• A soda-size can of phosgene, the deadly chemical Saddam used to kill countless Kurds in the eighties, was discovered stashed away in a U.N. office yesterday, but no one has any idea how it got there after weapons inspectors brought it back from Iraq in the mid-nineties. Reassuring. [NYT]

• Fire commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, responding to critics who say he should resign in the wake of bureaucratic blunders that led to two fireman deaths in the Deutsche Bank blaze, says he's staying. But at a shindig yesterday, introduced as the fire commish, he did joke, awkwardly, "for the moment." [NYDN]
• A former janitor at Co-Op City, after losing a racial-discrimination case over his firing, shot his old boss there yesterday and wounded two former co-workers. Then he turned himself in, leaving God-knows-who to clean up the mess. [NYP]
• The Second Avenue Deli, which closed in early 2006 in face of a rent increase, is set to reopen again — not on Second Avenue but at Third and 33rd. [amNY]
• And a maid at the fleabag Hotel Carter on 43rd Street found the body of a 22-year-old woman in plastic bags under a bed. Other guests then demanded refunds, proving that even Hotel Carter patrons can be fussy. [WNBC]