Daily Dispatch News

That was quite an emergency Tracy Morgan experienced Tuesday night in SoHo. The " 30 Rock " star burst into the Toys in Babeland sex shop on Mercer Street. "He looked around for a minute and then hollered across the store, 'Hey, do you have motion lotion?' They helped him pick it out. He handed them cash, and ran out of the store to a BMW X6 that was waiting on the street for him." We wonder who was in the car.

By Murray Weiss & Joe Mollica A night parking-garage attendant was shot to death by a robber early yesterday. José Lezala, 30, was shot in the head and hand in the office of the garage on West 132nd Street near Lenox Avenue at 12:30 a.m. His friend Alfredo Ortiz, 31, said cops told him a gunman tried to steal the cash box and then shot Lezala when the victim said he didn't have a key. The victim's father, José Sr., said, "If he knew the combination of the safety lock, maybe he would still be alive." Lezala had worked at the garage for about three months, and regularly sent money to his wife and young son in Texas, Ortiz said.

Watch the ball drop tonight with online live-stream from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. by Alicia Cruz Theblackurbantimes If you're an avid viewer of the Times Square Ball Drop, you're in for quite a treat. This year's gala is set to be more extravagant than the last. Not only are the specs spectacular, but the ball received a makeover and is set to debut in Waterford crystals accompanied by angel wings and flames. Her 288 crystals and interconnected glittering triangles will shine with the help of 32, 256 LED lights. This years theme is ‘ Let There Be Courage .' Where can you catch the ball drop if you cant make it to the Big Apple? From the comfort of your home thanks to the live-stream video. Join thousands of New Yorkers and others as they kick off 2010 in style. It's a one of kind event and there's nothing like it. As a native New Yorker, I've spent many New Years Eve's in Times Square and the feeling is indescribable. Officials have added a newbie touch to ...

CNN iReport by sjunat55 The ball drop that will greet 2010 in the biggest celebration in the world, was tested in Times Square on December 30, 2009. With one day to go, NYPD officers are setting up barricades and crews install equipment and stages for the several broadcasts that will origiinate from the area. That leaves half price ticket lines to crowd pedestrian areas of Broadway, but nothing near the numbers expected for the main event. Vendors, like Jacinto from Mexico, sell the new version of the famous glasses, and 2 mounted NYPD female officers give us all a double 10! Happy 2010 from New York! SOURCE

by Alicia Cruz, Theblackurbantimes It looks like actor Charlie Sheen's wife, Brooke Mueller, isn't afraid of Sheen anymore. Apparently, Mueller has hired celebrity lawyer, Yale Galanter to petition the court on her behalf asking an Aspen judge to remove the restrictions preventing Sheen from having contact with her. In case you're late joining us, Sheen and Mueller had a Christmas Day domestic violence incident that led to Sheen being temporarily jailed in Colorado. He was charged with assault, menacing with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief. He posted $8,500 bond and was released the same day. There's no word when the judge will review the request. Galanter has represented heavy weight celebs such as O.J. Simpson. Stay tuned for future updates.

By Alicia Cruz Theblackurbantimes Media outlets have learned that Mythbuster and amateur rocket expert, Erik Gates has died after a freak accident on December 20, 2009. Apparently Gates was working atop of a roof in a building in Newbury Park, California, doing electrical work when he fell through a skylight falling 30 feet to his death. Gates, who ran Gates Brothers Rocketry along with his brother, was 47 and leaves behind a wife and three children. The Discovery Channel reality show paid a tribute to Gates during the Monday, December 28 episode.

If you're looking for suitable, safe housing in the Fort Bragg, Raeford, Spring Lake area review this list to see what apartment and mobile home communities are on the DO NOT RENT list. This list was compiled by post officials and should be heeded. Trust me, they're on the military's s*** list for a reason. Good luck and I hope you find a decent home in a safe neighborhood.

by Alicia Cruz Theblackurbantimes The 16-year-old girl identified by her parents as the assault victim who turned the tables on her attackers and fatally stabbed one of them turned herself in today where she was scheduled to participate in a police lineup in Astoria, Queens. Cyan Brown has maintained her innocence in the death of 29-year-old ex-convict, Thomas Winston last Wednesday. Her lawyer, Samuel Gregory had this to say to media outlets, "Miss Brown surrendered as she said she would at the time we were asked to by the precinct. We think she’ll be exonerated at the end of this case. She has a legitimate defense." Police said Winston and a group of thugs yanked Brown out of a subway car on Wednesday night after a dispute at a restaurant. She stabbed him when he fought back, cops said. Gregory said he expects Brown to be charged but wasn’t told what the 16-year-old will be charged with. See original story here

Network at parties, revise your resume and start the new year right By Eve Tahmincioglu, contributor The last thing you want to be doing during the holiday season is sending out resumes and checking job boards, right? If there’s any month for job seekers to take a breather, December is it, especially the latter half of the month. Many employers begin turning their thoughts to holiday cheer and vacation plans, and your resume could end up lost among the wrapping paper, toasting and streamers. December is the weakest month for hiring, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Net increases in employment for December average about 263,000 over the past 10 years, compared with 700,000 a month during the peak hiring season of March through May. However, you want to be ready to hit the ground running in January because hiring decisions can often take a few months. So stop randomly sending out resumes this month and click on the navigation at left for seven job-hunting strate...

