At today’s rally for Omar Edwards, the off-duty police officer who was killed by another cop in East Harlem , Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) was asked if he had advice to give President Obama, who is visiting NYC this evening . The Daily News reports that Rangel delivered a “snide” answer, “Make certain he doesn’t run around in East Harlem unidentified .” Edwards, who was black, had been chasing a man suspected of breaking into his car; he was out of uniform with his gun drawn when he was fatally shot by a white officer . Rangel, who wants a federal investigation of the shooting, also said , “If you become an officer and you have a pistol and you are of color, in or out of uniform, your chances of getting shot down by a police officer

John Schnatter, founder of the Papa John’s pizza chain, wants his Bitchin’ Camaro back, and he’ll even give you $25,000 if you’ve got it. The 47-year-old delivery pizza company’s creator apparently exchanged his gold, double racing-striped 1972 Z28 Camaro (seen here) in 1984 for $1600 in seed capital. He’s been a little down about that since, but the rest is history: Papa John’s bloomed into a worldwide franchise with more than 3,400 locations, including one in Flatlands that’s currently basking in the glory of …

With federal judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court , everyone is predicting how things will turn out during the Senate confirmation hearings. Newsday looks at how Sotomayor actually has many similarities with Justice Samuel Alito , who was appointed by President Bush in 2005: “Both grew up Roman Catholic in modest homes wanting to be judges, attended the same Ivy League schools, became prosecutors in their first full-time jobs and served more than a decade on the circuit court. And both have remained closely tied to their ethnic roots and the communities where they grew up: Alito, 59, as an Italian American in New Jersey, and Sotomayor, 54, as a Puerto Rican in the Bronx.” And, as Sotomayor’s impartiality gets the once over , …

          The DOT unveiled its latest plan [ pdf ] to resolve Brooklyn’s Kent Avenue bike lane wars at a packed community meeting Wednesday night, and guess what? Not everyone is pleased about the proposal, which would turn part of Kent, a heavily-trafficked two-way truck route, into a one-way, northbound street. Business owners and residents have decried the bike lanes ever since they were installed last fall because they came at the cost of precious parking spots, and members of South Brooklyn’s Satmar Jewish community who were said to …

              A white cop fatally shot a black off-duty officer in plainclothes who was chasing a robbery suspect in East Harlem last night. The victim, a recently married father of a 1-year-old and 7-month-old from Brooklyn named Omar Edwards, had been an NYPD officer for two years and patrolled housing projects as part of the Housing Bureau Impact Response Team. Police sources say that when Edwards left duty and went to his car around 10:30 p.m., he found his driver’s side window broken and a man inside searching for valuables. According …