Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is giving people a chance to resolve outstanding summons warrants at a church, instead of in a court room.

Having failed to adequately adapt to the digital age, Eastman Kodak Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week.  Kodak had long been struggling:  First, with the advent of digital cameras and then, with the emergence of smartphones that threatened to make even those devices obsolete.  Most recently, drawn out intellectual property litigation added another drain on the company coffers.  One-time rival Fujifilm began diversifying decades ago, branching out into manufacturing optical films for LCD screens and producing cosmetics.  Yes, cosmetics.  Apparently anti-oxidants developed to preserve collagen-containing photos also do wonders for the skin.  Kodak, however, preferred to keep all of its prints in one stop bath, so to speak.

The history of the publicity stunt has never been proud, but if the recent tide of sham celebrity weddings and "leaked" private photos leaves you longing for something grander, stranger, more ghoulish, or more elephantine, look no further than January 4, 1903.  Today marks the grim anniversary of Thomas Edison's electrocution of a Coney Island elephant named Topsy as part of a media campaign to discredit George Westinghouse and his alternating current.  At the time, Edison's direct current reigned supreme, but AC was proving much more efficient and posed a significant threat to his dominance.  Edison attempted to portray AC as extremely dangerous and first demonstrated its lethal effects by publicly roasting several stray cats and dogs.  When Luna Park Zoo needed a way to dispose of Topsy, their increasingly violent elephant, Edison offered his assistance.