Following some video hijinks involving Ed Koch and turtle-esque jiggling , Mayor Bloomberg got down to business delivering his 11th annual “State Of The City” speech in the Bronx today. Besides serving as a kind of summary of his achievements in office as well as a glimpse at what he’d like his legacy to be , Bloomberg’s speech most notably touched on a plan to shake up the school system by offering monetary incentives to high-performing teachers while booting the worst ones: “We need to be able to identify those ineffective teachers and give them the support they need to grow,” he said. “And if that doesn’t work, we need to be able to move them out.” [ more › ]

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In "State Of The City," Bloomberg Vows To Boot Bad Teachers

Three weeks after a Parks Department worker found a black doll hanging by a metal chain noose at the Parks Department’s Bronx headquarters, a Parks employee has been arrested. Fariz Ahmemulic, 28, has been charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime. The doll was discovered in a garage last month by Anthony Crum, a 60-year-old black Parks worker who has also accused his supervisors of trying to cover up the crime before it became a police matter. [ more › ]

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Parks Worker Arrested, Charged With Hate Crime For Black Doll Noose "Joke"

The MTA giveth and the MTA taketh away. After giving weeknight subway closures a whirl on the 4, 5, 6, the Authority this weekend is getting ready to shut down 7 train service between Queens and Manhattan for 11 weekends in a row . On the plus side: someday folks in New Jersey might have to deal with this crap , too. [ more › ]

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Reminder: 11 Weeks Of 7 Train Hell Starts This Weekend!

Because a kiss with Mayor Bloomberg certainly would be, um, memorable, check out today’s end-of-day links: “Community” writer speaks, graphic photos of leopard attack, Jorge Posada’s big announcement, and a very pumped up pup. Don’t forget to follow Gothamist on Twitter and like us on Facebook . You can also get the top stories mailed to you— sign up here . [ more › ]

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Extra, Extra: Red Wine May Reduce Cancer Risk For Ladies

                        Originally billed as a “First Amendment three-ring circus,” yesterday’s protest of the NYPD’s treatment of journalists and the Constitutional rights of protesters drew only around 60 people at its peak. But with so few in attendance, why did the NYPD feel the need to block access to 79th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues entirely? And how was enacting this “frozen zone” outside of Mayor Bloomberg’s residence at 17 East 79th Street legal? “It’s not,” civil rights attorney Norman Siegel told us. “It’s illegal, unconstitutional, and a clear abuse of authority.” [ more › ]

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NYPD Protects Bloomberg’s Townhouse From Protesters, Media

Mayor Bloomberg relived one of his first moments of 2012—specifically, the moments he kissed Lady Gaga in Times Square —with reporters today. According to DNAinfo , Bloomberg said, “First, Lady Gaga is very charming. She’s a young lady who grew up and went to school here in New York City. She’s obviously a great entertainer. She really does have some talent.” [ more › ]

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Bloomberg Discusses His New Year’s Kiss With Lady Gaga

An upstate county executive fired off an “open letter” to Mayor Bloomberg, complaining about the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and its role as caretaker of a nearby watershed, which the city uses for drinking water. Ulster County executive Michael Hein writes, “The NYC DEP is presently operating much like an occupying nation within our county, extracting the natural resource of clean water while simultaneously polluting our waterways and causing massive regional economic hardships.” [ more › ]

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NYC Is Like An "Occupying Nation," Says Upstate County Executive

When actress Ellen Barkin Tweeted her anger about the NYPD’s apparent “random arrests” of innocent people in the wee hours of New Year’s, she set off a firestorm of criticism from other Twitterers when she criticized the NYPD (“People being thrown in police vans, arrested for ‘jaywalking’What happened to the NYPD of my youth?Who are u all?Shame shame on u all”) and Mayor Bloomberg (“Fuck all of u,Bloomberg & every1 goose-stepping behind u.I cannot believe what I am seeing.U protect nothing.U ARE the violence in my city”) and complained about a cop shoving her. But what do the cop-types on NYPD Rant think? [ more › ]

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Top 4 Snarks From NYPD Rant’s Thread About Ellen Barkin

Walking the streets New Year’s Day, we saw the usual uptick of mysterious feces placement and garbage crammed into the baskets of parked bicycles, but one soul stumbled on something last Thursday that was much…bigger. [ more › ]

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Gross-Out Video: The Biggest Pool Of Vomit You’ll Ever See

It seems not everyone took NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly’s memo about respecting freedom of the press to heart: video shot at Zuccotti Park on New Year’s Eve shows a heated confrontation between a journalist and police, after a cop threatens to confiscate the unidentified reporter’s press credentials. There is speculation that the reporter in the video is Colin Moynihan from the Times, and he did file a report from the park that night: [ more › ]

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Video: Reporter Blasts Cops For Threatening To Yank Press Pass At OWS Protest