December 22, 2007
Early Box Office: 'War' Casualty, Reilly, Butler Tank as 'Saint' Nick, Depp, 'Juno' Triumph
The presence of Hollywood's two most beloved Oscar winners of recent years -- Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts -- and an emphasis on farce didn't innoculate Mike Nichols' "Charlie Wilson's...
HOLIDAY ARTY
THEY say there's no time like the present. But during that harried haze we call the holidays, there's no present like time - time to do something more entertaining than...
GREENCHRISTMAS
From Rockefeller Center to Barneys, Christmas celebrations everywhere are going green. Between shopping, wrapping, decorating and celebrating, the holidays can be a pretty wasteful time. Give Mother Nature some love...
HAVE A ROCKIN' RECESS
AFTER the presents are unwrapped (and the stinkers exchanged), plenty of school-free hours remain, just waiting to be fi lled. Luckily, boredom isn't hard to keep at bay in the...
SPECIAL DELIVERY
FINALLY - a Christmas special just like the ones I used to know. It's tomorrow night's "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" on ABC, and it's from the "Sesame Street" gang - so...
DAVE, WGA STILL TALKING
DAVID Letterman can't return to the air with his writers - yet. Yesterday's meeting in L.A. between Rob Burnett, presi-dent/CEO of Letterman's Worldwide Pants, and Writers Guild officials resulted in...
BRUNO BAGS OUTSIDE JOB WITH FINANCE FIRM
ALBANY - Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno revealed yesterday he had severed his ties to Connecticut-based Wright Investors' Services, where he has been a paid consultant for the past 12...
MIKE SLAMS GOV OVER JAVITS FLOP
Mayor Bloomberg suggested yesterday that delays caused by the Spitzer administration's lengthy review of the Javits Center's expansion plan contributed to the skyrocketing costs that killed the project. "The delay...
BIZ-ETHICS OK JUST WHAT THE DOCTOROFF ORDERED
The city's Conflicts of Interest Board yesterday issued a waiver allowing Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff to continue working on two major city projects - even though they involve a developer...
MTA'S 'FAIL' LINES
The E, G and C trains have egg on their faces. The three lines tied for the lowest scores ever given on New York City Transit's Rider Report Card with...
THUGS STICK UP GRANNY & TOT
Two fiends burst into an Upper West Side apartment yesterday holding a grandmother, a 1-year-old and his babysitter at gunpoint while they ransacked the place, police said. The men first...
'FINALLY JUSTICE'
In a bombshell decision, an appellate court yesterday overturned the controversial murder convictions of a Long Island man who has spent 17 years in prison for the grisly slayings of...
HEAT'S ON 'BOASTING' HOODLUM
The man that Martin Tankleff's legal team claims really bludgeoned his parents to death that tragic September evening in 1988 is a career criminal who has allegedly been heard bragging...
HOW MARTY GOT PINNED A KILLER
Marty Tankleff got up early on the morning of Sept. 7, 1988, for what was supposed to be the first day of his senior year in high school. It was...
'BETTER' RUDY HEADS FOR NH
Two days after being hospitalized with flu-like symptoms, a recharged Rudy Giuliani pronounced himself in good enough shape to hit the campaign trail again. "I feel better," the former mayor...
LESS-GIFTED GUY: WHY I WAITED TILL NOW
Every year around holiday time, you see them wandering crowded shopping malls: men who waited until the last minute to buy gifts for their wives and girlfriends. The Post caught...
WRAPPING UP AT 11TH HOUR
Delinquent holiday shoppers and rabid bargain hunters looking for 11th-hour deals will flood area stores today, kicking off what has traditionally been one of the big gest shopping week ends...
RACE-SLAY JURY HUNG ON TOP RAP
Jurors weighing the fate of a black Long Island man charged with shooting a white teen to death during a 2006 confrontation told the court yesterday that they were "hopelessly...
JINGLE HAUL THE WAY
An armed gang hijacked a FedEx 18-wheeler as it left a West Side warehouse with a load that included jewelry and luxury goods - but the bungling crooks abandoned it...
