1. Eliot "Big Reform" Spitzer rejected a $25,000 campaign donation check from the company that owns the MTA's headquarters...but ended up accepting $25,000 from the company's owner Tamir Sapir himself (the MTA even sued Sapir's company for the poor job it did renovating the offices!)
2. Unbelievable: Eric Ng was actually the second NYU student hit by a car last week. Willa Thompson, an NYU junior, got hit by a UPS truck on her way home from the Knitting Factory: "When I went over the handlebars and hit the ground, I immediately threw up."
3. Forgotten-NY visits Richmond Terrace in Staten Island, and spots not one, but two large plastic animals.
4. OnNYTurf talked to some "legal experts" and says that "the city will pay millions of dollars to these people in damages for being falsely arrested" at the RNC 2004 protests.
5. State Senator Liz Kruger is introducing a "Breast-feeding Mothers' Bill of Rights": "One rule would ban the makers of baby formula from pressuring new moms in hospitals into using their product."
6. Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: "jumper down in the water" in the Hudson at 34th, an "ambulance vs. school bus" and a "hostage situation", both in Brooklyn.
7. On January 2nd, the Wall Street Journal is cutting "3 inches off its width." -- and in 2008, the New York Times is going to follow suit.
8. The Politicker has the dates of various political parties this holiday season, but, alas, doesn't give out the times and locations
9. Aaron from Streetsblog wrote an article about the history of traffic congestion for New York Magazine, but they chopped it down to an infographic! Their loss is the web's gain, however-- he's serializing the full article this week online.

Staten Island, by f.trainer.