On a below-freezing Saturday, with mounds of snow still clinging to Brooklyn sidewalks, 30 groups of costumed revelers gathered behind their homemade carts, dressed to the nines in satire and spectacle. As they would their way through Bushwick, Williamsburg and into Ridgewood, Queens, passersby stopped to take photos, cheer them on and briefly join the chaos. For longtime fans, it was a familiar sight: the 23rd annual Idiotarod race.
QUEENS - Blanca Hernandez Morales was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court to 35 years for sex trafficking minors using force, fraud and coercion, among other crimes. In addition to the term of imprisonment, United States District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall ordered Hernandez Morales to pay restitution of $179,300. Hernandez Morales was the last of four co-defendants who went to trial in October 2023 on various charges, including sex trafficking, to be sentenced.
A PARTY BOAT that lost power on the East River last fall and slammed into the waterfront at Domino Park caused an estimated $40,000 in damage, according to sources and documents reviewed by the New York Post . The incident occurred Oct. 17, when the Sir Winston, operated by R and D Cruise Lines Inc., drifted into the park's bulkheads and guardrails after losing power.
GREENPOINT - THE TIDELAND INSTITUTE'S Shoofly tugboat, a restored 1941 steel-hulled vessel usually used for the nonprofit's maritime education and arts programs, has been helping to break ice in the Newtown Creek as the city shivers through a potentially record-setting stretch of subzero days, The City reports. Three Coast Guard tugboats based in New Jersey have been occupied in keeping the harbor and the Hudson River clear to make sure ship traffic can pass.
The remains of a woman were found stuffed inside a black plastic bag in the basement of a Brooklyn building Sunday, police and law-enforcement sources said. Cops responded to a 911 call for an unconscious person at The Borinquen Public Houses at 330 Bushwick Avenue on the border of Williamsburg and Bushwick at 9:38 a.m., police said. In the basement of the NYCHA apartment building, officers found the remains of an adult woman in a black plastic bag, the sources and cops said.
Nearly 2,000 Brooklyn residents are still without power as crews have been working to fix the outage since Saturday. Neighbors in Park Slope spent a second night without heat after manhole fires erupted. Con Edison worked through Sunday night, attempting to restore power. Officials said melting snow mixed with road salt made contact with underground electrical equipment, leading to the outages.
A woman's remains were found inside a black plastic bag in the basement of a Brooklyn apartment building, police and sources said Sunday. Officers responding to a 911 call made the grisly discovery around 9:38 a.m. in the building at the corner of Bushwick Ave. and Seigel St. in East Williamsburg, according to police. Cops were first alerted to the remains by a NYCHA employee, according to PIX11.
Reps from real estate titan Two Trees Management - which opened the $50 million public park in 2018 as part of its mixed-use rental project in Williamsburg paying tribute to the old Domino Sugar Plant that once operated there - fired off letters Friday to federal, state, and city agencies urging they investigate the Oct. 17 incident involving the Sir Winston vessel.
The complimentary resolution adopted by the Common Council at the close of the year to Hon. Ripley Ropes has been engrossed by W. V. Peacon, of this city, and is now on exhibition in the Common Council Chamber. It will be exhibited later in the show windows of McNeuman's store, 413 Fulton street. The work stands in its frame four and a half feet by three feet. The frame is ebony and gold, engraved and gilded.
City records show that the Department of Buildings has signed off on a plan to completely dismantle the ill-fated venue, which never reopened due to safety issues after a massive renovation last year. According to a notice circulated by Brooklyn Community Board 1, work is expected to start on Feb. 2 and wrap up in April or May. It's not clear whether the other two venues at the Avant Gardner complex, the Great Hall and Kings Hall, will be affected, though there are no upcoming events listed on the company's website.
BROOKLYN ORG IS PROVIDING NEARLY HALF A MILLION DOLLARS through its Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn Campaign to organizations that bolster family stability, immigrant and older adult services, legal rights, and neighborhood resilience. The Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn Campaign will fund 12 non-profits around the borough as part of its first round of grants . Each organization is receiving $40,000 in general operating support grants to strengthen the essential services they provide to Brooklyn communities, which have been impacted by federal policy changes over the past year.
In 1798, Thomas Malthus looked at deer and saw doom. In nature, he noted, unchecked populations grow until they consume everything: deer overgraze the forest, starve, die off. He believed humans would follow the same curve, and he predicted the population would always outpace food supply, triggering famine, war and collapse. The math was clean - the logic brutal - and for a while, it all seemed inevitable. Except it never happened. Instead of famine, we got fertilizers and ever-growing crop yields.
