The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryant Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

During a dustup over illegal immigration at the CNN/YouTube Republican debate, Rudy Giuliani said of former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney: "There was even a sanctuary mansion. At his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed." Turns out he wasn't just being bitchy. He was right. Not only did Romney employ illegal immigrants in the past, but the Globe broke the news that he employed them right up to this day. The......

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney attended the Republican CNN/YouTube debate last night, even though he admitted he was concerned about taking questions from a snowman complaining about global warming. CNN teased him a little bit in the beginning by showing a brief highlight reel with the snowman, but then they disappointed by saying that only "serious" questions would appear. And then CNN showed questions from a dude performing a singsongy tune on......

--The man shot yesterday on Harvard Street in Dorchester was leaving a funeral when he was hit. The man, 17, is in critical condition. According to the Globe, the funeral was for Charles Bunch, who died on October 14, possibly as a result of gang activity. Michele McPhee's sources ID'd the victim as David Johnson. She also noted that Johnson and the person who shot him were both wearing memorial buttons for Charles Bunch. --On......

Boston Comic Con Sunday, October 21, 10am-5pm Back Bay Events Center (180 Berkeley Street), $8 The comics industry is known for its oddballs, and Jim Steranko is a case in point. He is best known for his late sixties work at Marvel Comics, where he brought a designer's eye to drawing Nick Fury for Strange Tales. He drew across the whole page, defying panel boundaries, to a surreal effect. But comics may have been the......

If you're in East Boston, it's time to vote for State Representative of the First Suffolk district, the seat vacated by Anthony Petruccelli when he won a State Senate spot. Here are the candidates, all Democrats: Carlo Basile - Basile is officially a Democrat, but he is more of a moderate - or an undercover elephant - in that he endorsed Romney in the past and worked for Kerry Healey's failed attempt to be governor.......

--Not every day is a crimefighting day, at least not in Methuen last week. A sergeant for the Methuen PD was on duty - while watching the Patriots play a preseason game on TV. One could argue that it was fine if nothing was happening, but other officers joined him, and only two officers were left on duty. They must have been rookies. The scene could have come right out of Super Troopers - the......

--The BPD had an easy time rounding up a cell-phone robber last night because the guy had quite a sense of fashion. A woman reported that a guy wearing "plaid shorts, a black puffy vest, and a black hat" snatched her cell phone while she was on Washington Street. He sounds like a member of Parliament gone bad. That's the kind of meaty description an officer of the law remembers, and they caught him on......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

--Police picked up Mark Leaston because, according to the DA's office, "Evidence suggests that Leaston forced a 22-year-old woman into his U-Haul, drove her to nearby Kineo Street, and touched her against her will before ordering her out of the truck." Leaston's lawyer is saying that it wasn't kidnapping but that the woman was a prostitute, and Leaston was fighting with her. According to the Globe, the lawyer, Richard Doyle, dropped the words "pounding the......

--A deadly car crash happened early this morning on Blue Hill Avenue. One person died, and three people, including a child and a baby, went to the hospital in critical condition. The baby was in a car seat, but it was thrown from the car. Road rage allegedly caused the crash, and police have arrested 28-year-old Jason Bailey. He is being charged with "Leaving the Scene Personal Injury, Leaving Scene resulting in One Death, Operating......

UPDATE: From the AP: "US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday his agency will seek to "terminate" the deportation case against the wife of a Massachusetts soldier missing in Iraq so she can stay in the country and apply for permanent resident status." Unless we're mistaken, that sounds like Yaderlin Jimenez will be able to get her green card. Yesterday, word spread all over the Web that Yaderlin Jimenez, wife of missing......

Massachusetts senior senator Ted Kennedy went after Senator Byron Dorgan during the immigration debate. But, really, that's not the story. The story is that Ted Kennedy somehow helped bring chicken pluckers into the argument. Kennedy, who supports a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants, said: "I would like the chicken pluckers to pay $10 or $15 an hour." Dorgan took the chicken-plucker bait: "Mr. President, let me stand up and say a word on behalf of......

--A massive immigration bust went down yesterday in New Bedford. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rounded up illegal immigrants who were working for Michael Bianco, Inc., a leather manufacturer involved with producing leather vests and backpacks for US military. You would think that, given all the talk about illegal immigration in the United States, the government might bother to check on the companies they hire to make sure they don't hire illegal immigration. But, beyond......

The Boston Globe reports today on an initiative by some local Latin American groups that is gaining support among some city officials. The City is considering renaming a portion of Centre Street in Jamaica Plain "Avenue de las Americas. At-Large City Council member Felix Arroyo, and Boston's first Hispanic council member, was named in the report as a supporter of the proposal. The idea is to give recognition to the portion of Centre Street......

Though Bostonist is but a minor deity in the pantheon of the ist-a-verse, Gothamist LLC continues to rule Mount Olympus with its ever-growing might, and like Zeus, Gothamist's children periodically spring fully formed from its head, clad in full armor. So it is with Sampaist, São Paulo, Brazil's ist, which launches officially today, but emerges into the world in the full swing of things, chock full o' posts. In Portuguese. Conscious of Boston's status as......

