What's AcroYoga? The hybrid practice combines yoga, acrobatics and Thai massage while working with a partner. After the jump, watch a video profile of Adam Rinder, director of Om Factory and an active member of the AcroYoga community.
They're study drugs. Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse--you name it. The plague of prescription pills, with their often dangerous side effects, has been heavily reported by major media outlets but still continue to dominate finals week on college campuses across the country. And Senator Chuck Schumer wants to do something about it (in New York, at least).
700,000 miles. That's the lengthy equivalent of about 280,000 Central Parks. Or a little more than 50,000 Manhattans from the bottom up. It's also the amount of miles CitiBike users--who have now clocked in over 250,000 rides--have covered in three weeks' time.
Sam Levin
The NSA controversy, which continues to develop, has been useful in a lot of ways. It's gotten people talking after a long period of quiet about the surveillance powers of the state -- and whereas the national security state had legions of defenders back in post-9/11 days, in these post-post-9/11 days it has no end of opponents, including many rightbloggers who once upon a time (i.e. during the Bush Administration) were very much in favor of it.
It would be wonderful if this increased opposition led to serious legislation to curtail government spooks, but so far rightbloggers seem much less interested in that than in beating up Obama so they can get their own guys back in control of the spy apparatus.
Globalization: 1, Jay-Z: 0. Two months after Jay-Z gave up his stake in the newly minted Brooklyn Nets, on Thursday Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov (and Nets owner) announced he'd be moving the team's ownership company to the Motherland.
MattBritt00 via Compfight cc
Why? According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Prokhorov wants to run for office, but can't because of a new law that forbids Russians seeking government positions from having stakes in foreign companies. We can think of dumber laws the Duma has passed in recent months. But if you can't beat 'em ... move 'em to a different time zone.
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In addition to the Brooklyn D.A.'s office, the Civilian Complaint Review Board is also investigating the alleged June 2 assault by homophobic slur-spewing 79th Precinct police on a gay man in Brooklyn. Victim Josh Williams is at right. 
Five years ago, NYPD Sergeant Haytham Khalil was indicted for illegally accessing the FBI criminal records and terrorism database on behalf of a friend in a child custody dispute. He pleaded guilty in 2009.
Today, Khalil not only is still with the police department, despite his conviction, but he is an integrity control officer in a Brooklyn precinct.
"I happen to think that foie gras is one of the most delicious things on earth," Anthony Bourdain told the camera before a truth-finding trip to New York's Hudson Valley Foie Gras for his Christmas special in 2007. "And yet strangely enough, a few twisted, angry people would like to take your foie gras away."
Photo courtesy of Mercy for Animals
This week, Mercy for Animals, like Bourdain, released a video of ducks being force-fed at Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the country's largest producer of foie gras and supplier to Amazon.com. MFA's investigation yielded a very different set of findings from Bourdain's--and now they're putting pressure on Seattle-based Amazon.com to ban the sale of foie gras online.
Read more: The Undercover Animal Cruelty Videos That Spurred Big Ag's Censorship Crusade
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It comes as no surprise that controversy would ride the coattails of the news yesterday that Attorney General Eric Holder may suggest a federal monitor over the NYPD should stop-and-frisk be deemed unconstitutional in Floyd v. New York. Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly freaked out in a teleconference with Holder the other day when they heard about the Justice Department's proposal. And yesterday, at an unrelated press conference, the m ayor made his opposition to the proposal absolutely, 100 percent clear.
Chad Griffith
Last year, Chen Guangcheng arrived in New York to take a teaching position at New York University. He'd just escaped house arrest in his native country of China after being prosecuted for representing thousands of women in a class-action lawsuit against the Communist government. Now, more than a year later, the university has let the renowned dissident and self-made lawyer go, leading many to point fingers of blame at the school's PR coup de grace: worldwide expansion.
Was Guangcheng's dismissal a result of pressure for NYU Shanghai?
Maybe the parts of the Community Safety Act that debuted on the council floor yesterday won't even be necessary. In an exclusive report by the Daily News last night, it's been discovered that Attorney General Eric Holder and his Justice Department are thinking about asking the trial judge on Floyd v. New York--the case in motion downtown that questions the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk--to assign an inspector general to oversee the NYPD's actions should the practice be overturned. A controversy so bad, even Washington might get involved.
