January 2, 2004

ENJOY MARKET'S RALLY WHILE YOU CAN - IT MAY NOT LAST

NOW comes the hard part for Wall Street - keeping emotions and stock prices up in the face of what will look like a weakening economy. A few weeks ago,...

BETTER SIT DOWN: BAD NEWS: AMEX SEAT$ OFF 83% FROM 2000

A seat on the American Stock Exchange sold for a paltry $72,000 this week - a fraction of its record high and yet another damning sign that Wall Street sees...

CONDE NAST BATHROOM BATTLE ; TEEN VOGUE STAFFERS IN HOT WATER WITH ALLURE GANG

The intramural rivalries inside Conde Nast are showing the hallmarks of a teenage spat among rival power cliques. The latest battle pits Allure, edited by Linda Wells, against upstart Teen...

THE TILE IN STYLE; MAH-JONGG'S BACK

IN a cool Williamsburg loft one chilly Sunday afternoon, a bunch of friends in their 20s and early 30s mixed up bloody marys, sizzled some bacon and eggs, and then...

SIBLING REVELRY CREATES LUSH, LAYERED SOUND

'YOURS, Mine and Ours," the latest disc from the Pernice Brothers, is named after a feel-good flick from 1968 starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda playing two single parents who...

GOODNIGHT, SWEET FRIEND ; ACTORS REMEMBER BATES AS A GENTLE, WITTY MAN

WHEN they speak of their friend Alan Bates, who died Saturday after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer, Eileen Atkins and Frank Langella recall an actor of tremendous subtlety, technical...

A GOOD BETTE; THERE'S A DIVINE DESIGN TO MIDLER'S NEW SHOW

"I consider myself a New Yorker. I've had a lot of good times in New York."Bette Midler ONSTAGE, she's the Divine Miss M - gaudy, outrageous and tasteless. But after...

KURT KOS KELLY IN 'IDOL' SHOCK

THE world belongs to Norway's hottest pop star, Kurt Nilsen. In a shocking upset last night, viewers from around the world voted Nilsen - a 24-year-old gap-toothed plumber with two...

'SWEET' REDEMPTION? IN SUGAR BOWL, REELING SOONERS CHASE TITLE - AND OLD SWAGGER

Sunday, Sugar Bowl,Oklahoma vs. LSU, 8 p.m., ABC Forget about whether the Oklahoma Sooners belong in New Orleans for Sunday night's Sugar Bowl. They are there, and all the Bourbon...

DOC'S OPERATING SMOOTHLY: RIVERS SLAM-DUNKS HIS ABC DEBUT

If Doc Rivers feels bitter about getting fired by the Magic, he's sure doing a fine job of hiding it. Just listening to the deposed Orlando coach during his return...

MATCHUP OF THE WEEK

Joe Buck vs.Greg Gumbel (Who's a better NFLplay-by-player?) This week's Matchup is a real battle of heavyweights, as Fox Sports' Joe Buck and CBS' Greg Gumbel are two of the...

5 QUESTIONS FOR HOWIE LONG

The Post's Mike Forde this week caught up with Fox Sports' Howie Long. The 43-year-old Hall of Famer is in his 10th year with the Fox NFL Sunday show. Q:...

HOLLYWOOD MUSCLE: BIG GUNS BRAD, LEO AND HALLE HEAD TO THEATERS IN 2004

Hollywood is doing the time warp again in 2004, tripping back to the swinging Seventies, the war-torn Forties and beyond to B.C. We're keen to see Nicole Kidman lighten up...

AFTER WATCHING LARRY DAVID'S NEW BATCH OF 'CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM' SHOWS ... YOU'LL NEED TO CALL 911

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" Sunday night at 9:30 on HBO (four stars) THIS is the funniest TV show I've ever seen. It might also be the best comedy series ever made,...

MONTEL BARES MS SUICIDE ANGUISH

MONTEL WILLIAMS put the speed loader into the .357 Magnum and sat down in his locked closet, spinning the barrel, praying the gun would go off "accidentally." It had to...

COPS' ELITE FEAT; 3 WOMEN JOIN NYPD'S EMERGENCY UNIT

"Charlie's Angels" have nothing on these three crime fighters. After six months of rigorous training, NYPD Officers Madelyn McTague, Leticia Trinidad and Carmen Vermillion today graduate from the department's elite...

TWO DEARS FOR NEW YEAR'S

It's a tie - again. For the second consecutive year, two babies claimed the title of first New York newborn - and this time, both bundles of joy arrived right...

WEIRD BUT TRUE

An Illinois couple about to be married refused to stop their wedding when their minister was rushed to the hospital with severe leg cramps. Instead, they followed him to the...