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. Bostonist sees Boston and Somerville each whip out their art and face off. A plagiarized novel is the......

While some parts of the country saw massive marches and demonstrations during yesterday's "Day Without Immigrants," Boston's turnout was relatively modest. (The Hi-Spot Deli downtown was totally closed, though.) Nevertheless, the Bostonist team diligently snapped a few photos of events downtown, in Harvard Yard, and at Cambridge City Hall (yeah, we know we have too many pictures of Middlesex County. We're working on it.), and here they are. You can see links to more pictures......

Mixed reports of the efficacy of yesterday’s rallys, protests, and boycotts are coming across the wire. Whether or not you think that yesterday’s “Day Without Immigrants” was a successful stand of solidarity makes no difference when you watch the following video. Bostonist takes it as a glimpse into other culture, cinematically. The Metro Manila Film Festival tapped the movie, Once in a Blue Moon, to be one of the Magic 7 – we’re not up......

Today we spent the day appreciating how much immigrants affect our daily lives. A sign hand-printed and posted in a local bodega's window read “Closed May 1st. A Day Without Immigrants. We are all immigrants.” Some of the best music has immigrated its way to the United States from places far and wide. Where would this week's lineup be without the rich flavor of the immigrant community? Music knows no borders. Let the decibels......

Today is May Day, which in the old days, when labor had some clout in this country, meant unruly socialist rallies and general anarchy in the streets. In this more civilized time, we have learned to peg our obligatory working man's holiday to a long weekend, guaranteeing that most wage slaves will be home grilling rather than out seeking to overthrow their duly elected government. Perhaps conscious of the date's history, many of the same......

LAist tracks an award-winning TV writer who worked on Good Times to a homeless shelter and sees a Little Old Lady get a jaywalking ticket because she can't get across fast enough (in the same post!). Poets invade Metro and an LAist contributor's new book asks WWJB. Gothamist gets down with the immigration rally and their readers want to be heard. The anniversary of the Mets' 1986 World Series is celebrated via a RBI Baseball......

As promised, Bostonist attended our fair city's contribution to today's so-called "national day of action" to oppose a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would make illegal immigrants' presence in this country a felony, and to support legislative efforts to grant amnesty to undocumented workers. According to the Associated Press, there were between 5,000 (the police estimate) and 8,000 (the organizers' estimate) marchers. On the ground, with no crowd-counting skills and only the......

If, like Bostonist, you're looking for something to this afternoon between quittin' time and the 9:30 showing of "Night Nurse" at the Brattle, you're in luck. As part of the ongoing and ever-more-newsworthy series of public demonstations in opposition to an immigration bill approved by the House of Represenatives, there will be a large rally in support of immigrant rights this afternoon at 4:00 on Boston Common, which will then proceed to Copley for further......

Walking to work today, Bostonist saw two people a day early in their full-out St. Patrick's Day Irish gear (green paper hat, "all about drinking and Irishness in a hard-drinking, heavily Irish town. But part of us clings to the belief that if people only knew more about Evacuation Day - commemorating an actual Revolutionary War victory in Boston (unlike Bunker Hill Day) - they would embrace it as we do. To that end, some......

Ping On Alley is just off of Essex Street in Chinatown, pretty close to South Station. Nothing very special about the alley… a parking lot on one side, a big ol’ brick building on the other. But if you look closely, there is a plaque that tells the tale of that alley. In June 1870, the first wave of Chinese immigrants were brought in by shoe factory owners in western Massachusetts to break a strike.......

In the run-up to Thanksgiving, Bostonist thought we'd share some of our favorite recipes. Hopefully, we will actually pull it together enough during the next 24 hours to deliver on this promise. If not, you'll have to settle for this cranberry salad recipe and our sincerest wishes that you have a happy holiday. During our parents' relatively short relationship, Bostonist's mother was a source of some confusion for our father's New York Jewish clan. Tall,......

The other day, Bostonist was walking with a friend, discussing Thanksgiving plans. Bostonist said we expected forty or fifty people at our mother’s house. Our friend’s jaw dropped to the ground. That was when Bostonist realized that Russian immigrant Thanksgiving celebrations are not quite like traditional American ones. Russians in America, particularly the Russian Jewish immigrants who abound in the Boston area, have a lot to be thankful for: three-bedroom apartments, SUVs, and TJ Maxx,......

When it isn't wrangling about healthcare, the state legislature has lately been wrangling about whether or not to let illegal immigrants who attend high school in Massachusetts pay in-state tuition at U. Mass. Other people have analyzed this matter more thoroughly and interestingly than Bostonist cares to, but Adrian Walker's column in today's Globe made Bostonist notice just how weird this country's relationship with illegal immigration is: On the one hand, plenty of people are......

Back in March, Bostonist casually mentioned the Irish Famine memorial on Washington Street, and how awful it is. This prompted local blogger Left Center Left to catalog some other ugly local statues. Although LCL suggested some worthy contenders, we continued to believe that the Irish Famine atrocity was the worst, perhaps not just in Boston but in the world. (What really bothers us is the jaunty, kung-fu poses of the non-starving statues.) Luckily, our......