Smoking, Nanny Bloomberg likes to remind us, will kill you. But don't think that your "I only smoke bummed ciggies at parties" routine makes you safe. Oh, no. The Department of Health wants you to know YOU COULD STILL DIE. So they're launching a print and TV campaign to help "light smokers" become "nonsmokers." Because you don't want to die, do you? more ›

Today in News That should Come As A Surprise To No One, embattled Jersey Shorer Vinny Guadagnino, who stormed out the cast's Seaside Heights home two weeks ago, is apparently back and ready to resume filming. more ›

Et tu, Situation? Just days after Vinny's departure from the Jersey Shore, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino has allegedly left the Seaside Heights house after he "got into a quarrel during filming... ripped off his microphone, and stormed off the set." more ›

Lawmakers, especially Brooklyn councilman Charles Barron, are upset about a private meeting yesterday between Attorney General Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Ravitch. Allegedly, the two top officials were discussing the possibility of a resignation by Gov. Paterson, as well as the state budget which Ravitch is helping to write. According to NY1, “Barron said such a meeting comes too close to crossing the line in terms of conflicts of interest, as Cuomo is likely to run for governor, and that the attorney general should remove himself from the investigation of Paterson.” He and other community leaders will hold a press conference today, calling for Cuomo to disinvolve himself from the probe into Paterson’s accused wrongdoing. more ›

Five-term Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd is holding a press conference today to announce his decision not to seek re-election. Dodd's exit highlights the challenges Democrats face winning votes from amnesiac Americans blaming them for the Bush administration's wreckage. But Dodd was facing a tough re-election battle against a super-rich Republican named Linda McMahon, and Democratic party insiders had privately hoped he would step aside. The state’s highly popular attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, is expected to run, the Times reports. But Dodd isn't the only Democrat calling it quits. more ›

After the son of Bronxchester scofflaw Senator Pedro Espada Jr. resigned from his specially-created $120,000 senate job yesterday, a source close to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo tells the Post the AG is satisfied with the resignation and will not pursue a probe into alleged violations of the state's nepotism laws. Funny how the son of three-term governor Mario Cuomo is reluctant to accuse anyone of nepotism. Meanwhile, Espada "amigo" Ruben Diaz Sr. called on Cuomo to investigate the entire Senate for nepotism and not single out poor misunderstood Espada. more ›

While hustling to turn a 200 lbs. hog into 600 pork tacos at 3rd Ward's Pig Roast and Dance Party Sunday, Brooklyn butcher Tom Mylan cut off the tip of his finger and had to go to the hospital. According to his Facebook page, he's sorry he "bled everywhere. Pig roast 4 Eva." This was later followed by another update: "Stop freaking out. I just cut the tip of my finger off chopping up roasted pig. NBFD." (Knowing Mylan, he probably thinks that acronym stands for No Butcher Fears Death.) more ›

After fending off a legal battle from dissenting congregants who sought to block his installation, Riverside Church pastor Dr. Brad Braxton has decided to step down after all. His critics had objected to what they perceived as an extravagant $600,000 compensation package and worried that Braxton was moving the church away from its traditionally progressive agenda to a more conservative religious attitude. Braxton, a Baptist minister and former Rhodes scholar, had sought to style himself as "progressive evangelical," but in the end seemed unable to unite the congregation. In his resignation letter, obtained by the Times, he wrote that "the congregation has struggled publicly for decades about the kind of church that it should be and the kind of pastor who should be its voice. In recent months, these struggles have created a level of antagonism within the congregation that undermines the community’s efforts to embody harmony in the name of Jesus Christ. The consistent discord has made it virtually impossible to establish a fruitful covenant between the congregation and me." more ›

In an Op-Ed in today's Times explaining his aborted mayoral campaign, Rep. Anthony Weiner explains that, unsurprisingly, Mayor Bloomberg's godly fortune had a little something to do with it: "The Supreme Court decision in 1976 in Buckley v. Valeo, which allows candidates to spend however much they want on their own races, makes it possible for billionaires to swamp middle-class candidates. In this case, a sports analogy is apt: If one football team has 110 players on the field, the team with 11 has a hard time getting through the blocking and tackling on the crowded turf." more ›

Big news in the dining world today; the Times announced that the city's most influential restaurant critic, Frank Bruni, will move to the Sunday magazine section after five years on the beat. In an email to the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller revealed that Bruni "will have license to follow his appetites — his journalistic appetites — wherever they lead him [at the magazine]... In his spare time, between aerobic eating and the requisite gym time to burn it all off, he has managed to produce a memoir of his lifelong, complicated relationship with food. Recognizing that the book is certain to seriously compromise his ability to be a spy in the land of food, Frank picked this as a natural time to move on. He will be turning in his restaurant-critic credentials when his memoir, Born Round: the Secret History of a Full-Time Eater, is published in late August." Besides his generally impeccable taste and incisiveness, Bruni brought a fun, casual, and creative tone to the Times's dining coverage. Dining editor Pete Wells is currently searching for a successor to fill those big Italian shoes, and you can bet the mother of 12-year-old foodie David Fishman is already on the horn. more ›

At a meeting of the New School’s board of trustees last night, Bob Kerrey announced that he will step down as university president when his contract expires in July 2011. He did not explain the reasons for his decision, but insisted that it had nothing to do with faculty opposition and passionate student protests demanding his resignation. In breaking the news, City Room accurately describes Kerrey as "a decorated war hero," but omits the small matter of his slaughter of more than a dozen Vietnamese women and children in Thanh Phong village in 1969. The massacre is not irrelevant; New School students calling for Kerrey's dismissal say his involvement in the CIA's Operation Phoenix make him unfit to govern a progressive university that was founded by WWII refugees. In other New School news, trustees and faculty members have ordered an inquiry into the events surrounding last month's short-lived student occupation of a New School building, which resulted in 22 arrests. (On GOOD FRIDAY!) more ›

Respected chef Neil Ferguson, who opened the warmly-received Allen & Delancey just last fall, has abruptly quit, taking an offer to be the top chef at Soho House, a private club whose food we cannot vouch for because we only went there this one time to interview the Beastie Boys. But what's cool about Soho House is when you ask them for water, they give you an entire glass bottle of some exotic brand that is yours to keep. So you can see why Ferguson would be tempted. Eater obtained this email he sent to friends, in which he sticks his thumb in the eye of certain unprincipled scoundrels at Allen & Delancey: "I have strong principles and thoughts on how a restaurant should operate and conduct itself, at every level. Unfortunately those principles have been bought into question. I am leaving for both moral and personal reasons." more ›

Two cats living in an apartment completely destroyed by the Midtown crane collapse have been found and reunited with their owners. The recovery of Mr. Gloves and Gooksie was in no small part due to the efforts of Gini Otway, a neighbor who also volunteers at the animal rescue and adoption organization City Critters. more ›