The anti-war organization MoveOn.org stated that it will pay The New York Times an additional $77,083 for an ad that ran earlier this month alleging that General Petraeus was betraying the country by mischaracterizing the state of progress of the war in Iraq. The additional payment comes after some raised objections to what was portrayed as preferential pricing offered to MoveOn and accompanying accusations of political bias against the Times. The ad, its pricing, and......

In the wake of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's resignation last month, President Bush will nominate former U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mukasey for the position. Mukasey, who was born in the Bronx and educated at Columbia and Yale Law School, was "appointed to the federal bench" by Ronald Reagan and has presided over terrorism trials, such as the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. He is also a friend of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (he......

Last night, President Bush addressed the country, and the world, with a speech that said American troops in Iraq could be start to be withdrawn gradually: "The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is 'return on success' -- the more successful we are, the more American troops can return home." In other words, there is no, as the NY Sun puts it, "no dramatic change in course." Bush also asked the......

Senator Larry Craig, whose guilty plea to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor at a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport bathroom effectively tanked his political career, resigned this morning. Craig had been arrested after soliciting an undercover police officer for sex (read a transcript of his arrest interview here and listen to the interview here) earlier this summer. Today he said:"What is best for Idaho has always been the focus of my efforts and it is no different today.......

We suppose that if you're a UN inspector who just investigated an Iraqi chemical weapons facility, you might be too tired to store poisonous chemicals properly and might just throw them into storage. Last week, archivists at the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission discovered phosgene, a hazardous material that was "used during World War I as a choking agent" in files dating back to the 1990s, prompting the FBI and NYPD to head......

Today is the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's appearance in New Orleans. The storm eventually killed more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and raised many questions about infrastructure of levees and the federal response. President Bush spoke in New Orleans today (text here) where the Times-Picayune printed an editorial asking the President to treat New Orleans fairly: "Nobody wants to have to compete for disaster relief. But that is what Louisianians have......

This is some way to start off the week before Labor Day weekend: U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned. The NY Times reports, per a White House source, that Gonzales called President Bush (who was at his ranch in Crawford) on Friday to submit his resignation: "His decision was not immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch." Bush apparently accepted the resignation......

Grace Paley, New York's official state author from 1986-88, died at the age of 84 yesterday. She had been battling breast cancer for quite some time. The author, born in the Bronx on December 11th, 1922, still kept an apartment in Manhattan -- but was at her home in Vermont at the time of death. The NY Times recaps her life in literature:Ms. Paley’s output was modest, about four-dozen stories in three volumes: “The Little......

Yesterday Merv Griffin lost his battle to prostate cancer at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles at the age of 82. He received his first treatment for this in 1996 and in late July of this year it was publicized that the cancer had come back. In a statement on Merv.com his son Tony said: "My father was a visionary. He loved business and continued his many projects and holdings even while hospitalized. We take......

Karl Rove, the political mastermind who maneuvered George W. Bush to the White house twice, will be stepping down from his role as President Bush's political adviser at the end of the month. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Rove explained, "I just think it's time. There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of......

Last night Beverly Sills lost her battle with lung cancer, she died at her home in Manhattan at the age of 78. While she was a lifelong non-smoker and only found out about the cancer a few weeks ago, this wasn't her first experience with it - she underwent a successful surgery for cancer in 1974. Sills, born Belle Miriam Silverman (and called "Bubbles" in her youth), was a Brooklyn-born soprano, and one of the......

Joel Siegel, perhaps best known as Good Morning America's film critic (a program he was on weekly since 1981), died yesterday in New York at the age of 63. Siegel had been battling colon cancer, though many didn't even know he was sick as he stayed positive until the end and kept working until just two weeks ago. In addition to his weekly appearances on GMA he was also seen frequently on ABC News, and......

A judge dropped charges of criminally negligent homicide against Granville Adams when prosecutors said they could not prove their case. Adams was accused of killing Orlando Valle, a married man with a 13-year-old son, at the Chelsea nightclub BED. Adams pushed the man against elevator doors that then opened, and Valle fell down the shaft to his death. Adams was dating the coatcheck girl at BED, who became involved in an argument with a birthday......

Her name known worldwide, Liz Claiborne has died at the age of 78. The designer had a rare form of cancer affecting the abdominal lining, complications of which put her in the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she died Tuesday. Born in Brussels, she ended up in New York as her family was driving through Manhattan (after Claiborne had already gotten a taste for design by winning a contest) when she told them she was staying.......

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......

Rosie O'Donnell made an appearance at BEA this past weekend, though her involvement with the expo was toned down significantly after The View fued. Variety reports: Rosie O'Donnell was rushed in and out of a scheduled appearance at book confab BookExpo America this weekend even as fellow celebs like Stephen Colbert brought a touch of Hollywood glitz to the annual lit gathering. Insiders said that O'Donnell decided at the last-minute to overhaul plans for her......

