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......

We hope the following doesn't put anyone off their appetite before they've even had a chance to tuck into their Thanksgiving feast, but we have to describe what champion eater Tim Janus managed to consume in a publicity feast for charity. In the course of 15 minutes, Janus gobbled down the following:A 10-pound turkey Four pounds of mashed potatoes Three pounds of cranberry sauce Two and a half pounds of green beans This was accomplished......

The Bronx kid who thwarted burglars threatening his family last week got to meet his own personal hero yesterday. When armed men burst into Edwin Alamo's home last week screaming for everyone to "Get the f– down!", the quick-thinking 12-year-old grabbed a cell phone, climbed out a second-story window, scrambled across a rooftop, and then hid in an abandoned building where he called the police. The burglars had a shootout with the cops shortly thereafter......

The funeral of Fermin Arzu was not as much a memorial as an event to condemn his death at the hands of an off-duty police officer - we think. As a husband, father, and uncle was being remembered, community activists and the media were conducting a referendum on racial relations and police conduct. Comparisons were drawn between Arzu's shooting and that of Sean Bell, who was killed in a hail of police gunfire in November......

The Seattle Mariners are in town for a four-game stand against the hometeam Yankees, but Seattle's relief pitcher Julio Cesar Mateo may be asked to stick around or eventually be invited for a longer stay. Something transpired following the Mariners' win over the Yankees Friday night that resulted in Mateo's wife at St. Vincent's hospital, where she arrived bleeding and received stiches in her mouth.Police wanted Mateo to surrender himself to Manhattan's midtown north precinct......

The skies cleared Sunday in time for instructors at the Upper West Side's Claremont Riding Academy to take horses out for a final ride through Central Park's bridle trails. It marked the end of an upsetting week for many riders and horse lovers, after Claremont's owner quickly announced his decision to close the oldest continuously operated stable in the United States. The New York Sun describes a sentimental and somewhat melancholy scene:Scores of New Yorkers......

Yesterday's fire at the Indian Point nuclear power plant occurred in a transformer yard and away from the plant's nuclear area, but klaxons sounding at a nuclear facility have a way of putting people on edge. Transformers are the component of our electric power infrastructure that makes electricity suitable for transmission over the grid. When a fire broke out amidst the transformers used by Indian Point 3, the plant automatically shut down as by design.......

Looks like Spike Lee called dibs on directing the James Brown biopic. The biography was authorized by Brown before his passing and Lee will rewrite the draft (that's already gone through several rewrites) by Jezz and John Henry Butterworth. The film may be in production as early as fall/winter 2007. Meanwhile, fans have been lined up at the Apollo to pay tribute to Brown since early this morning. Al Sharpton drove from Georgia with Brown's......

And with a whimper, not a bang, the schadenfreude saga over the care of Brooke Astor has come to an end. In an attempt to get the story out of the public eye as quickly as possible, Mrs. Astor's son Anthony D. Marshall has agreed to give up his role as caretaker and steward of his mother's estate and to return $1.35 million of stuff as collateral for any potential claims against him after......

Democratic Governor hopeful Eliot Spitzer brought some life back into the gay marriage debate here in New York on Thursday night at an event for the Empire State Pride Agenda when he told the audience that "we will make it law in New York." Considering Spitzer's lead in the polls, his remarks were unexpected if welcome. “We will not ask whether this proposition of legalizing same-sex marriage is popular or unpopular; we will not......

Self-styled "Playboy Centerfold & Celebrity Author" Stephanie Adams (left) and her lawyer Sanford Rubenstein held a press conference yesterday announcing her lawsuit against a taxi driver, the NYPD and the City of New York. Adams claims "that officers roughed her up based on the cabbie's false accusation that she was armed and dangerous." Maybe you remember? The city "had no immediate response" to the allegations. Cabby Eric Darko, who had his license suspended after......

President Bush was on Long Island earlier for the merchant marines graduation. And like a good Mayor (and Republican?), Mayor Bloomberg went to JFK Airport to greet the Commander in Chief. Now, the NY Times has captioned this AP Photo with:Bush Greets Bloomberg With a Backslap The president had a quick meeting with Mayor Bloomberg on the tarmac at J.F.K. International Airport before speaking to graduates of the Merchant Marines Academy in Kings Point,......

This week might not have been the best week for small dogs but fat felines should certainly be proud of their kind. Why? Well look at that picture above. That's Jack the cat protecting his owners yard in West Milford, New Jersey from a visiting black bear. When the bear first came into the yard Jack went after him and scared him up a tree. After fifteen minutes the bear finally got the balls......

Yesterday we received a number of emails regarding Hasidic reggae rapper Matisyahu. Apparently, the man has left his long time managers, also the founders of his old label - JDub Records. He has not done this for any higher powers...he's done it to move on to a relationship with the equivalent of a major label manager. The same man who "found" Nirvana, Gary Gersh. Aaron Bisman, founder of JDub, was friends with Matisyahu at NYU.......

It's the dawn of a new era as the Jets are expected to announce the hiring of New England defensive coordinator Eric Mangini as the 15th head coach in franchise history, ESPN.com first reported last night. The first three things that standout about Mangini are: his age, (now the youngest coach in the NFL, turning 35 on Thursday), his prior tenure with the Jets (1997-99 as a defensive assistant under Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells)......

Even for people who don't know football, the Jets' 20-17 overtime win in San Diego in an AFC Wild Card game Saturday night had a little bit of everything, particularly of the extracurricular variety. First, the Jets played well enough to win. Then, at the latest and worse possible moment, a single player's costly mistake (Eric Barton's personal foul on Drew Brees after an incomplete pass that otherwise would have effectively ended the game) singlehandedly......

