Today's late breaking links: breaking up is hard to do for Facebook users, cool sushi sculptures, the continuing decline of small retailers in New York, developments in Big Raj's case, and the suffering of a Harvard Law School graduate.

The bus driver who hit and killed a cyclist — reportedly while driving in reverse — will not be charged, according to police. "I don't believe that anyone will be charged," an NYPD spokesman told Streetsblog. "The driver remained on the scene. Looks like it was just an accident." Considering that this is Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's first week on the job, the transit website ponders whether or not this case will be indicative of his office's stance on vehicular crimes. The victim's name has not been released pending family notification.

A bill that would have granted same-sex couples the right to marry has been voted down by the New Jersey State Senate. Just over a month after New York State Senate rejected a similar piece of legislation, Garden State pols following suit, voting 20-14 against it. Gay marriage advocates had been trying to push the bill through before Gov. Jon Corzine, who supports gay marriage, leaves office on Jan. 19 and is replaced by Gov.-elect Chris Christie, who opposes it.

Fifteen New York Times employees are ill after eating suspicious pasta salad from the paper's cafeteria. The Health Department has closed the dining room while it investigates whether the sick staffers got food poisoning there. "While we do not know if the cause is food-related, as a precaution, we are closing the cafeteria for the day," said a Times editor in an email to the New York Daily News. All sick employees are urged to come forward, so that the culprit can quickly be identified. The Gray Lady says its stomach pain sufferers are in fine condition, and getting better.

After much to-do, the MTA will most likely continue to offer kids free rides to school. A lawmaker with oversight of the MTA predicted today that they'll not cut student fares and that the city will take over paying for the program to support the city's youngsters.

We've spent a good chunk of time writing about illegal advertisements, but few have been as large — or caused as much fury — as this billboard in the West Village. Ever since the Equinox Health Club wrapped its Greenwich Avenue building with seemingly illegal ads, preservationists have been up in arms, according to Curbed.

The people at Skyline Books emailed us to let us know they'd be closing up shop January 31st, 2010 — after being in business since September of 1990. Sigh. They say they're just one of many independent bookstores folding under the pressures of increasing rents, online bookselling, and the city's changing landscape. They also believe they are one of the last bookstores to have a cat! (Our own John Del Signore points out that "Spoonbill & Sugartown has a 3 legged cat who will outlive us all.") The shop told us the owner may not be able to take her home due to other pets, saying: "Linda is a territorial cat. She's had complete run of that bookstore her entire life, she's 8 years old, and for 8 years any dog that's intruded on her domain has been sent packing and she's pretty good at it. Ideally if another bookstore could take her. She's a book store cat, and there just aren't any left, book stores or book store cats. it's very sad."

On his last day as city controller Bill Thompson finally gave in to to a project he's been fighting tooth and nail—the expansion of a jail in downtown Brooklyn. Thrice the former mayoral candidate has blocked the $34 million project, citing price concerns and finally Mayor Bloomberg slapped a lawsuit on Thompson, charging that his opposition to the jail was motivated by a personal grudge. Just yesterday following his announced that he'll run for mayor again, he capitulated to the mayor's demands regarding the infamous House of D.

Last month a Manhattan woman filed a lawsuit against the restaurant/lounge White Slab Palace, claiming chronic neck pain, anxiety, fatigue, and dizziness after a taxidermy moose head fell on her during a party. But in the news media's rush to break this vital news, many got a crucial fact wrong: It was a caribou head, not a moose head, argh! Still, it's an easy mistake to make; DNAinfo put a photo of both side by side, and the differences are indeed subtle. Which is what makes this video so funny: After New Yorkers interviewed on the street repeatedly misidentify the beast, one man finally gets it right—and then breaks it down in Sicilian/Genoan terms we can all understand. It gets fun at the 20 second mark:

If you see something douchey, say something douchey! For those of you who don't know about every website ever (because you have lives or something), please enjoy Subway Douchery, which went live five months ago—a century in web time—but is new to us, anyway. It posts photos of New Yorkers doing all sorts of douchey things in the subway system. Match it with some clever commentary and it's ripe for a book deal! The latest posterboy of douchey dealings is this guy who decided to lug a giant plant (tree?) on the subway instead of taking a cab. To his credit, didn't look like he did this during rush hour.

You don't have to get a hip replacement to sneak titanium onto an airplane, according to the Post. A reporter carrying an eight-inch-long piece of the nonferrous metal was able to pass through security twice at Kennedy Airport without setting off metal detectors.

Further proof that this whole internship thing is totally out of hand: the Italian designer Versace has put one of its mad exclusive and totally unpaid internships up for auction, and the bidding is climbing through the thousands. With a week left to go, some misguided parent may pay over ten thousand dollars to get their nineteen-year-old cleaning up fabric scraps.

On Tuesday, when "Bronxchester" Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. got caught blocking a fire hydrant with an illegal police parking placard, we took the opportunity to wonder what the hell was happening with the long-simmering investigation into how Espada runs his non-profit. Well, we don't want to take all the credit, but on the very next day Attorney General Andrew Cuomo finally subpoenaed Espada—after launching the investigation nine months ago. Good probes take time? Naturally Espada says this is just a political attack.

The Department of Correctional Services has turned down former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress' request to take part in a work release program that would have allowed him to spend some nights at home, according to 1010WINS. Burress — who was sentenced to two-years in prison after shooting himself in the leg in a Manhattan nightclub — asked for the furlough just two months into his sentence.