PATH PLAN MAY DIM LIBESKIND'S TRIBUTE

EXCLUSIVE The design for a new permanent PATH station at Ground Zero makes significant changes to Daniel Libeskind's World Trade Center master plan by moving the terminal building northward to...

VILLAGE BABY JESUS IS KIDNAPPED

Some lout swiped Baby Jesus from his proud place in the center of a creche outside a Greenwich Village church. The abduction took place early Wednesday morning from the life-sized...

FENCE-ING MATCH AS SECURITY WALL BECOMES NEW TARGET

JERUSALEM - While 2003 was supposed to be the year of the road map to Mideast peace, 2004 looms as the Year of the Fence. The first day of the...

GRIME TAKES NO HOLIDAY IN TIMES SQ.

Just one day into 2004 - and already the city's set a new record for garbage. That what the city's sanitation workers claimed yesterday after they'd swept up a whopping...

HEAVY DUTY GUN BUST

Two dogged Harlem cops made the collar of the night early New Year's Day when they took down a 300-pound perp after a ferocious struggle - even though one officer...

HUBBY SUES FOR $45M IN DIVORCE 'FIX'

A man accused of trying to pay a middleman $10,000 to fix his divorce and custody case before an embattled Brooklyn judge has sued his wife for $45 million, saying...

AGONY OF BX. ARSON FAMILY

Anguished relatives who survived a Bronx arson blaze spent New Year's crying for justice and anxiously awaiting the return of a GI serving in Iraq whose wife was one of...

1ST HUNTER BUSH BAGS FIVE BIRDS

WASHINGTON - President Bush started the new year with an early-morning quail-hunt with his father at a friend's ranch in southern Texas and a lunch with James Baker III, his...

DINER BLAST AN OMINOUS SIGN AS TOLL HITS 8

WASHINGTON - The death toll climbed to eight as investigators said the New Year's terror bomb that hit a Baghdad restaurant seems a sure sign the guerrillas are now going...

L.I. HOOPS HORROR FRENCH HS STUDENT KILLED AS TEAM VAN CRASHES IN N.C.

A Long Island high school was in mourning yesterday after its basketball team's van went out of control while on its way to a game in North Carolina - flipping...

NYPD DAILY BLOTTER

Manhattan A woman was slashed across the face by a would-be purse snatcher as she walked on the Upper West Side near her home early yesterday. The 32-year-old victim was...

GLOBAL FLAIR HELPED BASKETBALL SQUAD CREATE 'NET' WORTH

In six short years, Our Savior New American School has carved out a place as one of the nation's high school basketball powerhouses. The school, which recruits players from Europe...

THE WETTING PARTY 'POLAR BEAR' BRIDE IN WRING CEREMONY

Here comes the brrrrrr-ide. That's what they were singing yesterday as Camille Camocha married her sweetheart, Phil Mouquinho, on the beach at Coney Island - then promptly dived into the...

RESTAURANT OWNER STABBED TO DEATH IN QUEENS APT.

A Manhattan restaurant owner was found brutally murdered in his Queens apartment yesterday - and police are eager to question his longtime roommate. George Rigos, 70, owner of the Silver...

COMRADES ARE UNLIKELY COMBATANTS

The two firefighters involved in a savage New Year's Eve beating both lived for their job, said friends and relatives who were shocked at the violence. Bob Walsh, 40, who...

FELONIOUS FIRST; CELEBRATIONS TURN TO MAYHEM

New Year's Eve turned into New Year's Evil as the city rang in 2004 with a horrifying series of shootings, stabbings, slashings and two murders. But incredibly, as a bloodbath...

IMMIGRANT COUPLE DIES IN CAR CRASH

A Russian immigrant couple who made the American dream come true died early yesterday when their car crashed into a crane in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn. Police believe...

BRAVEST ARE USUALLY QUIETEST

The Staten Island firehouse where violence broke out between firefighters is known as a sleepy FDNY outpost that is one of the least busy in the city - leaving the...

L.I. HOOPS HORROR; FRENCH HS STUDENT KILLED AS TEAM VAN CRASHES IN N.C.

A Long Island high school was in mourning yesterday after its basketball team's van went out of control on its way to a game in North Carolina - flipping over...

VICIOUS BLOW IN FDNY BRAWL: FIREMAN IN COMA AFTER CHAIR ATTACK

A New Year's Eve firehouse brawl left one Staten Island firefighter hospitalized with a broken jaw and serious head wounds and another behind bars, authorities said yesterday. Police and Fire...

RESTAURANT OWNER SLAIN IN QNS. APT.

A hard-working Manhattan restaurant owner was found brutally murdered in his Queens apartment yesterday - and police are eager to interview his longtime roommate. George Rigos, 70, owner of the...

