• Kurt Vonnegut died in Manhattan last night. He was 84 and battling a brain injury after a bad fall, and we won’t insult you, or him, with a half-sentence recap of his career. [NYT]
• City Comptroller William Thompson is asking the U.S. Attorney General to investigate allegations of Wal-Mart’s “chilling and truly outrageous” surveillance of shareholders. Now we’re definitely not getting a Wal-Mart. [Reuters]
• As expected, MSNBC has killed its simulcast of Don Imus’s radio show. The canning, framed in the “we’re doing what’s right” terms, was an easy call after a whopping nineteen advertisers pulled out. [NYDN]
• NYU’s wunderkind con artist Hakan Yalincak has been sentenced to 42 months in prison, with a possible deportation to Turkey to look forward to when he’s done. Yalincak scammed investors out of $8.8 million through a phony hedge fund. [NYP]
• And worried that environmental protests tend to come out “shrill,” a group is planning to flood Battery Park this Saturday with a so-called Sea of People — including a fake Blue Men Group and a church congregation dressed as Noah’s Ark. Sounds, well, not shrill. [MetroNY]