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| Doll House by Julia San Martin |
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office is looking into the June 2 beating of a gay man by police who used homophobic slurs outside the 79th Precinct, two officials tell the Voice.Caleb Ferguson
The police officer who appears to have instigated the incident was identified as Kharl Pinnock. Court records indicate he had been named in three prior lawsuits, including a case in which a female motorist's breasts were exposed during a traffic stop.
Meanwhile, supporters, several councilmembers, and and alphabet soup of gay advocacy groups held a short protest/news conference outside police headquarters yesterday. Josh Williams, 24, who suffered stitches on his face, bruised ribs and a black eye, told the crowd he was speaking out because he "didn't want what happened to him to happen to anyone else."
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On Tuesday, the Bloomberg administration released its long-awaited resiliency plan to shape up a city that will see a quarter of its land become floodplain in the next 40 years. 
Rendering of a proposed levee at South Beach included in the mayor's presentation.
The city had a comparatively early start on climate planning--in 2007, it came out with PlaNYC, a set of recommendations to deal with population growth and climate change over the following 23 years. But as climate projections became increasingly severe, the city's badly outdated, 100-year-old flood maps largely stayed the same. And then Sandy hit, wrecking the city in an unprecedented natural disaster.
The next New York City mayor will adopt an ongoing crisis. The New York City Panel on Climate Change estimates that sea levels will rise two-and-a-half feet by midcentury, along with increasing frequency of Frankenstein storms like Sandy--which is estimated to cost the city as much as $90 billion by 2050. Here's a quick set of highlights out of the new game plan, along with how they'll change our built environment over the next several decades.
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Kerflump, kerflump, kerflump. Hear that? It's the sound of Texas Governor Rick Perry riding an imaginary steed to New York and Connecticut, where he's set to launch a four-day tour next week in an attempt to herd local business back to Texas.
Gage Skidmore via Compfight cc
Perry, whose presidential bid tripped up over an ad criticizing gays in the military and the war on Christmas (among other issues), has issued a $1 million ad campaign in New York and Connecticut through his nonprofit, TexasOne. In the ads, Perry enlists Texas locals to cheer on the state's business climate.
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They're two bills birthed from latest NYPD controversy. One would establish an inspector general to oversee the department, and another would allow citizens to sue the police over claims of racial profiling. The two parts of the overarching Community Safety Act have divided the city's most powerful, setting up a policy showdown for the upcoming mayoral race. And today, the bills will begin their gestural journey through the City Council as Speaker Christine Quinn gears up for an unprecedented legislative maneuver on her floor.
C.S. Muncy
The reopening of the East 91st Street marine transfer station's a controversy a decade in the making. Sparked by Christine Quinn's "environmental racism" comment, the waste disposal spot has infiltrated the mayoral race discussion, leading candidates to pick a side on an issue that involves how we New Yorkers dispose of millions of pounds of trash every day. Republican frontrunner Joe Lhota has pledged to close it if he becomes mayor, but his reasoning is a bit misleading, given his past as Giuliani's go-to garbage defender.
Newscom
The Voice asked a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg for a comment on the violent encounter between 79th Precinct police and three young gay men, which left one of the men with stitches, bruised ribs, and a black eye, and received no response.
Caleb Ferguson
Imagine centuries from now, when archaeologists combing through the sediment of Randalls Island in search of cultural artifacts from bygone days find a trove of broken Ray Ban sunglasses embedded in hardened mud. "Curiouser and curiouser," a future archeologist might say, zooming in on the objects with his Google Glass Plus 5000. "Was this a massive gathering in worship of the sun? A viewing of the solar eclipse?" (Let's assume that all Internet archives documenting this past weekend's Governors Ball have somehow been accidentally destroyed in an uncontrollably popular TrolltheNSA.com uprising.) 
Mario Izquierdo via Compfight cc
For the legions of city-dwellers without air-conditioning, summer in a cramped New York apartment means lethargy in front of an oscillating fan, ice cubes, and a uniform of underwear and not much else. In the days of packed tenement housing, New Yorkers even took to sleeping on the roofs or the fire escape, which one New York Times trend piece from 1908 described as the "tenement plan" or "roof habit." 
Mark Römisch/bivouacnyc.com
At least one Brooklyn-based artist is trying to bring the roof habit back. This weekend, artist Thomas Stevenson will be hosting "Bivouac," a seven-tent camping installation on an undisclosed city rooftop.
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