B'KLYN DEATH CRASH; COUPLE'S SUCCESS TALE ENDS IN HORROR

A Russian immigrant couple who made the American dream come true died on their way home from a New Year's Eve party early yesterday, when their car crashed into a...

HEAVY DUTY BUST

Two dogged Harlem cops made the collar of the night early New Year's Day when they took down a 300-pound perp after a ferocious struggle - even though one officer...

ELDERLY MOM AND DOWN SON DEAD IN FIRE

An elderly Long Island woman died yesterday as she tried in vain to rescue her mentally disabled son from a house fire. Christine Matsil, 82, and her son David 54,...

CAR RAMS ELDERLY PEDESTRIAN

A Queens man was critically injured last night when a car hit him as he tried to cross a street. Angel Colon, 50, who lives in a nearby senior citizens...

MOM, 82, DOWN SON DIE IN FIRE

An elderly Long Island woman died yesterday trying in vain to rescue her mentally disabled son from a house fire. Christine Matsil, 82, and her son, David 54, were found...

VILLAGE BABY JESUS KIDNAPPED

Some lout swiped Baby Jesus from his proud place in the center of a creche outside a Greenwich Village church. The abduction took place early Wednesday morning from the life-sized...

DUNHAM CAN'T GET IT DONE

Blues 5Rangers 4 ST. LOUIS - It's games such as the one they played here last night that serve as a reminder of just how questionable the Rangers really are;...

HANG AROUND, 'CAUSE GREAT BOUTS ABOUND

SHOWTIME is launching its new strategy of presenting competitive boxing on the first Saturday of each month with this weekend's intriguing match-up between unbeaten champions. Brazil's Acelino Freitas (34-0, 31...

AHONEN'S EAGER FOR FIRST ACTION

WASHINGTON - Every sniff he gets of the NHL makes Ari Ahonen hungrier for his first bite. It has been four-plus years since the Devils drafted the Finnish goalie in...

NETS EAGER TO FACE LEBRON'S BRILLIANCE

Paul Silas kept waiting. The Cavaliers coach watched LeBron James handle the groaning weight of media attention and expectations daily. He watched James take each step toward NBA stardom. But...

MOOCHIE SET TO PICK UP THE PACE

KNICK NOTES When owner James Dolan fired GM Scott Layden, he talked about the Knicks being a "low-energy" club. New team president Isiah Thomas' first acquisition - point guard Moochie...

POINTING AHEAD ; SURGING KNICKS GREET NEW YEAR IN FLUX

It shouldn't be this way for a club on a four-game winning streak, a team that has blasted each of its last three opponents by 20 or more points. The...

TIGERS WANT RESPECT ; LSU LACKS NATIONAL REP

NEW ORLEANS - College football became a game of odd-man-out this December. Oklahoma didn't deserve to play for the national championship because it couldn't even win its conference. USC didn't...

WHITE SEEKING SECOND TROPHY

NEW ORLEANS - The Heisman Trophy sits on the mantel above the fireplace in Jason White's parents' house in Tuttle, Okla. His name isn't on the town's water tower yet,...

PURINTON FINALLY GETS A SHOT

ST. LOUIS - Horses for courses, so the saying goes, which, every bit as much as the problems Joel Bouchard experienced subbing for the injured Darius Kasparaitis in L.A. on...

ISIAH NO LAYDEN COPYCAT ; 'SPOON DEAL NOT THE LOSER IT FIRST SEEMS TO BE

MY initial reaction to Clarence Weatherspoon's transfer to the Rockets for Moochie Norris and John Amaechi is Scott Layden could have done that. Come to think of it, Layden's legacy...

DROOPY DEVILS COULD USE LIFT

Devils 2 Capitals 2 WASHINGTON - Making do won't do indefinitely. The defending Stanley Cup champs are missing their injured teammates. There was little fizz in the Devils' half-filled cup...

FIT PERFORMER ROLLS

Aqueduct's leading trainer, Rick Dutrow Jr., kicked off the New Year in style yesterday, sending out Fit Performer to capture New York's first stakes of 2004, the $75,000 Interborough Handicap....

GIANTS QUIZ PATRIOT DUO; JIM MEETS WITH 'SKINS

As the Giants were busy yesterday meeting with two New England assistants for their head coaching vacancy, Jim Fassel was in San Francisco speaking with the Redskins about their opening....

FOX ISN'T STAR-STRUCK : PANTHER COACH NOT ONE TO 'KISS THE RING' OF TUNA

He's heard it through the coaching grapevine that Bill Parcells respects the way he operates, likes his style. Word got to John Fox several years ago that Parcells, from afar,...