And the winner is. . .Despite having ancient looking graphics that can be seen from across the street, a set that looks like it is from a station in Iowa, and a love of sprinkling kicker stories throughout the newscast, WABC’s Eyewitness News and the station overall is yet again at the top of the ratings among the big three for February. Most notably, WNBC has lost almost half of its viewership in the early......

Photograph of a Manhattan polling place by Daniella Zalcman on Flickr After the NY Times story revealed how NYC votes for Barack Obama appear to have been undercounted for the unofficial (yet official enough to be sent to the AP and other news outlets) results on primary night, State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem spoke out. Perkins, who supports Obama, told the Post: "Every election has problems, but in this case, all the problems......

Jason Kidd has finally gotten his wish and is heading out of town. ESPN is reporting that the Nets and Mavericks have agreed to a deal that will send Kidd to Dallas. While the transaction has not be finalized, it is believed that Kidd and Malik Allen will head to Dallas in exchange for Jerry Stackhouse, Devin Harris, a couple of expiring contracts, some future draft picks and some cash. For Kidd the trade brings......

Photo (left to right) of Brian McNamee, Charles Scheeler, Roger Clemens by AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais After a morning of denials and denouncements at a hearing in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform one thing is clear, Brian McNamee and Roger Clemens deserve each other. As Chairman, Henry Waxman, made clear at the start of the proceedings this morning one of them is lying and based on the testimony so far......

Photo of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte by AP/Chris O'Meara Andy Pettitte has always wanted the ball in his hand with the game on the line...until now. Faced with the prospect of having to publicly contradict his friend, Roger Clemens, Pettitte asked to be excused from tomorrow’s hearing in Congress. Representative Tom Davis told Newsday last night that the Pettitte deposition matched McNamee’s in “most details” but Roger Clemens’ deposition says Pettitte is mistaken.......

Mayor Bloomberg's un-campaign for President is losing momentum even before it could officially get started. Bloomberg's position on a run has always been that he is not running at any particular point at that time, even as his Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey aggressively pursues advance work for the campaign that is not happening. Political consultant Doug Schoen confirmed that Sheekey has a formal plan in place already that merely needs the Mayor's go-ahead to begin.......

Spurs 99, Knicks 93 (OT): Normally, the Knicks do this in reverse. They fall behind big early, rally to make things respectable and pat themselves on the back. This game was worse. They blew an 18-point third-quarter lead and then didn't seem to care about the result when the game went to overtime. This is the second time they've lost eight straight. Will they have another eight-game skid before the season ends?Nets 104, Bobcats 90:......

Photograph by forklift on Flickr An estimated three million people assembled along Broadway during yesterday's ticker tape parade to celebrate the Giants' 17-14 Super Bowl XLII win over the New England Patriots. After the many floats with Giants players (and cars with some dignitaries, like Governor Spitzer, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver) rolled up the Canyon of Heroes, Mayor Bloomberg presented the team with keys to the city. When David Tyree,......

As we mentioned over the weekend, Staten Island Chuck predicted a Giants Super Bowl victory as well as an early spring. He got the football prediction right, but what's the deal with the snow, Chuck? We tried to talk to him but his publicist would not return our calls! That forced us to look at a few weather maps, which led us to see that the snow shower was actually a harbinger of warmer weather......

Several hundred people, including Gothamist, gathered at the Staten Island Zoo early this morning to hear a well-fed rodent's forecast for the remainder of the winter. After the Tottenville High School chorus entertained the crowd local dignitaries and elected officials were introduced. Then, the moment everyone was waiting for. A Brownie troop member was enlisted to coax Staten Island Chuck out of his house with the aid of a few peanuts. To chants of "Chuck......

Every year, we look forward to Groundhog Day for the appearances of Punxsutawney Phil, Staten Island Chuck, and the inevitable multiple screenings of the movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. But we also love Groundhog Day because it means that WNBC newswoman Sue Simmons is prodded into doing her impression of a groundhog. We love a beautiful woman not afraid to make herself look ridiculous--like when she fell off her chair and recovered somewhat......

Our snowless, warm January is being followed by a very wet start to February. Expect rain and sleet throughout the day today. It's the dreaded wintry mix! We may even have a bit of thunder this afternoon. Actually, the weather freezing rain north of the city is making conditions dangerous from Connecticut through the lower Hudson Valley into northern New Jersey. Further upstate there's an ice storm warning in effect through 5 p.m. Within the......

Rudy Giuliani's poor showing in the presidential campaign has plenty of people giving their opinions on why it all went wrong. Bronx residents gave the NY Times an earful about the former mayor ("I was waiting for this moment — he stinks...Giuliani was always for himself, never for the people.") while the Daily News reported on the "hick" comments of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said, "The New York lifestyle hasn't gone over [in]......

Nothing like a sunny Monday to start off the week. Especially when it is likely to be cloudy and wetter tomorrow and Wednesday. Clouds will roll in during the day tomorrow. Rain may begin as early as the afternoon but is most likely Tuesday night. Highs tomorrow and Wednesday should be in the mid-40s. The winds will pick up along with the rain as this is a fairly big storm approaching from the Midwest. The......

News came this past week that surely rocked the cradles of many Park Slope babies: Union Hall is no longer stroller-friendly! Will this be the beginning of a trend where Park Slope parents get booted from their home turf bars? Last week the Brooklynian message board was abuzz with residents who were surprisingly not split on the issue. One points out that some pubs in the UK have recently limited patrons with kids to two......

Pictured are the items on the line Sunday between Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor Schmitt. On the top (from left to right) Carnegie Deli cheesecake, Peter Luger Steakhouse, Brooklyn Lager, Peter Luger Steaksauce; On the bottom United States Specialty Cheese spreads, Smithfield Beef, Beerntsen’s Candies, Cheese Shades Ah, there's nothing like the having a local team in a championship game. That's when the mayor breaks out the big guns and bets items of food against......

MUSIC: When we talked to Jonny Greenwood (pictured) back in October, Radiohead's In Rainbows wasn't the only focus. His composition titled Popcorn Superhet Receiver will be performed tonight by The Wordless Music Orchestra with Brad Lubman as conductor. When we asked Greenwood if he would be in attendance, he said "I’d love to but I can’t really justify the flight just to come to that. I’d feel a bit weird about it. If I was......

Former Yankees second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, who became most famous for errant throws to first base -- one even hit Keith Olberman's mother -- found himself in the news in December when his name popped up in the Mitchell Report. Unlike Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens, Knoblauch remained silent until Thursday. He said he wasn't upset with the report but didn't deny using human growth hormone, a substance Pettitte has admitted taking but Clemens has......

The company that founded Chuck E. Cheese, which famously replaced lazy live musicians with ruthlessly efficient animatronic animals, now has their sights trained right on your server. According to this breathlessly excited vision of the future, soon “a new trend will be found at your favorite restaurants”! [Emphasis added.] Computerized touch screen ordering at your table is destined to radically marginalize the entire restaurant service industry, liberating diners from the bondage of inattentive service and......

Armed with cheesecake from Junior's, Mayor Bloomberg headed to Oklahoma for the summit of Republicans and Democrats to discuss a third party White House run. Organized by former senators David Boren and Sam Nunn at the University of Oklahoma (which Boren is the president of), the group has been working since meeting last night . Here's some of Boren's opening statement:We have come together at a crucial moment. These are not ordinary times. For the......

And now Congress is getting in the act. They have “invited” current/former Yankees, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch to testify January 16th. In addition, Brian McNamee and Kurt Radomski have also been invited. Obviously, the man everyone wants to hear from is Clemens. If he is innocent like he claims, appearing under oath in front of Congress shouldn’t be a big deal, although his lawyer has refused to commit to appearing saying, “we......

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Mayor Bloomberg would be meeting with other Republicans and Democrats to "consider the merits of a third-party bid for the White House." Which means that today, not only do we get a NY Post cover, we also get a NY Post Photoshop illustration of Bloomberg, Gary Hart and Christie Todd Whitman (two other meeting attendees) as Revolutionary musicians! Former Democratic senators David Boren and Sam Nunn are organizing the......

Martial arts master and star of movies and television, Chuck Norris, is suing a New York publishing company along with a Brown University student who established an Internet site that passes along purported facts about him. The Norris-facts phenomena is a longtime Internet meme and the actor says that he doesn't mind when sites continue it as long as they are non-commercial. Ian Roberts, the Brown student who operates one Norris-facts site, teamed up with......

Isiah Thomas may want two weeks to save his job, but for most fans have had enough. A group of fans delivered an eight-foot-high pink slip to the steps of Madison Square Garden yesterday calling on Jim Dolan to fire Thomas. And, the “Fire Isiah” chants were heard inside the building last night, despite the team winning easily over the Cavaliers. Even Steve Mills, President of MSG and the man responsible for hiring Isiah,......

Come next year, when you're flying in and out of JFK, your flight may be slightly less delayed than it's been in the past. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced a plan today to reduce the number of hourly flights at JFK International Airport to 82 or 83 flights, depending on the time of day. That would be down from 95 this past summer and what would have been 104 an hour next summer. Secretary......

The morning started with rumors of names mentioned in Senator George Mitchell's report to Major League Baseball, but not until this afternoon were any rumors substantiated. Stating in his report that “there is much about the illegal use of performance enhancing substances in baseball that I did not learn,” Mitchell proceeded to lay waste to the careers of many notable players, perhaps none more so than Roger Clemens. In the report Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens’......

Who knew thousands, if not millions, of New Yorkers would agree with presidential hopeful Fred Thompson on something? In this case, the former Senator and former Law & Order District Attorney was talking about Rudy Giuliani's reliance on touting his New York City credentials during a campaign stop in New Hampshire today. Thompson told a crowd at a gun store, Giuliani "relates everything to New York City. Well, New York City is not emblematic of......

It's been five years since Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell) was murdered in his Queens studio, and though some people have recently started piping up about who may have pulled the trigger - no suspect has been named. Moving forward -- his friends, family and fellow musicians have begun to get closure in other ways. Mizell's widow, Terri, started the Jam Master Jay Foundation for Music -- a non-profit that provides funding and resources to......

On the Gothamist Newsmap: A large fight/stabbing at Church and Remsen in Brooklyn, a stabbing on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a home invasion robbery on Cruger Ave. in the Bronx. An early morning fire damaged four businesses in Inwood; the FDNY is investigating, but the fire may have started in a business that's been closed for months. Senator Schumer releases a statement about his support for Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey (the senior......

Has the novelty of this show being filmed in New York, but not always realistically, worn off? Wethinks it has. Here is our last look at Gossip Girl and her urban explorations. For the second time in the first 6 episodes, a girl who suddenly left town and all her friends a year ago came back unexpectedly, and quickly realizes that much has changed. But at least the show hasn't resorted to recycling plotlines yet.......