State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has been given the unenviable task of investigating Governor David Paterson’s response to accusations that a top aide, David Johnson, assaulted a female companion last fall. The State Police allegedly were called into the case, not to investigate but, it would seem, to squash it, and the governor himself spoke with the victim. Several of Mr. Paterson’s aides have resigned in... MORE»
The Burj Khalifa opened earlier this year as the world’s tallest building, sending a protrusion of steel slicing into the skyline along with a message to a new generation of Muslims: Near its record-setting peak will be a mosque. Not so coincidentally, in New York, two cranes lifted more metal shafts into place for the Freedom Tower, soon to be this country’s tallest building. With its cutting-edge security and escape designs, it is also holds a message engineered for a new generation of... MORE»
Disney CEO Bob Iger spent Sunday night rolling deep at the Oscars with his friend and biggest shareholder, Steve Jobs. If Mr. Iger seemed outwardly cool—and he almost always does—it had to be a tense night for him: Disney-owned ABC and Cablevision were locked in a contract standoff that threatened to prevent Cablevision subscribers from seeing the Oscars. Cablevision serves Long Island, where Mr.... MORE»
The national madness known as “McCarthyism” began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.Va., when Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and... MORE»
To call this the year of Jews in film sounds like the setup for a bad joke. What, runs the imagined punch line, is it also the year of Canadians in curling? Well, yes, actually. Jews are having something of a Hollywood moment. No fewer than three of the nominees for best picture at Sunday's Oscars--Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man and An Education--deal with issues of Jewish experience and identity. (A fourth, District 9, can be read as a gloss on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but let's not go there... MORE»
This Sunday night, watch the Academy Awards on television, count to 10-and wait for the controversy over vote counting to... MORE»
If the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti carry any message for those of us fortunate enough not to live in those places, perhaps it is that government regulation could save your life—while right-wing ideology may kill you... MORE»
Longtime readers of this newspaper know all about the trials and tribulations of singlehood in the city. Our Sex and the City column spoke to the anxieties and hopes of tens of thousands of singles in New York who were always looking for that special someone. Back in the high-flying ’90s, that search took people like Carrie Bradshaw to clubs and other trendy hot spots. Now, in our more diminished times, our intrepid heroine might find herself looking for love … in... MORE»
There are many words to describe the retirement benefits of New York City’s public-school teachers. Most of those words are unprintable, at least on this page, so we’ll simply stick with one: That would be... MORE»
In the thick of the Oscar race, Hollywood can’t stop chattering about blue aliens in 3-D. But it may be some low-tech red vending machines that will have the lasting... MORE»
Before Najibullah Zazi is finally dispatched to a secure cellblock for good, it is important to remember how the taxi driver–turned–terrorist was brought to justice—and why the critics who jeered his civilian prosecution were dead wrong. By convicting Mr. Zazi and pursuing the leads that his capture and interrogation have provided, the F.B.I. has shown that traditional American methods—rather than the “enhanced interrogation” and military tribunals favored by the right—are highly effective instruments of national... MORE»
Every time Timothy Geithner appears before a Congressional committee, I fantasize. I imagine that we are in a different world, a movie world. Instead of the George Costanza character we have before us, making excuses, we have George Clooney, channeling Jimmy Stewart. He smiles that Clooney smile and interrupts whichever grandstanding Republican or phony Democrat is trying to rip him a new... MORE»
When the Bloomberg administration rerouted traffic patterns near Times Square and Herald Square less than a year ago, it maintained that closing Broadway to vehicular traffic from 47th to 42nd streets, and again from 35th to 33rd streets, would lead (counterintuitively) to less congestion and a speedier trip through midtown. Well, it didn’t work out as the mayor’s office would have liked. But that apparently doesn’t matter. City Hall wants to make the change... MORE»
In a weird way, the smelly deal to convert Aqueduct racetrack into a “racino”—a combination racetrack and casino—may prove beneficial to New York’s taxpayers, because it has shed light on shady deals that might have escaped the public’s notice. As this page has contended for several weeks, the deal between the state and a politically connected outfit called Aqueduct Entertainment Group reeks of political... MORE»
Preparing for what they hope will be their return to power in Washington, Republican Congressional leaders have revived the fear-mongering and flag-flapping used by Karl Rove to win the 2002 midterm elections. Like the former White House deputy, forever known to his boss as “turd blossom,” the right-wing strategists on Capitol Hill feel no shame in arousing the basest of emotions among their... MORE»
