May 24, 2004
REFCO NEAR DEAL - T.H. LEE LIKELY TO PAY $500M TO CONTROL BROKER
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThomas H. Lee Partners is nearing a deal to buy a majority stake in Refco Group, the world's largest independent retail futures brokerage, The Post has learned. The Boston-based buyout...
SITT CLAN BUYS GALLERY BLDG.
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe Sitt family has purchased the nine-story New York Gallery Building at 24 W. 57th St. for $40.7 million. Barry Sitt and his sons Eddie, Ralph, David and Jack closed...
SWAN-DERFUL TIME AT ABT
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amAMERICAN BALLET THEATERMetropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, Broadway at 65th Street. (212) 362-6000. Season runs through July 3. SO - is everybody going to love "Raymonda"? It's a key question...
WHO? ONE FOR THE AGES
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amTHE WHO IN "My Generation" one of the greatest stuttering songs in rock, tongue-tied Roger Daltry stumbles into the line "Hope I d-d-die before I g-g- get old" and if...
ALL IN THE ATTITUDE - 'IDOLS' CHANGE STRATEGY MIDWAY
May 24, 2004 | 4:00am'AMERICAN Idol" finalist Fantasia Barrino confessed yesterday that she had a mid-season change of heart - and stopped talking back to the judges. The talkative Barrino said yesterday - on...
'ABSOLUTELY' EVERYTHING
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amABSOLUTELY FASCINATINGAt the 59E59 Theater, 59 E. 59th St. TicketCentral, (212) 279-4200. Through June 13. THERE'S "Absolutely Fabulous" - and then there's "Absolutely Fascinating," the new revue by the British...
'BOY' HAS A TOUCH OF THE POET
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amBOYAt Primary Stages, 354 W. 45th St. Through June 27. Call Ticket Central, (212) 279-4200. 'BOY" is a poetic, slightly incoherent mood piece about a mysterious 17-year-old Iowa boy and...
STARR REPORT
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amCurtis controversy WABC's (770 AM) Curtis Sliwa, assaulted in 1992 in a taxi at St. Mark's Place, is naming names in an interview with Ch. 11's Mary Murphy airing tonight...
COMEDY CLASSIC - 'RAYMOND' FINALE LEAVES US LAUGHING FOR ANOTHER SEASON
May 24, 2004 | 4:00am"Everybody Loves Raymond" [****] (Four stars) Tonight at 9 on CBS/Ch. 2 TONIGHT, eight seasons of "Raymond" gets boiled down to 14 minutes. And the result is a scene that...
GREAT SEX SECRETS - SIZZLING TIPS FROM AN UNFLAPPABLE GRANDMOTHER; LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX!
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amSEX, sex, sex - it's all Sue Johanson ever talks about. The funny thing is, we're listening. Taller than Dr. Ruth but just as blunt, the fiesty Canadian grandmother is...
POLS LOOKING TO ABANDON SINKING LEADERSHIP
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amANGRY state lawmakers are beginning to talk about ousting their increasingly ineffective bosses: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Silver and Bruno are being criticized by...
GIRL'S HOSP DRAMA - $2M FOR CRIPPLING ERROR
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amXi Yu's American dream was supposed to be short and sweet - come here for heart surgery and return to China a playful little girl. What she got was a...
DIVINE CLEANUP - $40M RESTORATION FOR FIRE-HIT CATHEDRAL
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amSome 2 ½ years after a devastating fire ripped through The Cathedral of St. John the Divine - burning priceless tapestries and spewing smoke and soot into its gothic interior...
WEIRD BUT TRUE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe developer of million-dollar homes in Fort Lauderdale took a neighbor to court to try to stop her from hanging her laundry outside to dry. "I'm sure if you bought...
DOG TO RESCUE AS DANGLING WORKERS FACE DEATH
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amGive this dog a bone! Boogey Baby, a 19-month-old Rottweiler, saved the day for two men after their scaffold collapsed, leaving them dangling high above a Harlem street yesterday. Only...
NEW FDR DETOUR 'REALLY CONFUSING'
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA temporary road built over the East River to clear the way for repairs on the FDR Drive got off to an uneventful start over the weekend - but its...
'SHREK' WRECKS 'TROY'
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amIt got ugly at the box office this weekend as "Shrek 2" pulverized the competition - raking in an astounding $125.3 million in just five days. The highly anticipated sequel...
