin a revolutionary innovation in crime-fighting: Equipping "911" call centers to receive digital images and videos New Yorkers send from cell phones and computers something no other city in the world is doing. If you see a crime in progress or a dangerous building condition you'll be able to transmit images......

If you see a cab with horns and fake brown-and-white fur, hail it! The Professional Bull Riders are offering free rides in special "bull taxis" to promote their invitational at Madison Square Garden this weekend. The Versus Invitational will showcase the "world's top 45 bull riders will clash against the best bulls in the industry," according the PBR website. All right, but those bull taxis are sort of awesome. There are five bull taxis......