¿Qué Pasa, New York?

Fun City Losing Edge?

Paul Berger / Wall Street Journal:

New York City Traffic Deaths Set to Hit 100-Year Low  —  City officials credit traffic initiatives for reducing road deaths, on pace to fall for fifth consecutive year  —  The number of annual traffic fatalities in New York City is on course to fall beneath 200 for the first time in a century, transportation officials say.

Graham Rayman / New York Daily News:

Silent night: City records no murders for five days and counting Christmas week  —  All is calm, all is bright.  —  The city has gone five straight days with no homicides, making for a remarkably peaceful Christmas week.  —  The most recent reported slaying in our city of 8.5 million people was Friday.

At least Con Ed can still be counted on to keep it interesting, if prosaic.

Confirming incident in #Astoria was result of transformer explosion. No injuries, no fire, no evidence of extraterrestrial activity. Please continue to follow @FDNY and @Conedison

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) December 28, 2018

On the other extremity, the F.D.N.Y. doesn't say it wasn't extraterrestrial, only that there was no evidence thereof. I'd have been thinking/praying Gojira,

had I seen it w/o knowing what it was.This reporter would guess it's more the cloud cover than the actual sky, but whatever, WSJ.