During an address at a Center for Working Families conference yesterday, New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that Gov. Spitzer may consider delaying a fare hike. Spitzer already changed his mind about raising the base fare above $2 a ride and limiting any hikes to multi-ride metrocards. Only 15% of riders actually use the $2-a-ride cards though. Silver told the Daily News that he's been urging the governor to postpone any fare hike until next year, when budget deliberations have ended, and that Spitzer hasn't ruled that out as a possibility. more ›

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver made a public plea to Gov. Eliot Spitzer to cool down his feud with State Senate Leader Joseph Bruno. The so-called Troopergate scandal began when the Governor allegedly sicced State Police on Bruno to monitor his business travel practices. In the aftermath, Spitzer lost some of his long-time aides when he claimed he knew nothing about the surveillance and they resigned. Darren Dopp recently was hired as a lobbyist after losing his job. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A large fight at Heritage High School in Manhattan, a trench rescue in Queens, and a suspicious substance at Canal & 6th Avenue
• Aw, Hakan Yalincak, the NYU student who conned people out of millions, filed an ethics complaint against his lawyer; his lawyer's lawyer told Yalincak (who faces prison time), "You are the ultimate evil person. Have a good time in jail. Watch out for the bathrooms."
• Peter Rivera, assemblyman from the Bronx, wants to make "An Inconvenient Truth" required viewing for k-12 students, but there are many questions from the Empire Zone, like will kindergarteners understand and does this mean kids will have to see it every year for 13 years?
• Christopher Street at night is a "hell hole," according to Curbed readers hashing out what to do when youths hang out in and around the building
• Awesome: The NY Post Photoshops McGreevey into a priest's outfit as news that the former NJ governor may be headed to a seminary catches on
• State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver censured a Republican assemblyman from Buffalo after it turned out the married-with-two-kids Michael Cole spent the night in an intern's bedroom; Cole says he slept on her floor because he walked her home from a sports bar and felt too drunk to drive home
• Chinese authorities have arrested the head of a company that added melamine to wheat gluten that eventually ended up in pet food
• Spider-Man sold out? Go see Barbara Stanwyck at BAM!
• Staten Island police say that a man exposed himself to a woman in Silver Lake Park earlier this week, but the suspect, Russell Farriola, who happens to be the "number one graffiti vandal" on SI denies it

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is probably turning in his grave right now. Plans for the Moynihan Station have been "derailed" as plans to discuss it have been postponed. Officials had been hoping that the Public Authorities Control Board would approve the project this year, so it would happen under Governor Pataki's term. But with opposition to and many questions surrounding the project, the NY Times reports "the Pataki administration took the proposal off the table again yesterday rather than risk a vote against it." Hello, brinksmanship! more ›

Ooh, we love a revenge plot: The Observer looks at how Mayor Bloomberg's annoyance with State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver may play out during his second term. Silver infamously blocked the Mayor's quixotic (yes, now we say quixotic) plan to bring a stadium to the West Side railyards (and some might say that failed plan helped sink the city's Olympic bid) and pundits wonder if the Mayor is out for blood. Bloomberg has been talking about brining back the commuter tax, which was repealed in 1999 by Silver and marks a "low point" in his career. The Observer explains that Silver pushed through the elimination in hopes of winning a senate seat in Rockland County against the Republicans, but the Dems lost anyway. Funnily enough, in 2002, Silver had said he'd be willing to reinstate the commuter tax, if only to give NYC that annual $500 million back. In 2003, Gotham Gazette offered that Silver played a "short-sighted" political game with the epeal, which benefitted upstate voters instead of, oh, the voters in his own downtown Manhattan district! more ›

- Thank you, Politicker, for posting Anthony Weiner's campaign flyer to show how he's probably the "only candidate for mayor who will mail out a copy of his Bar Mitzvah photograph." The flyer also says Weiner "will be New York City's Middle-Class Mayor" because middle-class is no longer a twelve letter word. WNBC 4 says that the latest WNBC/Marist poll has Bloomberg soundly beating all possible Democratic mayoral candidates, leading Fernando Ferrer 16 points, C. Virginia Fields and Weiner by 18, and Gifford Miller by 20 points! This is the first time Gothamist has seen Weiner not be at the bottom; it must be the picture! more ›

The city and state have allegedly worked out a deal to eliminate 4% of the sales tax on clothing or shoes under $110. The city is able to go forward with this since there's a $3.6 billion budget surplus this year (not that we want to put that money back into other services, like the MTA...). So far, the politicians who say they are interested in eliminating this are Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki, and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is, according to the Daily News, "non-committal." Oh, Bruno, give it up, just agree to it. NYC funds so much of the state budget, and we always get the short shrift. more ›