New York has more unwanted nocturnal guests than other urban areas and has been named the most bedbug infested city in the United States.

It surpassed Philadelphia, Detroit, Cincinnati and Chicago, which rounded out the top five cities, according to extermination company Terminix, which compiled the list based on call volume to its offices around the country so far this year.

I watched with outrage as a debate over the placement of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York took place. The proposed mosque had been suggested as a symbol of tolerance in a society that is becoming less tolerant. The response, particularly led by right-wing Republicans, was outrageous in the extreme.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the organizer of the planned Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, arrived in Bahrain on Thursday to begin a three-country tour of the Persian Gulf sponsored by the United States State Department.

But the United States government refused to divulge details of his schedule of speeches and meetings, which are part of a program to promote interfaith tolerance. Local journalists have been invited to meet with Imam Feisal but were told the State Department wanted to keep the international news media at bay, said the editor of a Bahraini newspaper.

There’s a healthy chance you’re already sick of the New York Jets.

You’re sick of their loudmouth coach, sick of their hotshot quarterback, sick of their trash-talking defense, sick of their wheeler-dealer general manager, sick of hearing about their HBO series, sick of their delirious fans. Get used to it all. They’re not going away.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.-As New York Jets Coach Rex Ryan stepped to a microphone late Monday after a loss in the team’s opening pre-season game, a few dozen fans crowded behind the glass walls that surrounded him in the just-opened $1.6 billion New Meadowlands Stadium. Many cheered. Others snapped cell-phone photos through the glass. One man yelled: “Go get ‘em, Rex!”

A U.S. Appeals Court ruled on Tuesday against New York City in its long-running dispute with India and Mongolia over whether they owe about $47 million in taxes on property that houses staff assigned to consulates and United Nations missions.

The demands by the city that hosts the United Nations headquarters for property taxes from several foreign governments had become an irritant in diplomatic relations, according to a U.S. Department of State notice cited by the three-judge panel.

On Friday night, speaking at a White House-hosted iftar – a sunset dinner celebrating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan – Obama finally addressed the controversy around the building of an Islamic cultural centre in lower Manhattan:

Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities – particularly New York. Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of Lower Manhattan. The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country. And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable. So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.

Last Friday, my organization the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI), my colleague Robert Spencer and I filed a lawsuit against the city of New York for refusing my SIOA “Preservation of Ground Zero” bus campaign.

Unbelievably, New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) refused the campaign because it contained “9/11 images” and associated the Ground Zero mega-mosque with 9/11.

New York City drew 8.75 percent more tourists in the first half of this year versus a year-ago, with international travel rebounding the most, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials said on Wednesday.

The city expects about 47.5 million visitors by the end of 2010, which would represent a 4.5 percent increase from 2009 and set a new record. The previous high-water mark occurred in 2008, when 47 million people traveled to the Big Apple.

Police arrested a Jet Blue flight attendant on Monday suspected of triggering an emergency escape chute on a plane parked at a John F. Kennedy International Airport terminal.

Steven Slater was arrested outside the JFK terminal and charged with criminal mischief and criminal trespass, said Jennifer Friedberg, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.