Today's big Texas primary, the Post has delivered a cover with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as old West gunslingers. And since Obama's hand in on his gun, it makes sense the headline for the story is, "Barack Goes For Hill Kill." (Obama believes in gun control, though he backed a law allowing retired cops to carry concealed weapons). At any rate, in spite of Obama leading and her campaign desperate for wins in Texas......

Ending months of speculation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed he will not run for president in the 2008 election. And he did it with an op-ed in the NY Times, titled, "I'm Not Running for President, but..." The op-ed starts out with Bloomberg calling all the current candidates "smart" but believes "the candidates seem afraid to level with" the American public, because the candidates aren't offering "innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership" on issues like......

To no one's surprise, Senator-turned- actor-turned- presidential- candidate-wannabe Fred Thompson has dropped out of the hunt for the Republican party nomination. Thompson had not done very well in any of the early caucuses or primaries and his exit may actually mean a bump for Mike Huckabee, who has a similar more-conservative-than-the-others platform. Thompson left Law & Order to pursue the nomination, giving Jack McCoy a promotion and giving the public dreams of a Law &......

Mayor Bloomberg still claims he's not running for President, but he's spending thousands of dollars to run a full page ad in The Des Moines Register--Iowa's largest circulation local paper--with his face on it. One can see the full ad here. The Mayor also placed an identical ad in The New Hampshire Union Leader. We're running this ad to the Bat Cave, to see if there are any subliminal "Mike Bloomberg '08" messages! According......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, a stabbing at Ft. Hamilton H.S. in Brooklyn, and a fall victim on 88th St. in Queens. Hillary and Rudy initially attempted to settle things by seeing who would yell "uncle" first as they tried to crush each other's hand. A 31-year-old NJ man says that he throttled his mother with his bare hands after she criticized him for his messy......

Who knew thousands, if not millions, of New Yorkers would agree with presidential hopeful Fred Thompson on something? In this case, the former Senator and former Law & Order District Attorney was talking about Rudy Giuliani's reliance on touting his New York City credentials during a campaign stop in New Hampshire today. Thompson told a crowd at a gun store, Giuliani "relates everything to New York City. Well, New York City is not emblematic of......

WNYC's Brian Lehrer recently spoke to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly about Giuliani's stance on gun control, as well as his own views on a national gun control policy. After the jump there's more video of the Commish -- this time discussing 9/11, counter-terrorism efforts in New York, and the last 15 years of his career. He also gives one glimpse into his future, stating he'll never run for Mayor as he has "no plans" and......

While they certainly spent time criticizing each other, the Republican presidential hopefuls devoted much time to criticize the Democratic frontrunner Senator Hillary Clinton. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said, "she hasn't run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She has never run anything. And the idea that she could learn to be President, you know, as an internship just doesn't make any sense." And Senator John McCain......

Omesh Hiraman, the 22-year-old St. John's University student who caused panic when he brought a .50 cailber rifle on campus, will be arraigned today in his hospital room at Bellevue. Queens DA Richard Brown said that Hiraman was being "held on two counts of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon (with intent to use said weapon unlawfully against another and possession of a rifle in a building or grounds used for educational purposes) and several......

In a city whose mayor has made gun control one of his signature issues, it's no surprise that the number of registered gun owners has gone down. The Post reports that there are now 36,169, versus 38,000 last year. Permits that allow one to wear a gun on a holster (concealed) also dropped to 2,555, which the Sun says is almost 50% less than the 2004 number. Of course, there's now way to estimate illegal......

"Islamic terrorists are at war with us," Rudy Giuliani told about 300 people at a synagogue in Rockville, Md., one evening in July. He likes to say it that way — that they are at war with us, not the other way around. "They want to kill us," he warned a group in New Hampshire the same month. "They hate you," he told a woman in Atlanta. That's the first paragraph of the new Time......

Dan Rather may have retired from the CBS Evening News, but he's still breaking stories while at HDNet. On his upcoming Thursday night Dan Rather Reports, he will air an "rare sit-down interview" with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where Bloomberg makes it "categorically clear that he will not run for President of the United States, nor will he seek a Vice Presidential bid nor any cabinet position for that matter, something he's never done before." Wow,......

Food writing has changed a lot in the last few years. Its focus has shifted to an almost philosophical arena where any recipe can be dissected for the broader, global meaning of its constituent ingredients. The source of every carrot or celery stalk we eat is inexorably combined with issues of nutrition and environmental sustainability. It’s the Omnivore’s Dilemma effect - people are suddenly grappling with the repercussions of a country that runs on......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian was struck at Neptune Ave. and Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, a shooting on Bivona St. in the Bronx, and a burn victim at East 20th St. and the FDR in Manhattan. An assistant DA for Staten Island is considering possible charges against relatives who may have aided in the fugitive status of Rebekah Johnson, who is accused of attempting to murder a commune leader by shooting him......

