Two lawsuits currently wending their way through New York courts are forcing judges to grapple with the legal ramifications of “gay divorce.” In one case, State Supreme Court Justice Laura Drager is allowing a Manhattan woman to sue for divorce and custody of children borne by a woman she married in Canada in 2004. The ruling echoes a recent appellate court decision in Rochester that found "out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized......

A week and a half ago, former NJ Governor James McGreevey and his ex-wife Dina Matos McGreevey were fighting over a birthday party McGreevey and his partner were planning for 6-year-old daughter Jacqueline, another public spat in their contentious divorce. In spite of a judge's repeated requests for the McGreeveys to settle their differences for the sake of their daughter, we know a lot about their squabbling. The Post runs down the greatest hits. Matos......

Fire Marshal Douglas Mercereau was laid to rest at St. Charles R.C. Church on Staten Island yesterday. Mercereau was found murdered in his home, shot three times in the head, and his wife appears to be a suspect. Though the police have not officially named any suspects, Janet Redmond-Mercereau allegedly had a rocky relationship with her husband, to the point where the two started divorce proceedings in 2006. At the funeral, mourners "cast suspicious glances"......

Even thought Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign tries to insist that the story is old news and a hit job, the Rudy-NYPD security detail Travelgate situation keeps getting messier. Why? Because even if one agrees that a security detail for Giuliani while he was visiting his then-mistress (and now current wife) Judi Nathan in the Hamptons is a legitimate use of taxpayer money (even if it was randomly billed to various city agencies - which the......

Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey and his ex-wife Dina Matos McGreevey are making sure they're not letting the best interests of their six-year-old daughter get in the way of their bitter divorce. The publicly feuding pair were back in court yesterday, where they were excoriated by a judge. The McGreeveys split when the governor resigned amidst a sex harassment scandal in which he famously announced that he was "a gay-American.""The hatred you have for......

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced this morning that they had arrested a suspect in the murder of orthodontist Daniel Malakov. Kelly said that the suspect, Mikhail Mallayev, was a relative (by marriage) of Malakov's ex-wife. Malakov was shot in the chest after just after dropping his 4-year-old daughter Michelle to his ex-wife at a Queens playground on Sunday morning. He and his wife, Dr. Mazeltuv Borukhova, had been embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody......

Former Westchester County District Attorney - and one-time Attorney General candidate and potential Senate candidate - Jeanine Pirro and her husband Al Pirro have announced they are separating. Their statement to the press: "We have agreed to amicably separate. As always, our priority remains our two wonderful children. We ask that people respect our privacy. There will be no further comment." The couple has been married 32 years and have weathered through many years of......

There have been a few ads in the NY Times weddings section that spoof the real wedding announcements. For instance, we believe we recall a few for divorce services, but less ironically, there have been ads for marriage-related movies, like The Starter Wife. And this week, there's an ad for an upcoming wedding on the ABC comedy Ugly Betty. Of course, the ad is a lot wordier than the usual NY Times wedding announcement,......

Police suspect that the daytime murder of a Queens orthodontist may be related to the custody of his daughter. A long and bitter divorce battle had granted temporary custody of five-year-old Michelle to 34-year-old orthodontist Daniel Malakov. The doctor was dropping his daughter off to his ex-wife when someone shot him three times point blank in the chest. When Malakov arrived with his daughter at the Annadale Playground in Rego Park, his daughter ran to......

An orthodontist was killed while taking his 5-year-old daughter to the Annadale playground at Flushing Meadows Park. Around 11AM, Daniel Malakov was shot in the chest twice by someone who witnesses say was wearing a black fleece. Malakov had been taking his daughter to meet his ex-wife, and his family believes their divorce may be related to his killing. Malakov had won custody of little Michelleka last week "after a brutal court battle," according to......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a double shooting/possible homicide on Greene St. in Brooklyn, a shooting at Wyckoff Ave. and Starr St. in Brooklyn, and another shooting at East 51st St. and Church Ave. in Brooklyn. An appreciation of Jewish Delis in New York City. To avoid the widespread use of pesticides on its acres of grounds, real estate firm Tishman Speyer released 720,000 ladybugs around Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper Village. The ladybugs will......

The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a modern design for a townhouse to be built at 34 East 62nd Street. The lot, just east of Madison Avenue, has been empty ever since Dr. Nicholas Bartha blew up his home, which seemed like an effort to keep his ex-wife from taking the home as part of their acrimonious divorce settlement. The new design (rendering on right), by Preston T. Phillips, is a departure from the original......

Lauren Weedman's memoir, A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body, isn't the standard memoir. It's not about getting addicted to drugs and going to rehab or about living on the streets and selling her body. It's about what happens when you start doing stand up for ten minutes every night at the dinner table when you're eight because you don't want your adopted parents to send you back to the adoption agency because you didn't......

Rudy Rudy Rudy. Giuliani is getting it from all angles. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com's John Fund wrote an article, "Rude Giuliani." Fund referenced Giuliani's cellphone call with wife Judith during a very important speech in front of the NRA as just one example of all the times Giuliani is stopping for his wife's calls. He once left a room full of donors, who each paid $2,300 to hear him speak,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian was fatally struck on East 4th and Bowery in Manhattan, a child was shot on Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting/homicide on Fish Ave and East Gunhill Rd. in the Bronx. The oldest living inmate in New York State is a Long Island surgeon convicted in 1978 of killing his wife. He'll turn 89 this week and concedes that divorce might have been a better choice.......

