news

This week, the News celebrates the 50th anniversary of its longest-running feature, the “I Make the Odds” column penned since July of 1958 by Harvey Preakston. Preakston, a graduate of City College and the son of former rugby impresario Reginald Preakston, joined the paper in 1955 as a young sports reporter who was assigned...
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:: Number of police districts which accounted for 65% of the city’s violent crimes in 2007, according to a report released this week: 7 :: Total number of police districts in the city: 21 :: Channel 8 weather report reader Destiny Edwards returns on Monday morning’s program, which will also feature the winner of...
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There’s something funny in the water. Well, actually, it’s in the beer. And, really, it’s more potentially blindness-inducing than funny. Skyrocketing copper prices have resulted in various forms of black-market activity around the city. This mostly means the theft and resale of copper components ripped from abandoned or newly built homes, including a devastating...
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:: Number of times that there have been cited (by the FCC) instances of accidental profanity on local newscasts- 31 :: Number of these which have resulted in the firing of a local anchor/reporter- 1 (Arthur Stevens, in what has come to be known as the “4-H Incident,” 1983) :: Advertising on public transit,...
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As a public service to our readers, we offer the following news item: The City Department of Health Services has announced the discovery of several cases of food contamination in the area. The culprit appears to be a microbe, a potentially fatal large, gram-negative bacillus with features consistent with the botulinum toxin-producing Clostridium genus...
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Over the years, the News, our local tabloid format daily paper, has become well known for its front page banner headlines. Some call them brilliant, some call them tasteless, but whatever your opinion, it’s a fact that the News is the city’s most profitable daily newspaper, so the headlines must work. We were lucky...
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Here is an overview of some of the most well-known urban legends to haunt our city—none are true, but they reflect the fears and excitement of bygone times. Kiddie TV Murder (1957) Mystery has long swirled around the death of children’s TV personality Samantha Smith, who was found murdered in her home on June...
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Though this story focuses upon New York, the same thing is happening in cities across the country. In June the Brookings Institution released a study called “Where Did They Go? The Decline of Middle-Income Neighborhoods in Metropolitan America.” It found that middle-income neighborhoods constituted 58 percent of all urban neighborhoods in 1970, but that...
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