Seattle's police department is capitalizing on the NYPD's current budget and recruiting woes by giving potential recruits less of a reason to sign up to join the force in New York. Seattle is paying for a huge billboard along the West Side Highway advertising for recruits. The billboard and bus stop ads link to a site that details much higher rookie pay and faster wage increases. Per the Daily News,Seattle pays its police recruits......

Nothing says romance like a public proposal in The Daily News. Marina Maiuri stood atop the Empire State Building (which is so "Sleepless in Seattle") to have her photo snapped by the paper on the observation deck; but she wasn't looking for love, she was looking to propose. The photo and article ran this morning, titled "Hey, Sean: Will you marry me?" Sean is her boyfriend of 18 months, and Marina "wouldn't trade him for......

Back in 2004 we talked to KEXP deejay John Richards, who was here broadcasting from the (then named) Museum of Television and Radio. KEXP is a Seattle listener-supported station, but while they're based in the Pacific Northwest, they are heard worldwide via their online stream. This month came the announcement of Radio Liberation, a collaboration between KEXP and Radio New York. Launching on March 24th the station "will air KEXP-produced programming Monday through Friday on......

Image: Bernie Hou. Sorry Reverend Billy, it’s only for three hours. For those of you who haven’t heard, all 7,100 “standalone” Starbucks in the United States will close for 180 tense, irritable minutes, starting at 5:30pm on February 26th. (That’s a Tuesday.) Now don’t let panic take over – this has nothing to do with Starbucks' "sinister Phase Two" of operations; it’s planned to facilitate the retraining of their 135,000-strong army. Come 8:30pm, this newly......

Forget about Missed Connections on the Craigslist, the only way to find love this Valentine's Day is by hailing Ahmed Ibrahim's cab. The Daily News reports on the cabbie with cupid tendencies, saying he's spent years playing matchmaker to his patrons. His record is pretty impressive, he's organized 70 "real dates," 19 of which turned into relationships that lasted over a year. The numbers could be higher but Ibrahim is selective on who he sets......

“Anonymous”, the loose-knit anti-Scientology collective, staged a demonstration yesterday outside New York’s Church of Scientology Headquarters near Times Square; it was part of an international day of protest against the church. Anonymous has been expanding rapidly since their Message to Scientology video was posted on YouTube in January; it's been watched over 2 million times in the past three weeks. Among other things, the video accuses Scientology of censorship for threatening to sue websites who......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

Yesterday we told you all about Randy Quaid being banned for life from Actors’ Equity and fined $81,572 for abusive and lewd behavior during the Seattle production of would-be Broadway musical Lone Star Love. Since then we’ve tried to get a comment on the allegations from Quaid’s wife Evi, who attended the Equity hearing on his behalf and ended up getting into a physical altercation – she says they broke her finger while trying to......

Photograph of Randy Quaid with Long Star Love co-stars by May Parton If the would-be Broadway-bound musical Lone Star Love is half as entertaining as the backstage drama, then sign us up: Randy Quaid, the show’s former star, has been banned from the Actors' Equity union for life because of abusive, lewd and just plain crazy behavior during the show’s Seattle run. Quaid has also been fined $81,572, which equals two weeks pay for......

Seattle 86 Knicks 85: Make it a clean sweep, for their opponents that is. The Knicks lost all five games on their west coast swing blowing four second half leads along the way. Nate Robinson had a chance for a game-winning shot with time running out, but he missed and the Knicks will take a long flight home and have only a little time to prepare for Monday’s game with the Clippers. Atlanta 104 Nets......

Devils 2, Sabres 1 (SO): Aggressive play cost the Devils the win in regulation, but Martin Brodeur, Brian Gionta and Patrik Elias too center stage in the shootout to allow the Devils to continue their home dominance. They have picked up 21 of 22 points at their new Prudential Center in the last 11 games. Things didn't look so rosy when Jason Pominville tied the game with 1:47 to go, but the Devils bounced......

Well, that was a short winter. No snow, but enough numbing cold to make us mumble a series of words that the prudish Times would never dare print. The high pressure system that brought us the abbreviated winter has moved eastward. The bonechilling northerly breezes have been replaced with milder westerly winds. The forecast for today was for a sunny 37 degrees. The sun has disappeared but the temperature forecast is on target. Mostly sunny......

Torontoist discovered their city's most ridiculous holiday lights setup, with 80,000 lights and two––two!––synchronized music routines. Naturally, they snagged a video. Chicago tragically loses one of its most recognizable neighborhood icons, the pigeon man of Lincoln Square. LAPD leaves body in car at crash scene, then tows it. Massachusetts plus mullet equals PR mayhem. Londonist sleeps in a Haunted plague pit. UC Berkeley students strip naked and race through campus, NSFW floppiness ensues. Phillyist......

Alex Rodriguez went on 60 Minutes last night and firmly denied that he used steroids. When asked if he had ever used steroids, HGH or any other performance-enhancing drug A-Rod firmly stated “no” and then explained, "I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been a very strong, dominant position. And I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I......

Sonics 117, Knicks 110: Knicks fans deserve a lot of credit. No one's pointing out how hard it is to chant "Fire Isiah." That phrase has a ton of vowel sounds. They held off for part of this game, but at the end, the result was the same. Zach Randolph is the only self-respecting Knick, though Jamal Crawford has been putting up better numbers with Stephon Marbury still out. The sum of the parts is......

Mavericks 99, Knicks 89: Are James Dolan and Isiah Thomas watching the same team the fans are? More boos were heard in Madison Square Garden during the latest Knicks debacle. But James Dolan and Isiah Thomas don't seem to hear them -- or feel the "Fire Isiah" chants are justified. What more evidence do they need? A loss to the Mavericks, the team that finished with the best record in the NBA last season, wouldn't......

