Jessie Little, the 90-year-old Harlem resident who was mugged in his apartment building earlier this month, is getting some more holiday cheer. A day after getting $470 from an anonymous WCBS 2 viewer ($370 to replace his stolen money, plus another $100 from Santa), he got another $1,000 in cash and gift cards! The Daily News reports that Key Food "felt compelled to help Little after they read about the man's ordeal in the Daily News" (he was mugged after leaving a Key Food). Little, who was a cook for the merchant marines for 30 years, said, "I've been all over the world, and I had to come home to get robbed." more ›

With Gov Paterson accused of improper conduct regarding the Aqueduct slots, his top personal aide—who was recently a subject of the Times’ “Bombshell” expose—is struggling to explain a football vacation funded by an NYC businessman. According to the Post David Johnson’s hotel bill, tickets to a Giant-Cowboy game and plane trip to Dallas (he flew coach) were all paid for by affordable-housing developer Jonathan Coren. By law, elected officials and their staff aren’t allowed to accept gifts from parties who seek their good graces. more ›

Remember when Daily Candy suggested you buy an adorable little potbelly piglet as a stocking stuffer over the holidays? Well, now those and other animals given away as gifts this past Christmas are filtering into the shelter system. more ›

Carlos Pellecier has been a doorman for three decades, and his confessional to the Daily News makes it seems like a pretty sweet gig, especially this time of year. Besides the cash and sweaters and leather jackets he's received, this one time a guy asked him to move his car, and when Pellecier came back with the keys, the guy gave him the car. But things have changed a bit since he started at age 21. "I would talk to some tenants about what club was hot and where we would be hanging out later," says Pellecier. "But now that I'm almost 50 years old, it's all about the best deal at CVS and trading coupons for Bengay." more ›

Or is it Ellen DeGenerous? A Bronx mom wrote to the talk show host, who held a Dough-vember contest, about her troubles: Rozina Pijuan was out of work since she was studying to be a radiology technician. And even though she moved in with her mother, Pijuan couldn't afford Metrocards and had to walk her two boys to school and walk to her own school, adding that she did get her license, in hopes of some day getting a car. On Tuesday, DeGeneres surprised Pijuan with a gift of a GMC Terrain SUV, a year's worth of Metrocards for herself and her kids, and "$10,000: $1,000 to cover gas, $2,000 to buy the kids Christmas gifts, $5,000 to pay off their debt and an additional $2,000 for good measure." The show will air next Wednesday at 4 p.m. on NBC. more ›

It's not just us city folk who appreciate the art institutes here. The New Yorker reports that Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art, has received quite a generous donation from a neighbor of his Vermont house who passed away. They say, "Two years ago, when Lowry heard that a man named Michael H. Dunn, from the town of Derby, just across the lake from him, had dropped dead of a heart attack, and that his estate, in excess of ten million dollars, had been left to MOMA, he was flabbergasted." more ›

What do you get for the person who has everything this season? Central Park! The green grass may be covered in white and the autumn leaves have come and gone, but the Conservancy wants you to know it's "lovely in the winter!" So don't go hibernating just yet. The press release mentions something about giving the gift of a coffee set to take along with you on a stroll, but what really caught our attention... more ›