MILITARY DENIED A REPORT YESTERDAY THAT THE TOP U.S. GENERAL IN IRAQ WAS IN BAGHDAD'S ABU GHRAIB PRISON ...
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe military denied a report yesterday that the top U.S. general in Iraq was in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison when some of the detainee abuse took place. The Washington Post...
BERSERK PAL ATTACKS LADY COP: POLICE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amAn off-duty New York City cop was viciously attacked yesterday by a pal who pushed her down a flight of stairs, grabbed her gun and fired it in the air,...
LET ME DEBATE CIA CHIEF: CHALABI
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amWASHINGTON - Ahmad Chalabi insisted yesterday he's innocent of spying accusations, and challenged the White House to let him testify before Congress alongside CIA Director George Tenet. Chalabi insisted that...
HILL PLAYS NICE WITH 'ENEMIES'
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amWASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admitted yesterday that some of the strident Republican-bashing in her past is just politics. Clinton - asked about her famous accusation that a "vast...
VANISHED INTO THIN AIR - COPS STYMIED IN HUNT FOR JUILLIARD GAL
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amPolice have used helicopters and bloodhounds to search for missing Juilliard student Sarah Fox, but the whereabouts of the young upper Manhattan woman remained a mystery yesterday. Cops "don't have...
PLAY IT AIN'T SO! B'WAY STRIKE EYED
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe Great White Way could go dark next month - Broadway actors and stage managers are mulling a possible strike. Negotiations on a new contract between Actors' Equity and the...
SILVER TARNISHED IN CAR-RENT SCANDAL
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amALBANY - Car-rental giant Avis repeatedly gave Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver special discounts while it was lobbying the Legislature to change industry laws, The Post has learned. Secret testimony and...
BRIDGE MARCH FOR GAY NUPS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThousands of activists, gay couples and community groups walked across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday in support of same-sex marriages. Marriage Equality, a national organization that promotes same-sex civil marriage, organized...
MACY'S SUICIDAL 'THIEF' NEAR DEATH
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amAn alleged shoplifter who tried to hang himself in a holding cell in Macy's department store was near death yesterday, cops said. David Gonzalez, 26, was nabbed Saturday by security...
JUILLIARD MYSTERY DEEPENS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amPolice have used helicopters and bloodhounds to search for missing Juilliard student Sarah Fox, but the whereabouts of the young upper Manhattan woman remained a mystery yesterday. Cops "don't have...
SIXTH AVE. VICTIM MOURNED - 3,000 SPILL OVER ONTO QNS. STREET
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe funeral of slain Diamond District jeweler Eduard Nektalov stopped traffic on Queens Boulevard yesterday morning, as the thousands who could not fit inside the chapel were left to mourn...
THOUSANDS MARCH TO HAIL ISRAEL
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amTens of thousands of people marched yesterday in the Salute to Israel Parade - which drew rival groups of protesters as tensions in the Middle East spilled onto Fifth Avenue....
NYPD DAILY BLOTTER
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amTHE BRONX * A teen was stabbed and critically injured yesterday during a botched robbery in Throgs Neck, police said The 18-year-old victim and a friend had just picked up...
BUSH'S BRUISING BIKE RIDE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amOuch! That's gotta hurt, Mr. President! No, the nation's commander-in-chief didn't get into a fistfight with Oval Office contender John Kerry. Rather, he suffered some nasty cuts and bruises to...
DYING QNS. BOUNCER HELPS COPS FIND KILLER
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe tragic court officer gunned down while moonlighting as a bar bouncer in Queens managed to give cops crucial details of his killer moments before dying, a source said yesterday....
PUNKS BAT-BEAT WRONG GUY: COPS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA group of Queens teenagers mistook an innocent man for someone they'd been brawling with earlier, and critically injured him in a baseball bat attack, police sources said yesterday. Fernando...
TEENS HURT IN UPSTATE BUS CRASH
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA bus filled with Hasidic girls on their way home from a weekend in the Catskills rolled over on an upstate road early yesterday, seriously injuring several, sources said. At...
SLAIN MAN IDS KILLER - DYING BOUNCER SPOKE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe court officer who was gunned down while moonlighting as a bar bouncer in Queens managed to give cops crucial details about his killer just moments before dying, a source...
HASIDIC GIRLS HURT IN UPSTATE BUS CRASH
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA bus filled with Hasidic girls on their way home from an upstate religious retreat crashed through a guardrail and flipped over into a creek, seriously injuring several of the...
