Lukas I. Alpert
The Archive
Russian roulette
MOSCOW — He is the third richest man in Russia, his face has graced the cover of magazines all over the world, and his purchase of the New Jersey Nets...
Luxe apt. a 'toxic rat hole'
This was no sweet deal. A couple paying nearly $3,000 a month to live in the posh Chocolate Factory development overlooking the Brooklyn Navy Yard says their so-called luxury apartment...
Fail! Top kill can't stop BP's devil
On to Plan Z. Efforts to stop the massive oil leak beneath the Gulf of Mexico were stymied once again yesterday after the much-hoped-for "Top Kill" fix failed -- sending...
Weird but true
This guy must be one hell of a ladies' man. When police in Iowa arrested Brian Mickle for drunkenly wandering into a restaurant kitchen and urinating on the floor, they...
Troubled '80s child star Gary Coleman's life is cut short at 42
Gary Coleman, the pint-sized child star of the hit 1980s sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," whose life was plagued by health, financial and legal woes, died yesterday at age 42. The diminutive...
Weird but true
Kids, just say no to drugs. A first-grader in Massachusetts stumbled upon three big bags of heroin near his bus stop and took them to school, where he gave them...
$41M slap at Verizon
A Brooklyn jury has ordered Verizon to pay $40.8 million to a man left brain damaged and partially paralyzed after being struck by one of the company's trucks. Matthew Falcone,...
Frida's handy $1.2M painting
A Frida Kahlo painting small enough to fit in the palm of a hand sold for $1.2 million at auction here -- going for 12 times what experts had expected....
PATH victim wins sex suit
New Jersey Transit must fork over $760,000 to a woman who was sexually assaulted by two transit cops outside the Jersey City PATH train station almost four years ago, a...
Weird but true
He's got to be having second thoughts now. A man who won $2,001 from an Erie, Pa., slot machine was forced to forfeit it because he had put himself on...
Weird but true
It's hard to imagine how they could have a split opinion on this. Pennsylvania police arrested a man who threatened his girlfriend with a meat cleaver after they got into...
Real rogues' gallery
This heist was a true masterpiece. A masked bandit struck a Paris museum with a faulty security system yesterday and made off with five paintings worth over $100 million --...
Weird but true
If you keep drinking beer, you may not remember a lot more than just last night. A new study links beer guts with an increased risk of Alzheimer's later in...
Weird but true
It's bad enough to get a call from a telemarketer -- imagine having to be one. A survey found that people would rather give up sex for a month than...
Ruth was no babe in Madoff's scam
What's the truth, Ruth? A newly revealed 2006 audit of Ponzi king Bernie Madoff's fraudulent investment firm provided tantalizing indications that his wife -- who has long claimed ignorance of...
Weird but true
She's going from one box to another. A Philadelphia woman on the run from cops hid from them inside a coffin at a funeral home. The woman had escaped while...
Weird but true
This guy's had far too many brain cells go up in smoke. A Buffalo man was arrested after he called cops to report that two teens had broken into his...
New Polanski sex shock
And the Oscar for biggest creep goes to -- Roman Polanski. A British actress came forward yesterday with shocking allegations that the fugitive Academy Award-winning director "sexually abused" her in...
Weird but true
In the end, it's the taxpayers who got hosed. The town of Ansonia, Conn., agreed to pay the legal bills of a cop acquitted on charges he stole a garden...
8-year-old sole survivor of Libyan crash is 'truly a miracle'
This miraculously lucky Dutch boy was the sole survivor of the crash of a Libyan airliner that fell short of the runway yesterday, killing all of the 103 other passengers...