The Nets spent most of Friday night looking like a team that actually learned something from Wednesday's mess at Madison Square Garden. And then, when the game demanded the smallest details, Brooklyn let it slip anyway. That's the brutal part of their 130-126 double-overtime loss to the Boston Celtics at Barclays Center. The Nets looked like they'd turned a page in stretches, but you're not fixing everything overnight, and the same late-game issues that have haunted them all season popped back up when it mattered most.
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS - TWO TEENAGE GIRLS have launched a lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court against St. Ann's School, former St. Ann's teacher Winston Nguyen and several of the school's then-administrators, the New York Times reports , following Nguyen's guilty plea last year to enticing middle schoolers into sending him naked photos on social media. The girls, who did not attend St. Ann's, say Nguyen shared "a revenge porn blast with dozens of explicit pictures," and allege that the school failed in its safeguarding duties.
CITY HALL - MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI said New York City faces a projected $12 billion budget shortfall across fiscal years 2026 and 2027, according to a press release. He blames the "staggering" fiscal mismanagement by former Mayor Eric Adams for underbudgeting core services like cash assistance, shelter operations and special education. Mamdani also points to what he called intentional understatement of future gaps - citing, for example, $860 million budgeted for FY26 cash assistance versus projections nearing $1.7 billion -
CROWN HEIGHTS - POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING WHY A MAN REPEATEDLY SLAMMED HIS CAR INTO the Chabad World Headquarters on Eastern Parkway on Wednesday night, in what the NYPD is calling a possible hate crime. There were no injuries reported as of press time Thursday morning, and the driver, who was wearing shorts in frigid weather, was arrested on the scene.
CIVIC CENTER - CITY COUNCILMEMBER SANDY Nurse's Community Opportunity to Purchase Act will not become city law, after a veto by former Mayor Eric Adams, reports Gothamist . Although the bill passed through the Council, it did not have enough support to override the veto, despite efforts by new Mayor Zohran Mamdani to sway councilmembers. New Council Speaker Julie Menin said she would only hold override votes on legislation that had already garnered the necessary support.
DOWNTOWN - In Brooklyn federal court, Pushpesh Kumar Baid, also known as "PK Jain," was sentenced to 20 years for his role in schemes to defraud investors in Tradepay Capital LLC, a purported factoring company, and in Luxestreet, Inc., a purported luxury goods pawn shop. Baid pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in April 2025, approximately one week before the trial was scheduled to commence.
Hilary Duff sold out the Brooklyn Paramount on Tuesday during the third stop on a micro-tour promoting her upcoming sixth album, "Luck... Or Something," Vulture reports. The one-time Disney Channel star, known for her role as Lizzie McGuire, charmed attendees with nostalgic hits like "What Dreams Are Made Of" and "So Yesterday," as well as tracks from the new album, which releases Feb. 20; she thanked the crowd for their longtime fandom, and reflected on the long arc of her career.
Members of the Jewish community watched in horror in Crown Heights at 8:46 p.m. on January 28 as the operator of a vehicle with New Jersey license plates repeatedly rammed into the doorway of 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. As shown in video circulated on social media, the driver reversed and then accelerated the car forward repeatedly, sending the wooden front doors imploding inward.
The building, developed by Avery Hall, features 133 units with layouts ranging from one- to four-bedroom homes and soaring 9-foot windows, a rare find in New York City. "We have three bedrooms, even up to four bedroom homes, we look to provide a platform for families that are looking for larger spaces to stay in New York and to thrive in New York," said Jesse Wark, Avery Hall partner and co-founder.
What a baffling documentary this is. It offers a surface-level explanation of the story (a young man severing ties with his apparently controlling family), which would have been handy for a mainstream novice audience, but the entire thing is fully geared towards the sort of terminally online person who already knows the drama in forensic detail, and those aren't people who are likely to watch Channel 4 on a midweek evening.
Each is among a growing number of people - at least 10, as of Tuesday - who died after being exposed to the bitter cold that has persisted in New York City since late last Friday. Their causes of death are still under investigation, but some showed signs of having succumbed to hypothermia. Officials said several victims were believed to have been living on the streets. At least six of the fatalities came early Saturday, as the temperature in the city fell to 9 degrees (minus 13 degrees Celsius).