NOW REALTY MARKET IS TRULY HOT - EX-MODEL, 19, A POWER PLAYER
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amMeet New York's youngest real-estate mogul. Nineteen-year-old Anna Anisimova, a Russian-born heiress and former teen model, is renting socialite Denise Rich's sprawling Southampton mansion for $550,000 - the highest price...
FATAL 'BRAVERY' - TRAGIC GIRL, 7, WAS 'KNEELING' ON RIDE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amSeven-year-old Stephanie Dieudonne may have fallen to her death from a ride because she acted "a little [too] brave," an amusement-park official said yesterday as family members mourned the "happy-go-lucky"...
TEEN IN FATAL AIR-SHAFT PLUNGE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA Harlem teenager died yesterday after apparently falling six stories down an air shift in his apartment building, police said. Arturo Anastacio, 17, was likely on the roof of the...
U.S. SEIZES ARMS CACHE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amU.S. forces launched their first incursion into the center of the holy Iraqi city of Kufa yesterday, raiding a mosque, seizing a weapons cache and killing 32 fighters loyal to...
SUBWAY KILLS DISABLED MAN
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA deaf and mentally disabled man who wandered away from a group home was killed yesterday by a subway train in Manhattan, a police source said. The man, whose name...
TERROR THREATS KO MADONNA
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amMadonna reportedly axed three concerts in Israel after terrorists sent letters threatening to kill her and her children. The singer, who has recently become a high-profile devotee of the mystic...
$26M IS A MOB PIPE DREAM: DA
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA Brooklyn plumbing family with reputed links to the mob is trying to preserve its Sopranos-like lifestyle by inventing a $26 million fortune, the district attorney charges in new court...
UNEASY PEACE IN SHELTER WAR
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amTHE Battle of Carroll Gardens moved into its second act last week, when someone spotted a tricycle on a lawn. Then an Asian woman was spotted carrying a baby through...
CAPO'S GOTTI GRIPES - SAYS BOSS KO'D PLEA DEAL
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA high-ranking Gambino mobster is boldly blaming reputed boss Peter Gotti for his legal woes, The Post has learned. Capo Anthony "Sonny" Ciccone says in court papers that Gotti's brother,...
HEY, WAIT A '2ND' - SHOPS IN SUBWAY'S PATH FACE EVICTION
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amLetters have been sent out to businesses along the Upper East Side, warning them that their properties "may be impacted" to make room for the long-awaited Second Avenue Subway, officials...
TRAINING WRECKS - STATE HITS SHAM TRADE SCHOOLS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amState education officials have cracked down on 56 shady and unlicensed trade schools - many for ripping off or misleading customers, records obtained by The Post show. And those are...
'TIARA SCAMMER' A TRIPLET
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amPretend princess Antoinette Lisa Millard did grow up a celebrity - as a triplet. With her sisters, Rosemarie-Lori and Sadie Lynn Millard, Antoinette was well known in her hometown of...
MORE CITY PARENTS SLAPPED WITH 'ED. NEGLECT' RAPS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amSome parents flunk, too - for not sending their kids to school. School officials and other whistleblowers have leveled 41,000 "educational neglect" charges against city parents the past three years...
BLOOMBERG TAPS FIRMS TO SET PROBLEM KIDS STRAIGHT
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amMayor Bloomberg is hiring a network of privately run firms to help turn around the city's most violent and disruptive students in 48 "second-chance" schools - including recently released jailbirds,...
MAYOR HITS BACK OVER FIRE DEATHS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amMayor Bloomberg yesterday dismissed criticism that his closing of two Brooklyn firehouses might have contributed to the deaths of four people - including two children - in a Williamsburg blaze....
QNS. PUNKS BAT-BEAT THE WRONG GUY: COPS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amA group of Queens teenagers mistook an innocent man for someone they'd been brawling with earlier, and critically injured him in a vicious baseball bat attack, police sources said yesterday....
ASSAULT AT TEEN STAR'S L.I. HOME
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amCops rushed to the Long Island home of teen "Mean Girls" star Lindsay Lohan last night after one of her relatives was assaulted by another family member and had to...
CELEBRITY HAS ITS PRICE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amTHERE are two sides to every sad story. Last month, after Jayson Williams beat the most punitive raps in his manslaughter trial, the court of public opinion, despite the conviction...