Photo by Jeanmarie Evelly The old Bronx courthouse, shuttered and vandalized for decades. The owner of a Melrose landmark is looking for a tenant By Jeanmarie Evelly motthavenherald.com The former Bronx Courthouse, the enormous, stately building at the corner of East 161st Street and Third Avenue, has been empty for 31 years. Now, there’s been a flurry of activity, as its owner seeks a tenant. He’s enlisted a local blogger to help publicize the effort, and says he’s ready to rent part of it to a health club, if more grandiose ideas for the entire building don’t come to fruition soon. The building was once the only bustling courthouse in the borough. Today, it’s beautiful but abused. A chain-link fence seals it off, but graffiti artists have still managed to deface it. Just ...

An alley separating the Mott Haven Branch Library and an apartment building is used to store the library's trash. ...neighbors ask Trash from other branches in the borough collects in adjacent alley By Sergey Kadinsky | sergey.kadinsky@motthavenherald.com “There’s no reason why there should be a dumpster here,” said artist Linda Cunningham, who lives two buildings down from the library. “This is a residential area.” When the National Register of Historic Places listed Alexander Avenue in 1980, it praised the “two fine civic buildings”—the 41st Precinct and the library—for “their harmonious proportions and low scale which blend into the surrounding environment.” Financed by Andrew Carne...

Click here to view more photos of Melrose South Bronx,NY

On a cold winter night in the South Bronx Hostos Community College and the Longwood Arts Gallery were abuzz with activity for the launch of a new exhibit, ANTHEM: an all-american dystopia . The exhibit is a 20th anniversary celebration of the Bronx Council on the Arts' BRIO ( B ronx R ecognizes I ts O wn) award and according to the Longwood Arts Project, this exhibit, " explores an America within the crux of reforming a national identity; family, health, politics, urban crisis and decay, environmental issues, consumerism and globalization." The exhibition is curated by Melissa A. Calderón , a local Bronx Latina artist who received her BA in Art History from CUNY Lehman College and works in various forms of media such as sculpture, installations and photography. SOURCE Every artists in this program are BRIO award winners from 2008 or 2009 and all have created works that are multidimensional in their scope of message and what you see may not necessarily be what it mea...

Picture of the Day Spread-The-Word Ed García Conde The "Mayor" of Melrose 917-532-7504 http://www.welcome2melrose.com

Photo by Joseph Gallagher A close look at stimulus funds reveals sleight of hand By Joseph Gallagher The Hunts Point Express When SEBCO, the Longwood-based housing organization got a check from the federal government for $359,838, its president Peter Cantillo was pleased but not surprised. But when he learned that the funds were supposedly part of the Obama Adminstration’s stimulus package, Cantillo was taken aback. He does not understand why federal assistance SEBCO has been receiving for 20 years would now be re-categorized as funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the $787 billion federal program intended to kick-start the economy, create jobs and shield Americans from the worst blows of the recession. The money was for the Section 8 program that subsidizes rents for low-income people who live in the Parkview Apartment building in Tr...

by bstein The Huntspointexpress Three decades ago, Hunts Point was the location of an adventure so visionary and so daring that many people branded it as nuts. In the midst of the catastrophe that had overtaken the South Bronx, on a rubble-strewn three-plus acre lot next door to the sewer plant, an organization called Bronx Frontier Development Corporation created a farm. Bronx Frontier hauled vegetable waste from the Hunts Point Market and animal waste from the Bronx Zoo, composted it to create topsoil to spread over the wasteland, and planted a vegetable crop. Converting as much as 40 tons of waste a day to a rich growing medium, it captured the gas created during the composting process and used it to generate electricity. It erected a windmill to produc...

George Lopez with Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door movie/Lionsgate By Alicia Cruz Theblackurbantimes Film: The Spy Next Door Rated : PG Studio: Lionsgate Release Date: Friday, January 15, 2010 Synopsis: The Spy Next Door is produced by Robert Simonds and Ryan Kavanaugh. The action/comedy flick stars Jackie Chan as Bob Ho, an undercover super-spy for the CIA. Ho begins loathing his surreptitious spy lifestyle and is leaning towards settling down with his girlfriend, Gillian (Amber Valletta), who lives next-door to Ho. Sounds innocuous enough, right? Hardly. Settling down with the woman you love is simple. Winning the hearts and respect of her three overly opinionated children can prove to be tougher than any CIA assignment Ho ever had. In an attempt to score super-boyfriend points with his girlfriend and her children, Ho volunteers to babysit the little guys while Gillian goes out of town. All goes well until one o...

