Ron Spears, the advertising director at fairly-priced free newspaper AM New York, was arrested last week for trying to strangle his girlfriend.

The National Organization of Women, which successfully convinced New York magazine and the New York Press to ban ads for escort agencies last year, has a new target: amNewYork. The group is protesting the free paper's "Feeling and Looking Good" section, which is devoted exclusively to ads offering "massages" by Asian women. The paper says the ads are for legit businesses. And how does amNewYork verify which of these services are on the up-and-up and which ones offer naughty extras? "We visit," says the paper's publisher, Terry Jimenez. Well, isn't that a nice job for some amNewYork staffer! [City Room]

Look! Those Gossip Girl ads the whole world is talking about (or at least the part of the world that lives in New York and probably "curates" a "linklog" or something) made the front page of am New York, a free tabloid daily owned by Tribune Co. You know what's funny? Gossip Girl airs on the CW, the network most people still mistake for the one that failed after canceling Homeboys in Outer Space. Also the CW has something called a "ten-year affiliation agreement" with—wait for it!—Tribune Co! Which also owns the CW affiliate WPIX, right here in (am) New York. SYNERGY. [Maura] (Related: watch Mad Men! It's a show about men in suits who smoke or something.)

amNew York hawkers are suing parent company Tribune Co. because they're not getting paid minimum wage. (That's $7.15 an hour, in case you don't remember.) Maybe there was some confusion since the paper is free, they didn't think they needed to pay people? [NYS]

Serial killer David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz used to correspond with Jimmy Breslin at the Daily News; now he's reduced to sending missives to A.M. New York. Sure, the guy's a psychopath who murdered six people, but you've got to feel a little sympathy for him: A.M. New York? Really? [AMNY]

• In an interview with the Guardian, Conrad Black calls his fraud trial "bullshit" and announces that he's at war with the U.S. government. The paper also has an excerpt from Black's forthcoming biography of Richard Nixon, which praises the former president's "surpassing dignity." Read into that what you will. [Guardian]
  

Julia Allison, our generation's very own brain-damaged Bradshaw, and free newspaper AM New York have mutually decided to end their relationship. We're sensing this won't be the kind of breakup where sometimes the former couple unites for intense hatefucks and crying: "We've enjoyed working with Julia for the past year and a half. We wish her all the best in her career," is all AM New York wanted to say when we asked whether Julia had been fired. We're guessing that maybe the blog post where Julia called AM on its lack of "journalistic integrity" might have had something to do with the split. But Julia's not looking back: "There's other shit I want to do, most of which involves marrying rich, but I've wanted to leave AM for a while now, and I was really passive aggressive in the last few weeks ... oh yeah, baby, it's all downhill from here. ;) i do hope i can stick with tv. writing is far too much effort ;)" she volunteered to us via (obvs) instant messenger. We have nothing to add.

A distressing report from this morning's AM New York, which you probably read during the interminable wait for your train, revealed one of the possible reasons for the interminable wait for your train: chicks on diets.

I was sort of annoyed that the New York Times didn't interview me ... I'm sort of surprised no news producers have called me yet.

This morning, a blogger heroically saved a copy of am New York from clogging the drains and discovered this story about the city's budget deficit. Or surplus. Same thing.

With every war, there is collateral damage, and then there is wartime propaganda. In today's wonderfully alliterative editorial, New York Post comes out swinging against AM New York and Metro, pointing its fingers squarely at the free dailies for tragedies that may or may not occur sometime in the future. Because they are a major -not the only, or even the most significant- cause of subway floods and fires.

There is a war going on in New York, specifically, a war for the hearts and minds of commuters who don't want to pay 25 cents for the Post. And the war has a victim: the subway. Discarded copies of AM New York and Metro had been blamed for track fires in the past, and now, MTA officials are pointing to them as the culprit for the flooding that seemingly occurs every time it rains more than an inch.

This is from a letter printed in AM New York this morning. Take about having your finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist! We're have no idea who Stanley Saji of Brooklyn is, but we're pretty sure you don't want to get on his bad side.

You know how every now and then the Post or the News or even the Journal or the Times is being given away for free somewhere in our fair city, usually in a sponsored-copies promotion? Well, today, apparently, nearly everything's free. Reports a correspondent:

How could you skip a story headlined, "City Unveils Pay Toilets of Tomorrow"? You could not skip it. Nor could we. And, as a public service, we pass along amNew York's picture of a prototype of the toilets to be installed on city streets as part of a billion-dollar contract for various "street furniture" in the city, including new bus shelters, new newsstands, and 20 of these "toilets of tomorrow." Study them; know them; be ready to shit in them.

Our beloved officials at the MTA announced yesterday that refuse left behind from riders has resulted in "about 15 tons more trash a day" than in 2004. Authorities noted communter newspapers like AM New York and Metro, which are hawked outside of subway entrances, are particularly responsible in the increase in garbage, and "may be in large part to blame for a surge in track fires."

While the Times is distracted by that insignificant little Sunni-Shiite battle brewing, and as the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian tensions escalate in the Mideast, and as Democrats and Republicans nationwide hate each other more and more, amNew York gives front-page coverage to the sectarian struggle that really matters.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: With the free dailies, you get what you pay for.

As we said before, you get what you pay for. And that doesn't include a calculator.

A tiny box on amNew York's second page today: