The Wisconsin, Washington and Hawaii primaries have been going on today, and while John McCain is expected to further solidify his presumptive nomination, the Democratic race is tight as ever, with a Gallup pole now showing Clinton closing the gap on Obama after his string of eight straight victories. What’s passing for campaign news at the moment is a teapot tempest stirred up by the Clinton team, accusing Obama of plagiarizing Governor Deval Patrick......

Photograph of a Giants fan in Times Square by Johnia! on Flickr After the stunning Giants' Super Bowl win, people cheered like they hadn't seen a Super Bowl victory in 17 years! Throughout the city, folks were stumbling onto streets, chanting the names of players and even getting arrested. A thousand people flooded Times Square, reportedly jumping on cars and sitting on top of phone kiosks, but the Post says no one was arrested.......

Top aides with the Giuliani for President campaign are declining January paychecks, while insisting that it's not because the former Mayor's organization is strapped for cash. Rudy Giuliani is currently stumping in Florida after very lackluster performances in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. Iowa was not a surprise; Giuliani had written off the midwestern state as a poor use of time and resources. A very poor performance in New Hampshire had to have been......

Rudy Giuliani's good financial fortune derived from the formation of Giuliani Partners is leading to political misfortune, as yet another piece of lucrative business he conducted in the private sector has come back to haunt his candidacy. Recently, his involvement with Purdue Pharma--the producers of the painkiller OxyContin--has come under scrutiny. Giuliani is being accused of using his high profile in the wake of 9/11, his background as a federal prosecutor, and his personal reputation......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, a high-angle rescue on West 18th St., in Manhattan, and a multi-vehicle accident on Farmers Blvd. and the South Conduit in Queens. Hoboken mayor David Roberts was apparently prescient to ask how many stops his SWAT team made on the trip back north--fearing more embarrassing photos of his police force as they returned from relief efforts after hurricane Katrina. Additional pictures of......

Rudy Giuliani has a new 1-minute ad proclaiming his credentials to run the country by way of his leadership in NYC. A full transcript of the ad is after the jump but the gist is that Giuilani turned New York City from an "unmanageable, ungovernable" economically depressed crime-ridden hellhole into "the safest large city in America," "the best example of conservative government in the country." Interestingly enough, there's no mention of 9/11. And at......

A sophomore at New York University was found dead in his Water Street dorm room on Friday night. The Washington Square News reports that other residents were told about the death on Saturday and that the university did not send out an NYU community-wide email per a request from the deceased students' parents: "The family has asked that they be accorded the utmost privacy, and the university will do its best to honor its wishes......

A freshman from New York University apparently committed suicide yesterday morning. The student, Allan Oakley Hunter III, jumped from the roof of University Hall, a 15-story dorm at 110 East 14th Street; his body was found in the courtyard. The Washington Square News reports that police were searching his room around 10AM yesterday morning and that his body was removed by 1PM. Friends told the Washington Square News that Hunter was "introverted but friendly," but......

Whichever stadium/arena/field/theater/concert hall had the worst name, that title has been passed along. We're not sure what it was, but it now belongs to the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden. Not only is the official name obscenely long, but its short form, WaMu Theater, is just plain silly sounding. The Washington Mutual Theater has a much nicer ring to it, no? Madison Square Garden and Washington Mutual announced that they inked a long......

The Washington Square News has brought the scandal involving now-former NYU College of Arts and Sciences Student Council president Meredith Dolgin to a new level with a Flash Scandal at CAS interactive. Want to know the timeline? Or background on the players? Or what's even being investigated (election impropriety, financial malfeasance)? It's there! And the WSN reported that Dolgin stepped down and tried to install a new president to the Student Council, which the......

Hundreds of Virginia Tech alumni, NYU students and other New Yorkers gathered for a candlelight vigil in Washington Square Park last night. Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, who had traveled to Virginia Tech earlier in the week, brought back a candle from a vigil there and used it to light candles last night. And today, many people are also wearing orange and maroon, Virginia Tech's colors, for "Orange and Maroon Effect" day to show support for......

Yesterday, NBC News revealed that Virginia Tech shooting gunman Cho Seung-Hiu sent them a package of photographs, writings, and video - a "multimedia manifesto." The network turned over the materials to the authorities but also shared the package's contents during the evening news last night and on its website. Quickly, the images of Cho holding guns in both hands, pointing a gun at his head, pointing a gun at the camera, and more, started......

With March Madness behind us and baseball upon us (Mets' home opener in progress!), a smoothing transition between basketball and baseball is necessary: like beer bracketology. The Washington Post conducted a tournament of head-to-head, single elimination, blind taste tastings over four weeks, in order to distinguish one beer above all other contestants as an MVB. We are pleased to report via the New York Sun that the Brooklyn Brewery's Brooklyn Lager was crowned the champion......

It's been a tough week for Bernie Kerik. The former NYPD commissioner who had his bid to head up Homeland Security unceremoniously thwarted in 2004 amid allegations of shady dealings is now facing serious federal charges. The Washington Post reports today that federal prosecutors have informed Kerik that he is likely to be charged with multiple felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping. This comes two weeks after Kerik refused a plea deal......

NYU College Republicans say they are happy with the reaction from their planned "Illegal Immigrant Hunt" at Washington Square Park. They wanted to start a controversy and discussion - and that they did, with hundreds of protesters and more members of the media than actual College Republicans playing the game (by one count, twelve showed up, one signed up). College Republicans president Sarah Chambers told the Washington Square News, "Sometimes, you have to be......

After two days of deliberations, a federal jury sentenced Ronell Wilson to death for the 2003 killings of undercover detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews. When the verdict was read, Wilson rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at Nemorin's widow Rose. This is the first death penalty sentence for a federal case in NY State in over 50 years. While family and friends of the deceased cheered, Wilson's younger brother shouted after......

NY1 has a good look at the differing rules for cell phone use at two very different public schools in the Bronx. One is DeWitt Clinton High School, where classes are frequently overcrowded and there are metal detectors at the entrance. The other is Bronx High School of Science, the magnet school whose has seven Nobel Prize-winning (in physics) graduates. Current Department of Education rules say that students are not allowed to bring cell phones......

One Koran in the toilet is bad. A second Koran in the toilet, you got problems. Or a rash of copy cats Koran dunkings. At Pace University's downtown location, a Koran was found in a toilet at the library's bathrooom - the second Koran-in-the-toilet incident in recent weeks and the fourth hate incident spanning the NYC and Westchester campuses. Pace is investigating the incident, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations' NY chapter issued a statement......

Well-known radical lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced today to 28 months in prison. In February 2005, she found guilty of terror charges - she had smuggled messages from terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman to his followers in defiance of prison rules. Stewart had been pleading for leniency, as she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, and before the sentencing, Stewart's lawyer Elizabeth Fink said, "If you send her to prison, she's going to......

As we sat down to write this week's Best of the -ists post, a car blaring "21 Questions'" passed by our house. And that started us thinking about how some of the best -ist posts out there have at their hearts questions, some of which are answered, and some of which are left open. Check out the Best of the -ists from this week, and see if you agree. Londonist answers the questions "How......

The latest in the meandering renovation of Washington Square Park: The NY Times reports that State Supreme Justice Emily Jane Goodman has "halted" redesign, "saying the Bloomberg administration violated the City Charter by failing to notify the public about all of the proposed changes." And what's more, if the Parks Department will need to go through the approval process, starting with Community Board 2, all over again! Which means it's time for everyone to get......

- This week's New York has a story, not yet online, on the shocking and tragic execution-style murder of Tiesha Sargeant in which her drug dealing boyfriend admits to having sold $6,000 worth of weed the day of the murder. - What happens when the Department of Buildings decides the Bed-Stuy building you just bought a condo in is illegally built? "No bank will give a loan on this, you can't refinance or take......

Brooklyn's own Senator Charles Schumer is supporting the effort to eliminate foreign ethanol tariffs to alleviate rising gas prices. While gas prices would only be lowered by 8 cents if it went through, he said, "But with prices as high as they are, every nickel helps." That's true, but if you can't even find a gas station, then you're using up gas to find one. The Washington Post problem of 830,000 cars and only 54......

Phillyist notes a fistfight between local pols that leaves one man down for the count. Jehovah's Witnesses get a Philly contributor out of bed, things get a little geeky with a film festival and geeky gets taken to a whole new galaxy when they talk with the Dragon Queen of the Dark Kingdom. Shanghaist gets all excited this week over a new nightclub in the city unfortunately named "Snatch" and Mike Tyson is scheduled to......

The Washington Square News has an interesting article about minority students' demands for a minority lounge. The lounge would be located in Furman Hall, the new building on Sullivan Street. Obviously, the idea of a racially-segregated lounge raises some interesting questions about discrimination and equal opportunity: The all-ALSA space is not a ‘segregated’ area — all are welcome, but it should be understood that this is a place where students of color can go......

“NYU is the largest private university in the United States and they are growing,� Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, told Community Board 2 Thursday night. “They are growing at a much faster pace than our neighborhood is. NYU has always been here. It should always be here. I don't think the Village would be the Village if NYU wasn't here. But I don't think the Village can......

At around 4:40PM yesterday afternoon, a music professor at NYU was stabbed in the chest and back by a random man on West 3rd Street, between Mercer and LaGuardia. The Washington Square News says that Joseph Church, who teaches at the Steinhardt School of Education, was attacked by 30 (or 32) year old Mark Davilla, who then used a screwdriver to stab Church. A witness says that after Church was stabbed, he chased Davila through......

NYU moved its career development center to the dorm in the space formerly known at the Palladium - the Palladium residence hall. The Washington Square News says there will be "a computer lab with 30 computers and laser printers, student and employer lounges, presentation rooms, recruiting rooms, wireless availability and a café with barstools and vending machines," plus "free faxing and copying, video conferencing for students studying abroad, and DVD-R technology for mock interviews." Hmm,......

Damn, it's cold out there! Gothamist recently had a friend check weather.com before deciding whether to venture out of her home. News flash, folks: It's January! It's cold, finally! Put a coat on and let's rock: First up on the week's list of maybe-sees: Hard-Fi (at left) at Bowery Ballroom. What we've heard sounds interesting in a Clash-loving way, if not NME-freakout-worthy. Competent pop band Nightmare of You supports. Residencies still abound, with Richard Buckner......

Marcia Baczynski and REiD MiHalko, Cuddle Party Founders...