Once upon a time, former President Bill Clinton only meant good things for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid. But now, his poorly received remarks in the past few weeks (a "fairy tale" here, a Jesse Jackson reference there), Hillary Clinton is left claiming her husband is sleep deprived and just human: "Well, I think it's human nature. I think that the spouses of all three of us have, you know, been passionate and vigorous defenders of......

After the national debate about race turned into the national debate about how race discussed in the Democratic presidential campaign, Senators and Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have declared a truce. The stir was caused by Clinton's remarks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts ("Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act...It took a president to get it done.") and when Obama criticized Clinton......

When Governor Spitzer announced he was dropping his controversial plan to offer driver's licenses to illegal immigrants yesterday, he was praised by his fellow Democrats. The NY Times notes that the decision won Spitzer "the kind of wide acclaim from elected officials that he could not win for the proposal itself." And that's gotta sting a little. Spitzer had first introduced a broad plan to allow illegal immigrants to get licenses, which caused outcry from......

Yesterday morning, Secretary of State Condolezza Rice visited Community School 154 in Harlem. Accompanied by Representative Charles Rangel, Rice, former Provost at Stanford, encouraged the students to dream big, “One thing that I want you to promise me is that you won't let anybody else tell you what it is you ought to be interested in. You'll find what you are interested in and you'll pursue it and you won't let anyone say 'Why......

You may have many opinions of Senator Charles Schumer. A man who gives weekly press conferences by way of making the rounds on Sunday morning news shows, someone who will "put a bullet betweens the president's eyes," the senior Senator of New York, orchestrator of the Senate's shift back to the Democrats, husband of a recent Department of Transportation commissioner, imaginer of middle class couple the Baileys, cereal hog. But defender of hedge funds' and......

Congratulations to everyone graduating this month! As NYU's commencement was today, with speaker jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, we decided to list the many NYC commencement speakers, with help from The Chronicle of Higher Education (if we've missed any or gotten it wrong, let us know in comments): Barnard College: Anna Deveare Smith, playwright-actress CUNY Lehman College: Representative Charles Rangel CUNY Brooklyn College: Roberta S. Matthews, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Brooklyn......

President Bush visited New York City yesterday to encourage Congress to reauthorize his No Child Left Behind program. Bush gave a speech at the Harlem Village Academy school and praised its founder, faculty and students and emphasized the importance of the NCLB Act. Bush made it a point to visit all eight classrooms and shake every student's hand, prompting one student to tell the Sun, "I think it was the best day of my......

Senator Hillary Clinton brought out a big gun in her fund-raising arsenal last night: President Bill Clinton, who introduced her last night, noting that they had met 36 years ago at Yale Law School. He said, "You will never find anybody who will do a better job of it than she will." It was their first major fund-raiser together, and tomorrow they'll be in DC for another event. About on million dollars was raised,......

In a meeting with attendees like Senators Schumer and Clinton, State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, Representative Charles Rangel criticized Governor Eliot Spitzer. He said that Spitzer's aggressive handling of Medicaid and health-care-industry issues is only making the problem worse and isn't helpful - and that the governor's proposed cuts are too deep. Rangel also asked that both the governor and Local 1199 union that represent hospital workers (Local 1199......

Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, visited New York City yesterday. While the showiest part of their night may have been the presentation of a Global Environmental Citizen Award to the Prince from the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, we bet the most fun was had during the couple's visit the the Harlem Children's Zone. The Harlem Children's Zone, which includes the Promise Academy and other services and programs......

For politicians, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was busy as they made the rounds at a number of city events. Governor Spitzer, Lieutenant Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and Representative Charles Rangel all appeared at the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network's House Justice and also the Brooklyn Academy of Music's celebration. Paterson and Rangel emphasized that the Iraq war would have been opposed by King. Spitzer mentioned meeting the family......

And by listen, we mean "listen to the expected news that Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2008." The NY Times reports that Hillary Clinton has been meeting with "top New York Democratic officials" to explain her 2008 plans and ask for their support when that happens. According to anonymous sources, Clinton has met with Representative Charles Rangel and State Democratic Party chair Herman D. Farrel Jr., and may meet with Governor-elect Eliot......

Yesterday morning, Mayor Bloomberg met with the family of Sean Bell, who was fatally shot when the police fired 50 times at a car carrying him and two of his friends hours before his wedding over the weekend. The Mayor also met with black religious figures, community leaders and politicians before a press conference where he said:It sounds to me like excessive force was used. I can tell you that it is to me......

