In a rare interview with the Wichita Eagle, billionaire sith lord Charles Koch complained about how mean everyone is being now that much of the country is aware of his family business's activities. “We are under attack from various directions, both with threats of violence against us personally, and with threats of attacks on our businesses,” Koch said. He then compared himself to the icon of the Protestant Revolution: "I kind of relate to what Martin Luther said (when Luther took on the established church and launched the Protestant Reformation): 'Here I stand; I can do no other,' " which presumably refers to the way Luther famously used his billions of dollars to bend the Catholic Church to his will. more ›

State attorney general Andrew Cuomo filed suit against oil giant Exxon Mobil to clean up an oil spill along Newtown Creek that is estimated to be twice as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. The suit also names BP, Chevron, KeySpan and Phelps Dodge and is seeking action and fines against the companies that spilled approximately 20 million gallons of fuel into the ground and water of industrial Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The New York Times reports that environmental group Riverkeeper filed its own suit against Exxon Mobil in 2004 after it found the ground in Greenpoint heavily contaminated and benzene fumes were even emanating into the air. more ›

New York magazine has a great examination of the Greenpoint pollution problem lurking beneath the neighborhood's surface, and floating along the surface of Newtown Creek. It describes a ten million gallon reservoir of industrial pollution that includes, fuel oil, naptha, gasoline, parrafin wax and likely many more materials that were used along the industrial area of the waterway that separates Brooklyn and Queens. more ›

This Memorial Day weekend offers the most 2007 weddings so far in the NY Times' Weddings & Celebrations section: A whopping 43 weddings! But, of all the announcements, our favorite is the one of Thea Spyer and Edith Windsor. Spyer, a 75-year-old psychologist in Manhattan, and Windsor, a 77-year-old retired computer systems analyst for IBM, were married in Toronto earlier this week, but actually met decades ago.

Dr. Spyer and Ms. Windsor met in 1965 in New York at Portofino, a restaurant in the West Village. more ›

The NY Times has a nice profile of Amanda Burden, the influential Department of City Planning commissioner whose policies will shape the city for years to come. more ›