Al Sharpton continues his effort to clean up rap lyrics. After Russell Simmons held some meetings on the topic, Sharpton took it to the streets by marching in midtown, and now he's brought his campaign to Motown. Cleaning up rap lyrics is as easy as following the old adage of washing ones mouth out with soap. At least that's a theme Sharpton is using, as he plans to collect thousands of bars of soap as......

The man with a highly drug-resistant strain of TB, who decamped to Italy aboard a commercial airline for his honeymoon against the CDC's advisement, and then eluded authorities when told that he would be quarantined abroad and banned from returning to the U.S., before smuggling himself back to the states via Canada, is sorry for putting everyone out. Andrew Speaker, who was initially not named by the press because of the stigma associated with being......

After both Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed on an immigration bill that will make millions of illegal immigrants legal, there's been a mixed response. Mayor Bloomberg called the guest worker program, which would allow new immigrants to live and work in the U.S. for 2 years, a "feel good kind of law" because "nobody in their right mind is going to leave." Another part of the Senate proposal is that illegal immigrants already in......

A museum in Texas is looking for cockroaches...and they're offering money. They need about 1,000 "American cockroaches" in order to fill an exhibit "about the wonders of insects that eat decomposing things." Many similar private exhibits are undoubtedly taking place at this very moment in apartments across Manhattan. Reuters reports: They will be part of an exhibit polishing the image of bugs that feed off decaying organic matter and in so doing add to the......

Thousands participated in yesterday's immigration rally in downtown Manhattan. The AP reports that immigrants and their supporters were "calling for immigration policy reform and an end to practices like federal raids and deportations." The Bush proposed policy involves immigrants paying $10,000 fines and going back to their native country to apply for citizenship. The rally started in Washington Square Park and then moved to Union Square, with protesters attaching leaves to a paper tree......

Courtney Love (who recently sold some of her own stuff on Ebay) has announced she'll be putting almost all of Kurt Cobain's belongings up for auction at Christie's. Love told AOL's Spinner, "I'm going to have a Christie's auction, (My house) is like a mausoleum. My daughter doesn't need to inherit a giant ... bag full of flannel ... shirts. A sweater, a guitar and the lyrics to '(Smells Like) Teen Spirit' -- that's what......

Cam'ron snitched about the "no snitching" rule on 60 Minutes Sunday, and is now apologizing for his comments on the show. To explain the rule, he told Anderson Cooper that "If I knew the serial killer was living next door to me? I wouldn't call and tell anybody on him -- but I'd probably move. But I'm not going to call and be like, 'The serial killer's in 4E.'" A bit disconcerting. TMZ is reporting......

President Bush visited New York City yesterday to encourage Congress to reauthorize his No Child Left Behind program. Bush gave a speech at the Harlem Village Academy school and praised its founder, faculty and students and emphasized the importance of the NCLB Act. Bush made it a point to visit all eight classrooms and shake every student's hand, prompting one student to tell the Sun, "I think it was the best day of my......

After previews of the segment last week, The Rap Up shares video of Anderson Cooper's chat with Cam'ron on 60 Minutes to discuss the "no snitching" rule prevalent in the rap community. Tupac, Notorious B.I.G. and Jam Master Jay are all examples of murders that have gone unsolved. More recently, Busta Rhymes bodyguard, Israel Ramirez, was shot and killed at a video shoot; out of the 25 people believed to be present during the crime......

Last week after his appearance on Oprah, Russell Simmons and other music industry execs met to discuss the state of rap lyrics. Following this secret meeting, a rep for Simmons made the following statement (in lieu of the press conference that was going to take place) saying this is a: "complex issue that involves gender, race, culture and artistic expression. Everyone assembled today takes this issue very seriously." Yesterday, Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis (on......

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......

The man who shot 32 people at Virginia Tech yesterday morning was identified by authorities as Cho Seung Hui. He is described as a 23-year-old student, a senior majoring in English, who lived in one of the dorms. He is also a legal resident from South Korea. Additionally, ballistics from one of the guns retrieved at Norris Hall, where the second shooting of 30 students took place, matched ballistics evidence from the first shooting......

This morning, 33 were killed and at least 29 more were injured during shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech. The NY Times reports that it "appears to be the deadliest shooting rampage in American history." According to CNN, two people were killed at a dorm around 7:15AM while 30 people were killed two hours later at the engineering and mechanics building, Norris Hall. Right now, it seems that there was one shooter, who killed......

This just in: Imus just got canned by CBS. He's live on the air now doing a fundraiser-- so you wonder how he's taking the news. Word is that Mike and the Mad Dog will be filling the spot starting tomorrow. "From the outset, I believe all of us have been deeply upset and revulsed by the statements that were made on our air about the young women who represented Rutgers University in the......