The Post has button fever as it notices Bloomberg for President pins on eBay already! (Their headline is "Bloomy Looks Cute As a Button" - is that an underhanded way of saying he's short?) Some of the offerings include the stylized portrait and a straight up photograph. And there's always the classic all-type "I Like Mike" style. We expect anti-Bloomberg pins to go up this week - you know, the ones that mention how......

At a ceremony that was supposed to tout the 50 millionth call to 311, Mayor Bloomberg faced the media, who were eager to embrace the maybe-maybe not presidential candidate. Mayor Bloomberg remained steadfast in his conviction not to run for president, heartily proclaiming, "I've got the greatest job in the world," and that he would stay on as mayor for another 925 days. But, the NY Times says ahem, reporting Bloomberg aides have working......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Democrat Micah Kellner won the special election to fill the Upper East Side Assembly seat vacated by Pete Grannis (who was appointed the Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner by Governor Spitzer). Kellner received about two-thirds of the vote over Republican opponent Gregory Camp. Kellner is 28 and has been an aide to City Comptroller William Thompson. He was born with cerebral palsy and managed to overcome it, a fact that was featured heavily in campaign......

WCBS 2 reporter Andrew Kirtzman takes up rumors of Mayor Bloomberg wanting to run for Governor (which the mayor denies) by way of looking at how everyone wants to talk about him. Given that he's frequently cited in national publications (writing about gun control in Newsweek, named a Time 100 influential), political consultant Norman Adler says, "Mike Bloomberg is kind of the Paris Hilton of politics. People want to report about him and want to......

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......

It finally happened: Rudy Giuliani has set up the "Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee, Inc." to consider a 2008 bid for the White House. While his aides say it's "not a declaration, it is not an announcement" - just "legal back-room stuff that you have to do" - it certainly makes things interesting given the possible presence of Hillary Clinton looking for the Democratic nomination. The Daily News' Michael Goodwin writes, "Hil vs. Giuliani: The......

As he stumps for various Repubican candidates vying for win durings the 2006 elections, Rudy Giulaini is, more than ever, bandied about as a possible 2008 presidential candidate. The NY Times has a big article about Giuliani - and the GOP - riding his September 11 coattails. Given that Giuliani is a difficult hybrid of stances - pro-gay rights, pro-gun control, pro-choice, very divorced (and Italian, to boot!) - focusing on September 11 is......

The Queens sniper has been revealed to be Matthew Colletta, a Woodhaven bricklayer, with a history of mental illness and drug dealing, and one of the victims from his Friday shooting spree has died. He apparently was high on "a cocktail of vodka and cocaine" that made him think he was being followed by the Bloods. While it seems that Colletta was shooting at random, five of the seven cars were red. Six people were......

As Democrats abandon Joe Lieberman in the wake of his defeat in Connecticut's Democratic Senate primary and announcement that he would run as an independent, Lieberman has picked up one possibly very important ally: Our mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The Democrat-turned-Republican who may or may not have ambitions that include residing in the White House put his considerable weight (well, it's weight when you measure his net worth - we're not sure what kind of political......

Yesterday, the Children's Defense Fund New York released a report showing that more children "died as a result of gun violence in 2003 – more than the number of American fighting men and women killed in hostile action in Iraq from 2003 to April 2006." New York had the fourth highest number of children dying from firearms, and in New York City, one child is killed a week. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was on......

...but what does that really mean? Sure, the Mayor announced that if NY State's Court of Appeal decides that gay marriages are legal, then NYC will perform them, but the Mayor has always felt that way. Back in 2004, when the issue got hot with gay marriages being performed in San Franciso and New Paltz, NY, Mayor Bloomberg refused to go along, saying that he would follow NY State law. (Attorney General Eliot Spitzer didn't......

- Eualia Rodriguez used to knock on people's doors and ask for a cup of sugar. Then when the door was unlocked she'd step aside and let her armed 14-person crew pillage the apartment. - The Post provides a compendium of subway sicko stories. - Even better, Murdoch's kiddies find themselves an anonymous Stuy graduate who takes other people's SATs for cash and leave the tape recorder on. - Looking back at another Guttman......

- The Tram is running again. Without passengers, of course. - The Archdiocese has spared 6 schools, but 9 will still close. - And we quote: "Here's one garbage man who's got junk in his trunk." - In March Hillary Clinton "doled out $213,000 to fellow Senate candidates and Democratic parties in key states." - Meanwhile, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants a raise. - In other news, the Battery Park City Authority is......

A family on their way to an Easter dinner in the Bronx in their Honda Odyssey minivan became the victim of men arguing outside, as a bullet killed a 2 year old inside the car. David Pacheco Jr. was hit when the bullet went through the minivan's sliding door, and one of his sisters cried, "Mommy, the baby." Pacheco Jr. died on the way to the hospital, despite the efforts of an off-duty EMT and......

Yesterday, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani testified at the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, telling jurors about what he saw, thought and felt on September 11, 2001. He described seeing people jump from the World Trade Center towers and said, "By the time the second plane hit, we knew it was a terrorist attack. This was war. This was a battle." Giuliani didn't look at Moussaoui much, but Moussaoui did watch Giuliani. Family members......