Last week, we brought you the disquieting news that Starbucks had begun its plan to methodically rid its stores of freeloading laptop hobos. Isolated incident of a single laptopian overstaying his welcome, or foreboding foreshadowing of a new corporate policy?

New York City is the world's greatest cultural melting pot, so it stands to reason that its police force would be a beacon of tolerance and understanding. Right? Sorry. It turns out some NYPD officers may be racist.

Last month, word began circulating that laptop hobo headquarters Starbucks had a plan to force laptop hobos out of its precious coffee dispensaries. And now—judging by this lengthy blog post by a remarkably outraged man—the crackdown has begun.

I don't know how many times we have to go over this, people: when you're planning a murder, do not announce that fact on your Facebook page. Just find satisfaction in the murder itself.

Off-duty NYPD officer Michael Pena was arrested in uptown Manhattan last month after a woman said he grabbed her, flashed a gun, took her into an alley, and raped her. Police caught him red-handed, drunk, and armed. Innocence personified!

As we type, Wal-Mart is working hard to win approval for its very first Store Numero Uno in New York City. But according to a horrifying and hopefully untrustworthy new study, Wal-Mart would like to have 159 stores here. Gah.

"It was worse than a weakness, it was a moral fault of which I am not proud. I regret it infinitely." — Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn discusses his "encounter" with a hotel worker in his first television appearance since.

In what some called a sort of a Jew d'Etat, Republican Bob Turner defeated Democrat David Weprin yesterday in a special election to fill the empty congressional seat in New York's Anthony Weiner-stained 9th district. Turner's win represented the end of an 88-year hold on the seat by Democrats in a district where they outnumber Republicans three-to-one. And while there are a few theories floating around as to what caused the tidal shift, Jon Stewart had a firm grip on one in particular on tonight's Daily Show.

This past weekend, all New Yorkers were in grave danger of being shot by rampaging gunmen driven wild by the melodic tunes of the West Indian Day Parade. (Sarcasm. This is sarcasm.) The NYPD did its part to keep us safe, by manhandling various black political officials.

Everyone loves people watching, and there aren't many better places to do so than in a New York City subway station. But what if you could witness all the action anonymously from beyond the public access points? As this short film by Sean Vegezzi shows, it's what we'd imagine a voyeur's slightly creepy dream to look like. [via Doobybrain]

We're going to come right out and say it: our urban neighborhoods are being overrun by minorities, and they're ruining everything. Bushwick? Full of minorities. Bed-Stuy? Infested. Even Harlem. All ruined by hordes of minorities. (White people.)

As you know because you are currently reading this blog post on your handheld device as you stand in line at Home Depot where you're purchasing plywood, duct tape, and guns (shhhh), Hurricane Irene is allegedly headed straight for New York City. Is it even worth worrying?

We learned last week how annoying it can be when people take over an entire New York City subway car to throw a party. But there are worse things in this world, as you'll see in this newly uploaded video of an all-girl brawl that erupted on the R train.

This is a distasteful subject, yes, but let's, for a moment, talk about defenses against a rape charge. I guess people who are charged with a violent rape could say it was a case of mistaken identity, that they weren't the guy who did it. That is about the only possible defense that I can think of! Or, you can try what NYC rape suspect Jason Quinones is saying: that terrified woman whose apartment I broke into totally wanted it.

Two construction workers renovating a hotel on Staten Island got on the elevator yesterday morning. The door, they found, was stuck. The men began pressing buttons for every floor, trying to find one that would work. Eventually, they ended up in the basement. From the NYT:

William Boyland Jr., a Democratic New York state assemblyman from Brooklyn, was driving his Yukon down Sutter Ave. in Brownsville last night with his seven year-old son. Then—hello!—somebody started shooting, and a bullet blasted out his back window.

"Chronicles of the A train. Chronicles of the A train," says the world-weary straphanger after witnessing this severely one-sided "fight" that is today's entry into the hefty catalog of recent subway insanity. I bet what would help to not have a clearly insane and/ or intoxicated man get his ass beat by the most frustrated of an entire train car's worth of frustrated riders is to shut the train doors more frequently than once every four minutes. That would deprive us all of our day's unsettling voyeurism, though.

Rupert Murdoch came outside his NYC apartment building, looked up, saw a peacock, and was like,

Actress and noted hostage-taker Faye Dunaway says she can't be evicted from her rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment because she doesn't even live there. Dunaway claims that her slumlord "refused to paint the house, and bugs were everywhere." Rich people. [NYT]

After taking us through New York City's labyrinth of underground tunnels and sewers, "urban explorer" Steve Duncan is back with a new video featuring his trek through the abandoned half of a subway track along Spring Street in Nolita (which just so happens to be right below Gawker's offices). Watch Duncan's exploration in the video above. [via Gothamist]