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For the past six months, a website called Politwoops has been bringing politicians' deleted tweets back to life. Does that mean it's time for them to change their social media strategy?

More than 260 authors and panelists will be in downtown Brooklyn on Sunday for the sixth annual Brooklyn Book Festival. Panels are devoted to a wide range of topics during the day-long free fest. Everything from food politics to the Arab Spring to mystery writing to Mad Libs will be on the table. Here are some of WNYC's festival picks:

Amy Sussman / Getty

Governor Cuomo was thanking the Federal government for declaring counties in New York as disaster zones. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is doing the opposite, after Kings County was not included:

In Brooklyn, hundreds of trees were knocked down, doing significant damage to cars, homes and infrastructure, and some Brooklynites remain without power. Brooklyn’s low-lying ‘Zone A’ neighborhoods that were evacuated saw significant flooding, including Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Coney Island, Red Hook, DUMBO and Williamsburg. Just yesterday, it was discovered that a section of the BQE may be unstable as a result of storm damage and will need urgent repair. The storm even made landfall at Coney Island.

Given these facts, I am absolutely dumbfounded that federal officials have excluded Kings County from a disaster declaration for public assistance. I applaud Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg for requesting this help, and hope that FEMA immediately reverses this dreadful decision and includes Brooklyn.

On Thursday night, Aretha Franklin will perform at Coney Island for free as part of Marty Markowitz's Seaside Summer Concert Series.

The New York Islanders are stuck with the aging Nassau Coliseum after voters rejected a plan this week that would have revamped the arena.

From the AP wire story:

The New York City Conflicts of Interest Board has fined Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz $20,000 for bringing his wife along on official foreign trips without paying for her expenses.

The board's ruling was announced Monday. It says two trips to Turkey and one to the Netherlands were legitimate city business for Markowitz and there was no problem with his accepting the free trips.

But the board found that since the city wouldn't have paid for his wife to accompany him, he shouldn't have accepted travel expenses for her.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was fined $20,000 for bringing his wife along on official foreign trips without paying for her expenses, the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board announced Monday.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz celebrating with couples on the first day same-sex couples were able to marry. (Courtesy of the Brooklyn Borough President's office)

The state's first day of same-sex marriage didn't go off without a hitch--659 of them to be exact (zing!).

Mayor Bloomberg's office announced that one-day record-breaking feat was achieved yesterday as same-sex couples across the city took advantage of the new law.

"Today was a historic day in our City, and we couldn't be prouder that on the first day that everyone in New York City could have their love affirmed in the eyes of the law, we were able to serve everyone,” Mayor Bloomberg said in statement.

Manhattan performed the most ceremonies by far with 365. Brooklyn was in a distant second at 121, and more than half of those couples stopped by Brooklyn Borough Hall and the office of Marty Markowitz, the borough president.

“I wish these couples as much happiness as my wife and I have been blessed to share," Markowitz said in a statement. "This is a historic day in New York, and seeing these newlyweds—their smiles, that twinkle in their eye—that says it all.”

Shakespeare will soon have a new home in downtown Brooklyn. The Theatre for a New Audience broke ground on its new space in the BAM Cultural District on Friday.

Looks like Marty Markowitz’s epic battle against two Coney Island synagogues is over -- for now.

The flag of Brooklyn flew at half mast Monday to commemorate the death of Brooklyn Dodgers legend Duke Snider, who died Sunday. He was 84.

Brooklyn is about to get a whole lot hoppier.

The ever-popular Brooklyn Brewery says it will increase beer production in the borough tenfold over the next three years, thanks to an $8 million expansion of its facility in Williamsburg.

Controversy over the bike lane began even before it was installed last June. Though the local community board approved the lane, some residents and their supporters were outraged. They said the two-way lane — which is separated from automobile traffic by a row of parked cars — would cause congestion, change the historic character of the leafy boulevard, and make pedestrian crossing dangerous and confusing.

The rest of the country has culture wars. New York City has bike lane wars. Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was grilled by city lawmakers this week at a hearing about bike lanes. City officials and members of the public are debating the expansion of the city's bike lane network.

A new survey of some 3,000 Brooklyn residents finds that, by a three to one margin, residents approve of a two-way protected bike lane along Prospect Park West. That support diminishes to just half, however, when only residents of the boulevard are surveyed.

A team spokesman confirms that the team submitted an application to change its name. But the spokesman wouldn’t specify what the desired name would be or whether it would use “Brooklyn” or “New York” as the geographic name.

Street space is one of the most valuable commodities in New York City, and the volume knob has been turned up since City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan started adding hundreds of miles of bike lanes to city streets.

The latest firefight is over space on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn, with cyclists, the DOT, and the community board lined up on one side, and motorists and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz on the other.

Markowitz has long been leery of moving fast in re-organizing city streets, opposing, for example, banning all car traffic in Prospect Park, and bridge tolls on the East River Bridges.

To learn more about his philosophy of transportation, WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein sat down for a wide-ranging interview with the third-term borough president, Brooklyn’s chief cheerleader. You’ll find out why he thinks Commissioner Sadik-Khan is a zealot, how he feels about turning over parking spots to pedestrians, why he’s for a gas tax -- and why he welcomes the hipster-yuppie class to his borough.

Listen to the WNYC segment here:

Listen to the full interview here, or read it below:

Andrea Bernstein: The things that you’ve said over the years, and the positions that you’ve taken, show an identification with “Joe Brooklyn Driver.” A sense that if you are living in Brooklyn and you are a working person and you have a car, life can be tough. Do you think that is fair?

Marty Markowitz: Well, I’m not going to say it’s unfair. The world of Brooklyn is not dominated by those that deem it, that everyone has to be on bicycles and those that own cars should be isolated. And there is a segment of those who are avid bicyclists that believe that car owners are evil, and therefore the philosophy of the city of New York should do and be whatever one can do to help minimize car owners, cars and to try to rid the world of automobiles and to ensure that everyone is on a bicycle. There are people that really want to do that.

My job as borough president is to balance the needs of this entire borough. The majority of Brooklyn lives on the southern side of Prospect Park, not the northern side. And very often, many people in Brooklyn need their vehicle either for their livelihood or their personal pleasure. And I for one want to continue to do my part to make Brooklyn, and New York, a resident-friendly place as much as possible. So it’s a balance that you have to find. And that’s why I have supported bicycle lanes, throughout the borough. The Greenway is a good example -– that I’m one of the leading advocates for. And will continue to press for that. The bicycle lane on Ninth Street that’s around the corner from where I lived, I fully supported, not one peep from me, because it made sense, because it leads into Prospect Park. But where I feel bicycle lanes would have an adverse affect my job is to speak up for it.

Those that wanted to close Prospect Park inside to traffic twenty four hours a day -– I represent the whole borough, and not just one community. And that would be a hardship for many owners of cars that need the pathway, need to drive to get to and from work. There has to be a balance, and that’s the balance that I seek to find.

AB: The first time I heard you talking about these issues was in fact at a press conference in Grand Army Plaza. I’m trying to figure out when it was –- it all blends together -– but I think it was sometime in the earlier part of the last decade, when there was a decision to restrict the car use in the park. And you were quite clear at that press conference that you didn’t want there to be an adverse impact on Ditmas Park and those neighborhoods on the east side of the park. And I’m wondering what you’ve heard from people since then. Has restricting the use of cars in fact made life tougher for those people?

People at the SoHo New York Apple store try out Apple Inc\'s new iPad on April 3, 2010. ...