A New York man, John Swartz, was followed by police, arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in 2006 when, according to court filings, he saw police officers with a radar detector at an intersection and "expressed his displeasure ... by reaching his right arm outside the passenger side window and extending his middle finger over the car’s roof."

The charges against Swartz were dismissed on speedy trial grounds, but he then brought a damages claim against the police -- a claim that was tossed out in a lower Albany court when the judge sided with the police's account that they had followed the man believing his hand gesture to be some sort of distress signal. On Thursday, however, the appeals court ruled against this conclusion, noting "the nearly universal recognition that this gesture is an insult." (The ruling highlights the ancient history of the insult in its footnotes, pointing out that Aristophanes wrote of Strepsiades flipping off Aristotle).

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Although Robert Stuart and his family-run company insist they only sold their software product to legal overseas buyers, the software maker has been charged with one felony count for promoting gambling in New York through his software firm.

“It’s overreaching where they’re going after a software developer who sells the software with a legal license, and yet we’re still being prosecuted on how it’s being used,” Stuart told Wired, noting that authorities have not told him yet whom he’s accused of aiding and abetting. According to the D.A.'s office, Stuart's software was used to make illegal bets in that state between September 2008 and June 2011.

Wired noted the considerably dangerous precedent the suit against Stuart could set:

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Republican Rep. Peter King says the speaker will schedule a vote Friday for $9 billion in flood insurance and another on Jan. 15 for a remaining $51 billion in the package. The votes will be taken by the new Congress that will be sworn in Thursday.

Boehner's decision to cancel an expected vote Tuesday night had outraged lawmakers from New York, New Jersey and elsewhere, including many in his own party.

King said Boehner made the promise in a private meeting with lawmakers from affected states. King and others said they were now satisfied that the aid will be forthcoming.

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Christie was referring to a $60 billion funding package that would have gone to Hurricane relief efforts, which Republican leadership failed to bring to a vote before adjourning last night. "Last night politics was placed before our  oath to our citizens," Christie said. "For me, it was disappointing and disgusting to watch."

He added that Sandy victims in New York and New Jersey have had to wait six times longer for federal disaster relief funding than victims of Hurricane Katrina, which Christie said shows a "callous indifference to the suffering of people in my state." The bill, which passed out of the Senate, "just could not overcome the toxic internal politics of the House majority," Christie said.

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On Wednesday, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., excoriated John Boehner and House Republicans, calling it "absolutely disgraceful" and saying that "my world turned upside down last night."

"People in my party, they wonder why they're becoming a minority party," King said on CNN. "They're writing off New York, they're writing off New Jersey. Well, they've written me off, and they're gonna have a hard time getting my vote, I can tell you that."

King added that "anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee should have their head examined."

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., said he was "utterly devastated" by the decision, and called it "beyond surprising" that the House adjourned without a vote. He said it was ultimately House Speaker John Boehner's call to adjourn without a vote, and that he had received signals from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that the vote would happen.

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Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said he was told by the office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia that Speaker John Boehner of Ohio had decided to abandon a vote this session.

Cantor, who sets the House schedule, did not immediately comment. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters that just before Tuesday evening's vote on "fiscal cliff" legislation, Cantor told him that he was "99.9 percent confident that this bill would be on the floor, and that's what he wanted."

A spokesman for Boehner, Michael Steel said, "The speaker is committed to getting this bill passed this month."

In remarks on the House floor, King called the decision "absolutely inexcusable, absolutely indefensible. We cannot just walk away from our responsibilities."

The Senate approved a $60.4 billion measure Friday to help with recovery from the October storm that devastated parts of New York, New Jersey and nearby states. The House Appropriations Committee has drafted a smaller, $27 billion measure, and a vote had been expected before Congress' term ends Thursday at noon.

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Weekends were spent smoking filched cigarettes at the mall. We chugged medicinal cherry red cough syrup, which I can still somehow taste in the back of my mouth. On one particularly desperate day we took turns trying to inhale smoke from a burning cone of incense. We ordered pure DXM powder (the active ingredient in cough syrup and a potent dissociative) from a vendor of bulk research chemicals. It arrived from Hong Kong in a sealed plastic baggie stamped “NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION” and was tucked into the pages of what looked like a Chinese glamour magazine. We ordered painkillers from Habeeb—a guy we found on a now-defunct forum dedicated to reviewing various international pharmacies. We bought Salvia Divinorum extract and tiny silver canisters of compressed laughing gas, as well as various research chemicals: 2C-I, 2C-E, 2C-B. I insufflated—snorted—a miniscule amount of 2C-I and saw the ceiling tiles in my friend’s basement swarm with ants.

