Arlene Gottfried

A week since we reported on Maria Montealegre, an undocumented immigrant who faces eviction for making complaints against one of the worst landlords in Manhattan, she might be well on her way to becoming a legal immigrant.

The Washington Heights resident, along with Andres Mares Muro (from the Mirabal Center) visited the Mexican Consulate and were told that Montealegre qualifies for a "U visa," which would make it easier for her and her family to get into a shelter.

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As the dust clears at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, activists are wondering where in the name of Newt Gingrich's fake hair this rare victory for Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights came from.

Steph Herold, a Brooklyn-based reproductive justice activist, said that so many were mobilized in opposition to Komen because "playing politics with cancer is a particularly low blow."

"The media has finally caught on to the fact that there are thousands of young people who support reproductive health, rights, and justice, and that when you try to take away our rights, we will organize and we will win," Herold, who runs the site iamdrtiller.com, told Runnin' Scared. I don't think this will stop the attacks on reproductive rights, but it certainly has mobilized us to fight them."

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Look: No turkey neck!

Happy birthday to our very own Lady Liberty, whose 125 years of standing alone in New York Harbor we mark this very Friday. If you'll recall, the French gave us the statue to pay tribute to American liberty back on October 28, 1886. Now they've ruled against kids eating ketchup in their schools, so you see how far we've come. (Freedom fries!). In any case, the Statue is officially in her elder years, and though people are all going to say how good she looks for how old she is, and, sure, she does, given that she's a statue, we're going to take this moment to ask people to instead focus on her as a symbol of hope, promise, and how America once actually welcomed immigrants (or at least, pretended to symbolically) instead of blatantly trying to keep them out with giant fences.

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Do you remember Jazz Ison Sinkfield, the lady from Atlanta with the abnormally long but incredibly special 24-inch fingernails that, she told America, were going to make her famous and help her meet Oprah? Well, the Oprah thing didn't pan out (yet), but Jazz has been honored by reality TV. She is the latest star of the TLC program My Strange Addiction! Not everyone is that sort of famous. Jazz truly deserves this, as she "has over 19 feet in fingernails and values them so much that she considers them her babies. Her husband Antonio says that she pays more attention to her fingernails than to him." Congrats, Jazz!

Well, "Running Scared," I guess. Whatever! Congratulations to Eli and Nikki, representatives of Azerbaijan and the performers of this blog's new theme song.

If anyone out there is handy with video editing, can you please replace Eli and Nikki's faces in the following video with those of Joe Coscarelli and Jen Doll?

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How would you like it if someone came along and yanked something out of your mouth just because maybe it might be bad for you, right as you're about to enjoy it? Not much, huh? We didn't think so. Thus, we sort of feel for this poor cat, who we're certain only smokes when it drinks. Hey, it's not like its owner is so perfect, right? People who live in cement houses really shouldn't interfere with one's last cigarette. (Sleep with one eye open, laughing man-person.)

Back in December we found out that another area code would be born into our fair city. Its name would be 929, and it would live in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, but not Manhattan, to be adopted by people in need of new service or lines. And now, the day is here, or very nearly here: 929 will officially debut tomorrow, joining friends 212, 718, 917, 646, and 347 in the business of being an area code.

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Good news! Kelly Gneiting, a former U.S. sumo champion from Arizona who weighs 400 pounds, finished the Los Angeles Marathon in 9 hours, 48 minutes, and 42 seconds on Sunday, winning himself the much-coveted Guinness World Record of "Heaviest Person to Complete a Marathon." He jogged the first 8 miles, then walked the rest. The race was won many hours earlier by Markos Geneti of Ethiopia, who finished in slightly over 2 hours.

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Not the actual money.

There's nothing like an inspiring, aspirational crime story on a Friday morning, and from Scranton no less! Here goes: Police detained Karin Mackaliunas, suspected of burglarizing the Dunmore Inn, after she crashed her car on Sunday. They found three bags of heroin in her jacket. On the way to police HQ, they noticed her "fidgeting in the backseat of the cruiser." Turns out, she'd used her vagina as a storage facility for way, way, way more heroin. And other things, too!

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If you were in Tucson to watch the 2009 Super Bowl, you may have noticed that your broadcast was interrupted by 37 seconds of "Wild Cherries 5," a hardcore porn film. Reactions presumably varied between excitement and horror, but nonetheless, the man responsible for the prank -- which is totally hilarious, lighten up -- has been arrested.

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