Into the Wild (directed by Sean Penn) Chris McCandless wanted to utterly divorce himself from civilization. He gave away all of his money, abandoned his car, changed his name and cut off all ties with his family. Adventure journalist Jon Krakauer wrote a very moving account of the young man's experiences tramping around the United States for two years and then spending four months living in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilds before dying......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a double shooting on Webster Ave. in the Bronx, fatal person under a 4 train at 125th St. and Lexington Ave. in Manhattan, and a pedestrian struck at East 17th St. and Ave. I in Brooklyn. Conspiracy theorist/media activist Alex Jones was arrested Saturday night while addressing a crowd with a bullhorn in front of the Fox News studio in Manhattan. Jones is the head of a group who......

Since the spring, the Post’s Page Six gossip column has for some reason been following the strange saga of the love life of Long Island native and Philadelphia television anchor Alycia Lane, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Liz Cho. It has, of course but it has provided some strange entertainment since May when the tabloid revealed that she had sent e-mails containing private photos of herself to NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA/Fall Victim at 1 Hogan Place in Manhattan (that's the Manhattan DA's office), a double stabbing on East 171st St. in the Bronx, and an overturned ambulance at Broadway and Delafield Ave. on Staten Island. Opening day sales for tickets to The Metropolitan Opera set a record this Sunday after increasing 25% year over year, to $2.08 million. Online sales to performances were 50% higher than 2006's opening.......

In June of 1972 (just months after his divorce) Elvis Presley performed a 3-day run at Madison Square Garden. These shows were the first full concerts he put on in NYC, and the first since he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. Excitement was in the air, and Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Art Garfunkel, all of Led Zepplin and half of The Beatles (John Lennon and George Harrison) were in the audience. Another......

We all knew the real estate bubble was causing insanity, but we should have known it's encouraged people to divorce. There's a NY Times Styles section article about some who wait until the market's at its peak to divorce - that way, they can benefit from an even bigger profit when selling their homes. There are quotes from Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, who showed that couples with a drastic rise in net worth were......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Brooklyn, an electric shock at 25th Ave. and 49th St. in Queens, and a shooting on 101st St. and Columbus Ave. in Manhattan. Chazz Palminteri's stage and screen bildungsroman A Bronx Tale will appear again onstage this fall. The off-Broadway play was adapted to a 1993 movie featuring Palminteri, Robert De Niro, and screen newcomer Lillo Brancato. The latter is now facing......

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani may have participated in a Republican debate last night, but all anyone wants to talk about is how his possibly estranged daughter and incoming Harvard freshman Caroline joined a Barack Obama group on Facebook, as reported by Slate. Slate explained that "she withdrew from the Obama group at 6 a.m. Monday, after Slate sent her an inquiry about it." The article's author, Lucy Morrow Caldwell, was able to see Caroline......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a hostage situation on East 124th St. in Manhattan, a carjacking on Undercliff Ave. in the Bronx, and a home invasion robbery on East 18th St. in Brooklyn. For a few thousand dollars a month, one can join the LL Yacht Club at Chelsea Piers and East Hampton and enjoy access to their selection of luxury yachts to head to and from the Hamptons. Ball State University in Indiana......

Only 2 weeks after his 89th birthday, Swedish film and theater director Ingmar Bergman passed away at his home on Fårö Island this morning, the Associated Press reports. "Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, confirmed the death, and Swedish journalist Marie Nyreröd said the director died peacefully during his sleep. Bergman never fully recovered after a hip surgery in October last year, Nyreröd told Swedish broadcaster SVT." As the New York Times......

It’s already two decades since the unlikely hit song Luka put Suzanne Vega on the map; six albums later she’s still swinging with her New York-themed Beauty and Crime. Along the way she’s had a divorce and a daughter (Ruby, now 13), married the man who proposed to her back in her pre-Luka days, and been dubbed "The Mother of the Mp3" when her song Tom’s Diner was used as the model for the algorithm......

What’s worth watching on food-related TV this week? Here’s the breakdown: Fox has Episode 6 of Hell's Kitchen on Monday at 9pm. Read the latest Entertainment Weekly episode wrapup here as well as a (slightly depressing) update on the previous two winners in the Post here. The Surreal Gourmet, Bob Blumer, returns to TV with a new show on the Food Network. Called Glutton for Punishment, it premieres this Tuesday at 9:30pm. Blumer participates in......

In the NY Times' Styles section, there's an article about how there may actually be a three-year itch when it comes to relationships. Divorce lawyer Raoul Felder chalks it up to various technological changes in society: "We’re all addicted to a television-clicker lifestyle." Dr. Ruth, though, cautions against believing in a three-year itch, "How dangerous it is to say something like that. From now on, everyone who’s getting married will say it will last......

Researchers at Purdue University released a simulation of a plane crashing into World Trade Center, which shows that fireproofing material was stripped from the building as the planes crashed into them. Professor Christoph Hoffman told the AP, "One thing it does point out... is the absolute essential nature of fireproofing steel structures. This is something that wasn't done originally in the World Trade Center when it was built. It wasn't code at that time."......

While there are many trials in NYC that quickly become media circuses, we're breathless about an insane lawsuit that has gone to trial in Washington DC because it involves a service very familiar to New Yorkers. An administrative law judge Roy Pearson is suing his dry cleaners for millions of dollars after they lost his pants (he says; they say they have his pants, but he just doesn't want to claim them). Pearson originally tried......