NO. 9 BUMMER FOR YANG
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThe 346-yard, par-4 No. 9 hole at Wykagyl Country Club presented no golfer with more problems this weekend than Young-A Yang, who carded scores of a par on Thursday, triple-bogey...
SPORTS SHRINK: JETER JUST FINE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amARLINGTON - A top psychologist puts absolutely no stock in Derek Jeter's sickly .190 average being related to Jeter stressing over the attention Alex Rodriguez is receiving or A-Rod making...
LOFTON CENTER OF LINEUP PLANS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amYANKEE NOTES ARLINGTON - As long as Jason Giambi is out of the lineup, Joe Torre planned on giving Kenny Lofton his first extended stretch of playing time as a...
CAMERON NOT KEEN ON IDEA OF DL
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amDespite the fact doctors have told Mike Cameron that his injured finger will improve only with surgery, not with rest, Art Howe broached the idea of giving the center fielder...
ELENA COMES UP BIG
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amLiberty 68 - Comets 62 She's shelved her 3-point shot and replaced it with hooks and short jumpers. She's become the leading rebounder on a team bereft on big people....
HOWE'S JUGGLING ACT - LEITER DL STINT INSPIRES PITCHING SHUFFLE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amMET NOTES Al Leiter hopes to be back in the rotation a week from Tuesday. For now, Tyler Yates is out of the rotation. "We feel good about the way...
'SHEED TALKS TOUGH - AGAIN VOWS GAME 2 WIN
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amINDIANAPOLIS - The words were different but the message was the same from the Pistons' Rasheed Wallace. In case anyone didn't hear him after Saturday's 78-74 loss to the Pacers...
PACERS' JOHNSON: I COULD HAVE HELPED NETS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amINDIANAPOLIS - Anthony Johnson, the former Nets point guard who helped them get to two Finals as Jason Kidd's caddie, believes Nets brass has egg on its face for putting...
BIG HIT A FEATHER IN PELLOW'S CAP
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amJoe Wallis and Benny DiStefano, meet Kit Pellow, the latest batter to break up a Mets' no-hitter. With two outs in the eighth inning yesterday, Pellow joined DiStefano and Wallis...
ENRIQUE IS A-OK - WILSON'S BAT BUOYS YANKS
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amYankees 8 - Rangers 3 ARLINGTON - Try as they might, even the Yankees can't have an All Star at every position. That's why Enrique Wilson and Miguel Cairo, a...
HAMMON TAKES OVER
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amThree times in yesterday's final six minutes, Becky Hammon barreled down the lane, flipped an arm-avoiding shot toward the rim, and watched it tumble through. Three times, she punctuated the...
SHERRI BURIES SLUMP
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amSherri Steinhauer battled many of the same demons we all face on the golf course in the last two years of her long and illustrious career. The 41-year-old just didn't...
GOAL-DEN MOMENT - MEMORY OF MATTEAU'S MAGIC LASTS OVER TIME
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amCAN it be 10 years? Rangers fans aged 10 years watching one game. The toughest tightrope walk in the team's history ended in its most famous goal, 24:24 into overtime,...
'SMARTY' FOES THINKING TWICE
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amIn the wake of Purge's runaway victory over several Belmont Stakes candidates in Saturday's Peter Pan Stakes, the prospective field for the June 5 "Test of the Champion," when Smarty...
BECKY DRIVES LIBERTY TO WIN
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amLiberty 68 - Comets 62 Three times during the final six minutes yesterday, Becky Hammon barreled down the lane, flipped an arm-avoiding shot toward the rim, and watched the ball...
NOTHING TO IT - SEAVER: METS WILL TOSS NO-NO
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amTom Seaver doesn't know when, but he says one day the Mets will throw a no-hitter. "I would presume," said Seaver, the Met who has come the closest, moments after...
METS GET MONEY'S WORTH
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amKAZ Matsui is outperforming Derek Jeter, Braden Looper is easier on the stomach than Armando Benitez and - even with all the strikeouts - Mike Cameron is a far better...
ROCKY END FOR TOM G-RIFFIC - GLAVINE NEAR-PERFECT IN 27TH AMAZIN' ONE-HITTER
May 24, 2004 | 4:00amMets 4 - Rockies 0 The ball was carrying back, back, back over Shane Spencer's head, and Tom Glavine had no visible reaction. After 7 2/3 innings of near-perfection on...