If there's one thing Gothamist has realized in the past 10-11 years, it's that Governor Pataki kind of gets worse and worse. As the NY Times' news analysis of the New York Region > Power of Positive Pataki Demonstrated in Relentlessly Upbeat Annual Address" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/nyregion/06york.html?oref=login">governor's State of the (NY) State address put it well, noting that Pataki has a "propensity to stay on message, and glance over bad news," as he ignores issues like "big......

The Jets need amend their New Years Resolution to include thanking the Steelers for having a B-Squad good enough to keep the Buffalo Bills from the AFC Playofs, because St. Louis, and regardless of what the smarmy columnists may say, the Jets (10-6) received a spot after a 32-29 overtime loss to the Rams, who delivered in an actual must-win situation. Curtis Martin finished the afternoon with the the rushing title and 1,697 yards on......

One last must win game. That's what the regular season has come down to for the Jets (10-5, 3-3 AFC East), who again failed to defeat a proven great team yesterday, falling to defending Super Bowl champion New England (10-2, 5-1), 23-7 in East Rutherford yesterday. So buckle in for a week of "The Jets Don't Have What It Takes" stories leading into next Sunday's road game in St. Louis (1 p.m.), because that's where......

Hopefully the Jets (9-4) will not be in a giving mood as they prepare to host Seattle in an inter-conference battle on Sunday at 1 p.m. (TV: FOX 5, RADIO: 1050AM ESPN). Quarterback Chad Pennington may not be at 100 percent, but this week he was steadfast in defending offensive coordinator Paul Hackett, as well as those of himself. Mike Holmgren's Seahawks are an interesting bunch, considered by some to be a legitimate NFC title......

Not only are the Giants in the middle of a brutal six-game losing streak, but the team is increasingly difficult to watch. Quarterback Eli Manning has hardly improved (in fact he may be getting worse) and to add to the debacle this week the Giants face the Steelers and their rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who is 11-0 as a starter. The Giants passed on Roethlisberger in favor of a trade for Manning that cost them......

Trailing 7-6 at the half, the Jets scored 23 unanswered points in the second half, defeating the formerly expansion Houston Texans 29-7 yesterday in East Rutherford. In his return from a shoulder injury that kept him out of action for a couple weeks, quarterback Chad Pennington looked like the Pennington of old, completing 20 of 27 passes for 155 yards and two scores. When writing about Pennington's first down run, the Post said, he "bounced......

Because the Jets always tend to make things interesting in terms of timing, this week the team decided to announce, even with its postseason status still up in the air, that it has signed team General Manager Terry Bradway to a two-year contract extension through 2007. This Sunday (4:15 p.m., TV: WCBS 2, RADIO: 1050 ESPN), the Jets (7-3) visit Tempe to face the Arizona Cardinals (4-6) in an interconference matchup in which backup......

Even with Chad Pennington out, Curtis Martin having bruised his knee and the Cleveland defense being uncharacteristally stingy, the Jets (7-3) managed to deliver when it counted yesterday in a 10-7 nondivisional win over the host Browns (3-7) that may prove to be incredibly important as the playoff race takes shape. Justin McCareins' 11-yard touchdown reception with 5:32 remaining stood as the final difference, but it was his heady reach-out for a first down two......

Maybe it sounds like the title of another cheesy Lifetime network drama with Meredith Baxter Birney or Judith Light, but last season a loss of QB Chad Pennington led to a collapse that was all too serious for Jets fans. Even with Pennington scheduled for a return within the next three weeks, Jets fans fell aghast at the team's second loss in a row, a 20-17 overtime loss at the hands of the visiting Baltimore......

We at Gothamist have some apologies to make. We told you that the Giants would win and that they would cover the nine point spread. We were wrong, horribly wrong. The Bears took advantage of numerous Giants miscues and hung a brutal 28-21 loss on the Giants at the Meadowlands yesterday. We also talked some trash to a reader from Chicago which, in retrospect, we probably should not have done. This Giants team is beyond......

While techinally, the Jets' streak of hotness is only a week old, they are doing quite well this season at 6-1. After acing last Monday night's "test" with the Miami Dolphins, one can only assume that the Jets will aim to look better than they did a few weeks ago, against these same Bills. But that was long ago, when liberals weren't an endangered species. While Jets receiver Santana Moss is content to get wins......

For the second week in a row the Jets had to erase a second half deficit against a semmingly inferior opponent before pulling out a victory, as rookie linebacker Jonathan Vilma's interception of a Tim Rattay pass sealed a 22-14 win over the visiting San Francisco 49ers in East Rutherford yesterday to set a franchise record with a 5-0 start. As the Jets trailed 14-3 in the first half as the Niners had just scored......

The Giants may not be winning pretty and they're certainly not getting all the headlines, but they're winning all the same and in the N.F.L. wins are what count. After yesterday's 26-10 victory over the Cowboys in Dallas Stadium, the Giants have already matched last season's win total and will go into their bye week with a 4-1 record and a 4-game winning streak. That's not bad for a team that everybody (including us......

After an early bye week, the Jets' season resumes Sunday the same place where it ended last season - Miami. 4:15 p.m. (TV: WCBS 2, RADIO: 1050 ESPN). But things have changed in the past 10 months - the Jets (2-0) have a healthy Chad Pennington, a rejuvenated Curtis Martin and, while the Ricky Williams-less Dolphins are now a team in turmoil, despite a sturdy defense that has kept each game of the team's 0-3......