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Erika Menendez was charged in the death of Sunando Sen, who was crushed by a 7 train in Queens on Thursday night, the second time this month a commuter has died in such a nightmarish fashion.

Menendez, 31, was awaiting arraignment on the charge Saturday evening, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said. She could face 25 years to life in prison if convicted. She was in custody and couldn't be reached for comment, and it was unclear if she had an attorney.

Menendez, who was arrested after a tip by a passer-by who saw her on a street and thought she looked like the woman in a surveillance video released by police, admitted shoving Sen, who was pushed from behind, authorities said.

"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up," Menendez told police, according to the district attorney's office.

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But investigators still hadn't made a positive identification of the body found in William Spengler's burned house. They have said they believe the remains are those of his 67-year-old sister, Cheryl Spengler, who also lived in the house near Rochester.

Autopsies showed that West Webster volunteer firefighter Michael Chiapperini died of a single gunshot and Tomasz Kaczowka was killed by two, police said.

Spengler set a car on fire and touched off an "inferno" in his Webster home on a strip of land along the Lake Ontario shore, took up a sniper's position and opened fire on the first firefighters to arrive at about 5:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve, authorities said. He wounded two other firefighters and an off-duty police officer who was on his way to work.

A Webster police officer who had accompanied the firefighters shot back at Spengler with a rifle in a brief exchange of gunfire before the gunman killed himself.

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The Journal News submitted requests for records "for all permit categories," citing the Freedom of Information Act, as part of a larger feature aimed at reexamining the area's gun ownership in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings.

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Police recovered a .223-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle, which Spengler used to kill two firefighters and wound two others. “He was equipped to go to war and kill a lot of innocent people,” said Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering.

Spengler also wrote a several page note before setting fire to his home: "I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down, and do what I like doing best, killing people."

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But goodbye to all that, for now.

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"New York's first responders are true heroes as they time and again selflessly rush toward danger in order to keep our families and communities safe," Cuomo said in a statement. "Volunteer firefighters and police officers were injured and two were taken from us as they once again answered the call of duty. We as the community of New York mourn their loss as now two more families must spend the holidays without their loved ones."

According to NBC News 10, police have identified the shooter as William Spengler:

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Local officials say the shooter was found dead at the scene, but did not say how he was killed.

From the AP:

The gunman fired at the firefighters when they arrived shortly after 5:30 a.m. at the blaze near the Lake Ontario shore in Webster, town Police Chief Gerald Pickering said. The first Webster police officer who arrived chased the suspect and exchanged gunfire with him, authorities said.

"It does appear it was a trap" for the first responders to the fire, Pickering said at a news conference.

"These people get up in the middle of the night to go put out fires; they don't expect to be shot and killed," Pickering said.

Here's raw video footage of the fire, via the AP:

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According to local authorities, the area of Webster is being evacuated after a shooter opened fire on firefighters who were responding to a fire, around 6 a.m. this morning. The fire is reportedly still going.

From the AP:

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Liebig, 43, wears corduroys, thick black glasses and, fittingly for the playful setting, which is bustling with adults and kids, Chuck Taylors emblazoned with Union Jacks. He selects a glassine folder from the pile, containing several examples of Kit Kat wrappers dating back to the candy’s official incarnation in 1937, two years after its introduction under a different name.

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When then-President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, he revoked inmate access to federal Pell grants. In 1995, New York Governor George Pataki followed suit, eliminating Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) funding for prisoners in the state.

For Kathy Boudin, at the time an inmate of the maximum security Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, it seemed like college programs “disappeared overnight.”

“When college was removed, instead of having a line of people walking to school, we had people sitting up in the day rooms playing cards, playing dominoes, getting in fights,” said Boudin, now the director of the Columbia University School of Social Work’s Criminal Justice Initiative.

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There’s something so New York about this — as New York as the Ramones, really. New York City offers up inimitable cultural experiences along with an inimitable self-regard for those experiences, like gazing out a window at an expanse of beauty while keeping one eye fixed on your own reflection in the glass. “You weren’t there” is hipness accumulating at the expense of generosity.

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As students at public institutions around the nation are crippled by student debt, why should anyone care about the introduction of fees for a small number of graduates at a prestigious, privately funded East Village school? I have, of course, begged my own question here: the only reason to care about the Cooper Union occupation is if it is about more than that. There's good reason to say that it is.

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Under New York law, members of the state police can't accept such gifts.

So state police officials are seeking the public's help in finding the woman who gave the money to Trooper Christopher Maniscalco in the Albany suburb of Guilderland on Sunday. They say they want the woman to tell them where she would like the donation to go.

Police say the woman told Maniscalco she had seen him doing a good job and wanted to say Merry Christmas and thank you. Officials say it wasn't until after his shift ended that the trooper opened the card and saw the money.

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