The bright yellow awning providing a note of good cheer among the bleak gray storefronts that define Atlantic Avenue in winter belongs to Mai, a Southeast Asian restaurant that opened in September. Comment

Armed with two beers worth of courage, a notebook and pen, I entered Freddy’s Bar & Backroom in Prospect Heights on a recent Wednesday evening. Comment

Can you invoke the Twin Towers without eliciting a sigh of exasperation? Does a Code Orange warning affect your behavior less than the weatherman’s forecast of rain? Do you sometimes go days - even weeks, maybe months at a stretch - forgetting that you’re living in a nation at war? Comment

If you thought that all the waterside neighborhood of DUMBO had to offer was the Jacques Torres Chocolate Factory and the offices of The Brooklyn Papers, and you still weren’t enticed to disembark the F train at York Street, there’s more temptation now than ever to visit. Comment

Are you a Simon or a Paula? Comment

If the name doesn’t give this Williamsburg canteen away, then let me explain. Comment

On the eve of a vital public hearing to discuss freezing residential development in parts of Sunset Park and Red Hook, property owners are being actively courted by interest groups on both sides of the issue. Comment

On Feb. 4, Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts brings DanceBrazil to Brooklyn College for the New York premiere of "Retratos da Bahia," an evening-length work inspired by French photographer and anthropologist Pierre Verger. Comment

A plan to convert a historic Cobble Hill bank into a six-story luxury condo was temporarily derailed on Wednesday when city landmarks officials took issue with the developer’s bid to tear down an annex to the landmarked, 83-year-old Renaissance revival-style bank. Comment

Atlantic Yards: Take my lawyer, please. Comment

In “All the Best” [GO Brooklyn, Jan. 7], the hours of operation of Applewood restaurant were incorrect. The restaurant does not serve dinner on Sundays. Applewood is open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday and for brunch on Sundays, from 10 am to 3 pm. They are closed on Mondays. Comment

Big box retailers like Wal-Mart would be forced to provide better health-care coverage for their New York employees under a just-introduced bill by state Sen. Diane Savino (D-Bay Ridge). Comment

Get out your overly tight bikinis and your SPF 45 — Bruce Ratner is bringing professional beach volleyball to Coney Island. Comment

Initial construction of the first Whole Foods supermarket in Brooklyn — slowed since underground gasoline storage tanks were found this fall — will be delayed even longer, state officials said. Comment

Brooklyn Angle: Hate to break the news to you, Rubber Girl, Insectavora, Helen Melon and Kerosene Queen, but the cliche is finally true: the good ones are all gone. Comment