First dates are tough: you don't want the person to know that you actually spend all your time in the same dingy dive, but no matter what super scientific online dating surveys say, dropping $100 on dinner reeks of trying too hard. Museums show you're cultured, but all the line-waiting and pretending to know about Kandinsky can get tiring. Movies: staid and boring (you're both just sitting in the dark!), and concerts are fine if you don't mind shouting over the bass. So what does New York City's Bachelor-in-Chief think is the "best spot in NYC" for a first date? "The Staten Island Ferry!" In January? Poor Diana. more ›

Are you dying to see how many emoticons former Schools Chancellor Cathie Black used in her thank-you emails to Mayor Bloomberg shortly before taking office? Thanks to a FOIA request and a judge's ruling, those puppies will be open for our perusal in 15 business days or less. Former Village Voice reporter, Sergio Hernandez, who's now with ProPublica, applied for the emails last year and was rebuffed twice by the city because "releasing them would violate someone's (although nobody said whose) privacy." According to the Daily News, in a ruling yesterday Judge Alice Schlesinger called that logic "particularly specious" because Black and her staff at Hearst were "de facto agents of the city." more ›

A Queens man who works in a pizza shop has been arrested for stalking and harassing Mayor Bloomberg's 28-year-old daughter Georgina. Police raided Salvatore Di Bartolo's home the morning of June 7 after he sent text messages to a police sergeant asking to get in touch with the Mayor and his daughter so he could "talk about their wedding plans," the Daily News reports. Di Bartolo, 48, disobeyed the police sergeant's warnings to "not have any contact with complainant Bloomberg in any way, including through any third party." Di Bartolo told police that he didn't care about the warnings because he and Georgina "were going to be married." more ›

Keeping consistent with his belief that citizens of the United States should be free from the government meddling in what religion they choose to practice, Mayor Bloomberg defended the group of atheists that are suing to prevent the September 11 Cross from being installed in the 9/11 memorial and museum at World Trade Center site. In his weekly radio address, Bloomberg said, "This group of atheists, they're free in our country to not believe and not practice, and we should defend their right to do that, just as we should defend individuals' rights to practice and to believe." The Mayor's right: we have to be tolerant of the atheists' deity, even if he happens to be Bill Maher. more ›

Good news! The ringleader of the "epic," hilarious-if-it-wasn't-true "unprecedented fraud" that is the CityTime boondoggle has been made to forfeit $2.5 million in salary that he was paid as the lead contractor for Science Applications International Corp. Perhaps he was the one determining how much he should forfeit because, um, didn't he steal $5 million? Oh well, we'll take what we can get from a "pretty good job" like this one. Only $457.5 million left to recoup! more ›

Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg's bromance has gotten off to a rocky start. Cuomo wowed Albany by passing a money-saving budget on time, Bloomberg deemed the resulting cuts to New York City "an outrage." The two have vehemently disagreed in the past on the Last In First Out policy for the state's teachers, which the mayor said kicks "some of our best teachers to the curb," while the governor compared Bloomberg's favored bill to the one limiting collective bargaining efforts in Wisconsin. Now, sources tell the Post that the mayor is cutting Cuomo out of the planning efforts for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in part because the governor removed Christopher Ward—"a Bloomberg guy"—from the head post at the Port Authority. more ›

While Barack Obama and Joe Biden release their complete tax returns to the public once a year, Mayor Bloomberg makes journalists cram into a room and view his redacted returns for less than three hours—no photocopies. The Mayor says that it's because he fears "disclosing sensitive corporate information to his competitors," but it also probably has something to do with all the fun income streams and expenditures the Times found yesterday, including his $98K in equestrian winnings, and his $44K cabinets that were later donated to charity. more ›

Reading this Times piece on Bloomberg pondering his legacy in the midst of slagging poll numbers and malaise towards his tenure, we almost feel pangs of pity for the mayor. A Columbia professor and former adviser describes him as a martyr who's "willing to sacrifice short-term standing in the polls for what he believes to be in the best interest of the city." And Bloomberg himself told an interviewer, "Every time you make a decision, you lost half the people. After five decision, there's only you and your mother, and I'm not sure about her." Damn those laws that force mayors to run for third terms! more ›

Mayor Bloomberg was on Meet the Press this morning, and proposed a unique solution to the nation's ongoing immigration debate: let immigrants come...but make them live in Detroit. "If I were the federal government, assuming we could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five to 10 years, start businesses, take jobs or whatever," he said. Kill two birds with one implausible policy! more ›

Mayor Bloomberg, as you know, has no qualms about voicing his opinions, even if they concern issues outside the boundaries of NYC, like Arizona's lax gun laws, or Wisconsin's labor troubles. But according to an article in today's Times, Bloomberg is haunted by one thought: If a billionaire opines in the woods, but no one really cares what he thinks, will they still name shit after him once he dies? Bloomberg wants his opinions to resonate around the globe, and like any good mogul he's willing to pay for all those hearts and minds. more ›