There are plenty of Starbucks in Manhattan (over 170), but if you head over to Brooklyn -- you'll see the streets are mostly void of discarded Venti cups and hardly anyone has heard Josh Groban's new Christmas album. But things are about to change, chain-haters beware.A recent Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable meeting revealed that retail giants such as Starbucks, Duane Reade pharmacies and Chase Bank are planning to double and in some cases triple their......

New York seems to have a love/hate relationship with the branded beanery Starbucks (their seasonal Peppermint Mochas sure are tasty, but their sterile generic storefronts keep the siren's call muted). While the local mom and pop collects our $3/day coffee allowance, there are plenty lining up at the corner 'Bucks for their daily buzz. Alas, there is now a book to appease the haters and the adoring herds of the establishment. Taylor Clark has gone......

Sometime before 8 this morning, Patrick Moberg and Camille Hayton introduced themselves to Good Morning America viewers, Diane Sawyer and hopeless romantics everywhere. The Subway Cyrano met up with his mystery lady last night for dinner, where they said they "clicked." Hayton suggests the subway moment was serendipitous because she wouldn't have been on it (going to a friend's place) if her house hadn't just burned down. Moberg is compared to a Hollywood leading man,......

For an avowed non-presidential candidate, Mayor Bloomberg certainly gets more attention than some of the actual candidates. Newsweek devotes its cover story to "Mike" Bloomberg, "The Billion Dollar Wild Card," a reference to the billion dollars Mayor B has at his disposal, should be decide to run for president next year. That is so much more flattering than the "Lazy Like a Fox" cover Newsweek had of Fred Thompson! Newsweek editor-in-chief Jon Meacham got to......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Seattle yesterday to give a keynote at the United States Conference of Mayors. The Mayor, aka Mr. "I'm not running for president in 2008" Bloomberg, discussed NYC's efforts to be more sustainable and how governments need to invest and innovate to encourage energy efficiency. And one of the innovations would be to introduce pollution pricing. He said: we have to stop ignoring the laws of economics. As long as......

It was supposed to be an afternoon on the football field during a match-up between the Wadleigh Harlem Hellfighters and McKee/Staten Island Tech Seagulls. Unfortunately, it turned into a terrible day, as the Harlem team found the message "Y'all n-----s suck MSIT" written in black marker on their sideline bench. The NYPD and Department of Education are investigating the incident. The Hellfighters' coach, former Seattle Seahawk Duke Ferguson, says that he felt "hostile environment" since......

iTunes/Starbucks Partnership Launches Sony Bravia Ad rip off Artists work MLB & Joost Partnership Zune 2.0 And finally iTunes/Starbucks Partnership Launches On Tuesday the announced Apple & Starbucks partnership, to offer wireless iTunes in store experiences, launched in 600 locations in Seattle and New York City. Laptop (both Mac and PC), iPhone and iTouch users will be able to purchase music from the iTunes music store wirelessly at participating locations. What is really interesting......

READING: Our interviewee from yesterday, Adrian Tomine, will be reading tonight at Book Court. The graphic novelist not only has his work in some of the more prestigious rags, he's also got a full length graphic novel, titled Shortcomings. 7pm // Book Court [163 Court St, Cobble Hill] // Free At a very different reading in Manhattan, Chris Matthews will be promoting his new political memoir Life's a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About......

A report being released tomorrow by the Industrial Assistance Corporation (IAC) titled "Buried Treasure: New York's Hidden Tech Sector" asserts that New York City rivals cities like Seattle and areas like Silicon Valley as the largest technology center in the country. The study counted the number of tech workers in the city, at branches of corporations like IBM, Microsoft, Google, and the research and development departments of medical centers in the city. The IAC report......

Yankees 11, Royals 5: Good thing the Yankees didn't make that Alex Rodriguez for Ervin Santana move this offseason. Rodriguez hit two homers -- Nos. 50 and 51 -- as the Yankees cruised past the Royals. Detroit beat Seattle again, so the wild-card lead stands at three games. Johnny Damon, who looked like a corpse for most of the season, has played better of late. He socked his 10th homer as the Yankees gave plenty......

There's one member of the Mets that is up for the Hall of Fame today. The Mascot Hall of Fame, that is. The round-headed ball of a mascot is trailing by about 5,500 votes in the race for popularity on the Mascot Hall of Fame website. He trails The Coyote, the mascot of the San Antonio Spurs. The Post pulls out all the stops to make sure Mr. Met is the top vote getter.......

Yankees 10 Seattle 2: A-Rod didn’t want to go for a MRI and while the results were negative, he had to talk Joe Torre into putting him into the lineup. Good thing he did, because A-Rod hit two home runs in the seventh as the Yankees exploded for eight runs in inning. A-Rod’s home runs and the Yankee explosion will overshadow a great start by Phil Hughes, but they shouldn’t. Hughes was brilliant over six......

Yankees 12, Mariners 3: Chien-Ming Wang doesn't deserve the American League Cy Young award, but he should get some lower votes. In a game the Yankees needed to win to keep their wild-card lead, Wang pitched 7 1/3 innings and kept the Mariners under wraps. That came as a welcome development after the Yankees learned that Roger Clemens will need a cortisone shot in his pitching elbow. Why was he out there Monday anyway? Horacio......

Mets 10 Reds 4: It was September 27th, 2006, when we last saw him. Something was obviously wrong and as he left the mound that night Mets’ fans everywhere felt their playoff dreams go down the drain. It took almost 49 weeks, but the Mets got their ace back Monday. Pedro returned to the mound and while the radar gun readings weren’t pretty, he got the job done. Five innings, two runs and four......