If you’re hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs “so are you nakie” to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

If you were wondering how former mayor Rudy Giuliani feels after the thumpin' the Republicans took last week, wonder no more, because he's been facing it with the same, stubborn Rudy-vision that we all remember from his NYC mayoral years. The NY Times was on the scenefor a speech Giuliani made: In his first public comments about last week’s Democratic sweep of Congress, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City,......

One of the Health Department's big initiatives has been to help New Yorkers quit smoking, and it's been working, especially with the smoking ban and the cigarette tax. However, after looking at numbers that reflect a slight rise in smokers between 2004 and 2005, the Department of Health would like another cigarette tax to hit its goal of 250,000 more former smokers. Health Commissioner Tom Friedan said, "It is now more critical than ever that......

The chairman of General Motors headed up to Harlem to open the first car dealership there in 40 years on 127th Street, between Second and Third Avenues. Rick Wagoner was joined by Mayor Bloomberg, Representative Charles Rangel, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson for the opening of a Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem dealership and the Potamkin Cadillac-HUMMER dealership, making them the only car dealerships above 57th Street. GM and the Department of Transportation will also be......

Columbia University excitedly announced that the Jerome L. Greene Foundation was donating $200 million for a brand new neuroscience center, The Jerome L. Greene Science Center, to study the mind, brain and behavior. This is the largest private gift ever to a university to create one facility. We say, hoorah for the alma mater, and while more research for the human mind is wonderful, we do wish more could be done to lower tuition.......

With fallen DC lobbyist Jack Abramoff's plea deal freaking out the Beltway, people would expect him to turn over Republican congressmen Tom DeLay and Bob Ney. But Gothamist wondered if any of our area politicians were involved. And, naturally, some were, which isn't surprising given money Abramoff had at his disposal (through Abramoff's organization, about $915,000 went to Republicans in Congress, while $770,000 or so went to Democrats; however, Abramoff's personal contributions seem to be......

Rosa Parks, the Alabama seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus and ignited the civil rights movement, has died at age 92 in Detroit. She had suffered from dementia since 2002, but Parks' legacy has reached far and wide for the past half century. After being tired of years of poor treatment on buses (she had had a run-in with the December 1, 1955 bus driver back in 1943),......

While federal officials finally selected a memorial design for the African Burial Ground, a Duane Street site where thousands of African-American skeletal remainds were found, many people were unhappy with the decision. Some heckled officials, complaining that the selected design by Rodney Leon of AARRIS Architects (rendering above) is too large and overwhelms the 5-acre plot. A preferred design is one by Cheryl McKissack of McKissack & McKissack, which leaves more of the ground......

After some slippage in the polls and a lot of negative public opinion, Democratic mayoral frontrunner, former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, explained that his words labelling Amadou Diallo's shooting "a tragedy but not a crime" were a "careless" mistake and that he'd have to live with it. He called Kadiatou Diallo, mother of the 1999 shooting victim, to explain but not quite apologize. To political pundits, the big thing was that Ferrer admitted his......

The surprising support of Reverend Al Sharpton for the Jets' West Side Stadium plan is making people wonder what this really means for the Mayor's preferred plan. Sharpton, along with a few other key black Democrats like Representative Charles Rangel, has argued that supporting the Jets' plan needs to come before party politics, because the Jets are making efforts to make sure that minorities will get some of the construction jobs. Sharpton also pointedly said......

Demonstrators hit the streets yesterday, to protest the second anniversary of the Iraqi war. One protest started in Harlem, followed by a rally in Central Park featured words from Representative Charles Rangel ("It's one thing to go to war; it's another thing to mislead the American people") and other politicans. Protestors also went to Mayor Bloomberg's Upper East Side townhouse. One protest organized by United for Peace and Justice stopped traffic in Times Square......

God, there's nothing like a Clinton-running-for-office rumor to make Democrats and Republicans wet, though for different reasons: Representative Charles Rangel is trying to stir things up by saying he is telling Bill Clinton to run for NYC mayor. Of course, the mayor is pretty vulnerable right now, public opinion wise, as Bloomberg officially has the lowest poll numbers - 24 percent approval rating - of any New York mayor. Ever. The Times says it's part......