Other states love it when Mayor Bloomberg lectures them on how to run things in their quaint provincial governments. Arizona really appreciated it when Bloomberg sent investigators to do a hidden camera sting at a gun show, and now it's Wisconsin's turn to get advice from Bloomberg, who has repeatedly denied he's running for president while busting out presidential-sounding talking points. In an op-ed in the NY Times today, the mayor sympathizes with Wisconsin legislators' need to balance the budget, while also siding with unions' right to bargain collectively: more ›

Someday soon you might be able to really "like" New York City. See, when billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was in town for his SNL cameo he had a few business meetings as well, and one of those meetings happened to be with our billionaire mayor, Mike Bloomberg. And what did those two very rich men talk about? The "potential" of a Facebook site for New York City among, we presume, other things. more ›

Last night, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Comptroller William Thompson squared off for their second and final mayoral debate. And it was a feisty affair, with just a week till the election: The Post called it a "Yankees basebrawl", the Daily News noted how they "pulled out all the stops", and the NY Times noted how Bloomberg "pound[ed]" Thompson. Some highlighted soundbites: more ›

Last night's first mayoral debate between incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Comptroller William Thompson showed both men in attack mode: Bloomberg went after Thompson's record heading the Board of Education and accepting donations from pension funds that the city uses while Thompson reminded voters how Bloomberg maneuvered for the term limits and extension and how he's spent $65 million on his campaign so far. You can watch the debate at NY1, but here are some highlights: more ›

The candidates for public advocate must be feeling 8-track tape useless by now. Earlier this year, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council made the call to cut the public advocate's budget from $2.9 million to a meager $1.8 million, and now the mayor is visiting far off places (or, Staten Island) to talk trash about the little-known position. more ›

Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Democratic City Comptroller Bill Thompson will go head-to-head tonight in their first debate, which will be hosted and televised by NY1. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg (aka "Mike Bloomberg" on Twitter) spent weekend all over the city, as he opened campaign offices for his third term bid. He told the crowd in the Bronx, "Do you remember life without 311? Neither do I. Do you remember when you had to breathe someone else's cigarette smoke? I remember that.... We've got an awful lot of work to do, but if we put New York ahead from partisan politics, if we go out and to explain to everybody, there may not be any easy, painless way, but there is a right way. The right way of hard work, and being accountable and being inclusive, of knowing that we can do it if we can just pull together." So that wooing of the Republican Party... more ›

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Super Tuesday is supposed to be a decisive catalyst in the presidential campaigns. It may wind up raising more questions than ever, especially with Mayor Bloomberg (not officially) entertaining a run towards 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. more ›

Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent yesterday in Oklahoma, discussing the state of politics today at a bipartisan political forum at the University of Oklahoma. Bloomberg lamented the way things are going these days:

Government is dysfunctional. There is no collaboration and congeniality. There is no working together. No 'let's do what's right for this country.' I think there is no accountability today. Nobody is holding themselves accountable and to the standards of what they promised when they ran for office. And I think lastly, there is no willingness to focus on big ideas."

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! more ›

Sometimes we refer to Mayor Bloomberg as Mayor Bling because with a net worth with $5.5 billion (according to Forbes), why not? And what's frequently mentioned is how his staff is looking into the possibility of Bloomberg running for president - though he denies it all the time - because he would have about $1 billion to spend on a third-party campaign. Former president Bill Clinton mentioned Bloomberg's wealth with respect to needing to reign in campaign finance rules while stumping for his wife in Iowa. more ›

Mike Bloomberg may end his tenure as the Mayor of Pothole Repair. Under Bloomberg's watch, the city has filled 1.25 potholes since 2002. While anybody that hits potholes with their bike or their car surely thinks the city missed a few, Mayor Bloomberg assures us that they are doing what it can to fix them. In his first public appearance since returning from Asia, Bloomberg said, "Now, potholes are as much a part of city life as hot dog carts and yellow cabs, although that hasn't stopped us from doing everything we can to fix them once they appear." more ›

Break out the dry erase board - the Sun looks at Bloomberg's Electoral Calculus by seeing how Mayor Bloomberg could potentially make a play for the White House next year. The Sun created a map (for space purposes, we put Bloomberg's head in the states he doesn't have a chance to win) and explains, "Under the right circumstances, Mayor Bloomberg has the potential to win 312 of the country's 528 electoral votes, well more... more ›

For an avowed non-presidential candidate, Mayor Bloomberg certainly gets more attention than some of the actual candidates. Newsweek devotes its cover story to "Mike" Bloomberg, "The Billion Dollar Wild Card," a reference to the billion dollars Mayor B has at his disposal, should be decide to run for president next year. That is so much more flattering than the "Lazy Like a Fox" cover Newsweek had of Fred Thompson! Newsweek editor-in-chief Jon Meacham got to... more ›