Icehouse Restaurant: Homey and Delicious We visited the Icehouse on the day of the snow storm, hence the somewhat gloomy view. We've got a decidedly off-the-beaten path restaurant recommendation for you all - The Icehouse Restaurant in Throgs Neck. The food here is delicious, but the atmosphere and the views are really what make this place unique. It's located in the Hammonds Cove Marina at the foot of the Throgs Neck bridge, so the views of the water and the bridge really make you feel like you're nowhere near New York City. The decor of the place is nothing fancy - think paper place mats (great for kids) and some wood paneling. But they have a fireplace and the service is super friendly. At one point the owner was walking around just saying hello to all the tables. She also gave a Christmas gift to our daughter when we were leaving. We were there for lunch, so the place was pretty empty...The only drawback was that the service was a bit slow. They said their kitchen ...

Story by Alicia Cruz Theblackurbantimes.com High winds in the Mosholu Parkway section of the Bronx took a tree down across the street from the Tracey Towers. Take a look at this picture snapped by Jordan Moss and you can imagine how strong the winds must have been in order to topple this big tree. Thankfully, no one was injured. As for the tree, well, it'll be a mere stump from now on. by ALEX KRATZ NORWOOD NEWS Family, friends and local residents continue to search for reasons why 13-year-old Judah Agyemang jumped to his death from his family’s apartment on the 21st floor of Tracey Towers, a high-rise residential complex on Mosholu Parkway. Police have not officially classified the case as a suicide, but from talking with family and acquaintances, it is clear Judah took his own life. But why? Details of the events leading up to his death offer only partial clues. At 4:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 9, 2009, Agyemang was sent home early from an after-school program at Our Lady...

By Alicia Cruz Theblackurbantimes Flip through 116 photographs of our President and his family as they enjoy their Christmas vacation in Hawaii. This first photo (photo Credit/SAUL LOEB ) shows the First Family leaving D.C. headed to Hawaii. The second photo ( photo/Samad/AFP/Getty ) shows the First Family being greeted in traditional Hawaiian style: With beautiful leis as they arrived in Oahu. Not even the arrest of Kristy Lee Roshia , the woman accused of making threats to harm Michelle Obama, put a damper on the First Family's vacation. Click here to view 114 more photos of the President and his family enjoying their Hawaiian Christmas Vacation 2009.

The final "feel good" story of the year comes to us via the New York Daily News. Osvaldo Hernandez made a mistake. Poor judgement earned him a felony conviction back in 2002. He didn't allow it to cripple him. He served in the Army, fought in Iraq and then tried to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a policeman with the NYPD. Despite performing extremely well on the entrance exam, he couldn't join the department due to the felony conviction on his record. He decided to fight and he won! Even a Queens District Attorney had this to say about Hernandez, "Hernandez is richly deserving of a chance with the NYPD. Frankly, I have not seen an application for clemency more compelling." Wow! We congratulate Hernandez on his victory and wish him the very best. See, your past can be overcome...felony or not. It depends on you and how you have tried to rise from your past. Fight. Reach out for help. And should you be a person in a position to help someone trying to ris...

By Alicia Cruz Theblackurbantimes All of us have dated a man whose "representative" (i.e. his alter ego) gave such an Emmy Award winning presentation at the beginning of your relationship that you fell for him hook, line and sinker. Despite those nagging jabs your gut kept giving you about him, you decided to give him a chance and forged ahead with a relationship. Sure, he was a little weird, maybe too quiet, and he wasn't exactly your type, but he seemed harmless enough and besides, he acted like he really liked you and he was " so nice ." Recently, though, he's gone from weird and annoying to downright creepy and he's beginning to display some unstable traits that leave you scratching your head, wanting to hire a bodyguard or pay for his mental health evaluation. There are some things you can work out and pray over, but if he's a man displaying the seven traits I describe below, there's only one thing you can do: Run or get in your car and jus...

And a wise man shall lead you.....Read this interesting article by Scot McKay The Age Gap—Dating Someone Much Younger As you well know, there’s a stereotype about older, probably divorced men dating younger women. Sometimes much younger. The worn-out story tells about a guy in his late 30’s or older looking to “trade in” his wife on a “younger model”. Think of a 23 or 24 year old “hottie” and you are on the right track, but don’t rule out anyone (or anything) female who is “legal” (read: “18 or older”). Basically, such a guy is in search of an “arm ornament”. What an insult. One time when I still had an online profile posted, I received an email from a spunky, redheaded, and very cute eighteen-year-old girl (yeah, I said “girl”, not “woman”). After a lengthy rant in email form about how “all the guys her own age were boring” and such, she announced she wanted to “settle down and have about ten kids or so”. Considering she had spent what must have been a half-hour composing...

Editor's Note: The Black Urban Times received an update on the closing of NFL player, Lavar Arrington's restaurant. I have inserted the update and email in it's entirety below. This letter has not been edited by theblackurbantimes.com Click here for the original story concerning the restaurants closure. by LJ Carroll They stood by him at the Woodmore Country Club as he unveiled the plans for his new 7,500 square foot restaurant. They listened as he talked about realizing his dream. It couldn't be done without them, he said. He talked about his years on the field and how he had come to learn the team was the most important thing one could have. They were his team now. They were in it together, not as an owner and his employees, but as peers working together to accomplish the same goal. They watched as tears filled his eyes; he choked up and had to take a moment to regain his composure. "Each and every one of you is important to me" he told them. ...