GOV PARDONS EX-CON
ALBANY - Gov. Spitzer issued his first pardon yesterday, sparing a Brooklyn man convicted of the 1989 robbery of a Long Island payroll company from being deported to his native...
SISTERS ARE MOWED DOWN
Two young siblings miraculously survived after being struck by a runaway car last night as they were returning to their Brooklyn home with their mother, police said. The unidentified sisters,...
YOU MONSTER!
The grieving mother of an NYPD officer allegedly gunned down by her cop fiancé in their Long Island home tearfully said he "destroyed my family" as he was finally charged...
LUCHESE MOB WIFE IS 'MOLL'IFIED
The wife and high-school sweetheart of a jailed Luchese mobster remains loyal to her man despite his alleged recent affair with a hotshot Hollywood producer. Rosanna Perna, 34, at her...
BODEGA RAMPAGE
A lovers' quarrel ended in bloodshed outside a Bronx bodega yesterday when a scorned boyfriend shot and killed the woman who dumped him and then wounded two others, including her...
PUTIN ON THE RITZ FOR $40B
Vladimir Putin secretly amassed $40 billion - and his departure next year as Russia's president has touched off a war among Kremlin insiders to preserve their share of the loot,...
BORAT BURIED & ALI G-ONE
Borat Sagdiyev, the misogynistic, anti-Semitic Kazakhstan journalist whose wacky 2006 movie exposé on American culture was a runaway box-office smash, died yesterday at age 35. The cause of death is...
NORRIS KICK$ INTERNET MOCKER
Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He sues. Norris has pummeled an upstart Brown University student with a federal lawsuit for poking fun at the aging action star on a pair of...
HILL'S NO WINNER: OBAMA
DES MOINES - Barack Obama yesterday ridiculed Hillary Rodham Clinton's charge that she is the candidate most able to win, pointing out almost half of people surveyed don't have a...
CONDI CLUCKS AT W.-RIPPING HUCK
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday dismissed as "simply ludicrous" the harsh criticism of the Bush administration from GOP White House hopeful Mike Huckabee. Making rare comments on...
WRITE ON, MA SPEARS
Her underage daughter is pregnant and her adult daughter spent the last year shaving her head and losing her kids, but that isn't stopping a publisher from moving forward with...
REMY RAPPED IN $80M SUIT
Greedy record labels are to blame for rap diva Remy Ma's violent streak and her attempt to gun down a pal, the victim alleges in an $80 million lawsuit filed...
SATELLITE DISH OUT OF SHEA
Here's one Mets tribute that's out of this world. Long Island astronaut Mike Massimino, here with Mike Good, holds up home plate from Shea Stadium that he plans to take...
NYPD DAILY BLOTTER
QUEENS A trio of thieves - including a mother and son - was busted moments after they broke into a Far Rockaway home, authorities said yesterday. Witnesses told cops they...
LOTTERY RESULTS
NEW YORK Midday Nos. Fri.: 636; Lucky Sum: 15 / Midday Win-4 Fri.: 2614; Lucky Sum: 13 / Evening Nos. Fri.: 845; Lucky Sum: 17; Evening Win-4 Fri.: 4131; Lucky...
A STEP FORWARD IN IRAQ
An uncertain chapter opened in Iraq this week, as British forces officially ceded control of Iraq's oil-rich southern province of Basra to the country's fledgling security services. What comes next...
LET BASEBALL FIX ITSELF
Congress plans another round of star- studded public hearings next month on the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs by Major League Baseball players. But former Sen. George Mitchell, whose explosive...
GIVE HIM A MEDAL
JOSE A. Rodriguez Jr. is the man, according to recent press reports, who ordered the destruction of interrogation tapes made by the CIA. These allegedly show the effects of waterboarding...
HILL'S CAMP BLAMES BILL
SUPPORTERS of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy are privately blam ing aggressive campaigning by Bill Clin ton for her recent decline in Iowa's pre-caucus polls. In their opinion, the former...
HEROES REWARDED
When I asked Ralph Peters to "get off his butt and come to San Antonio," I did not expect five columns about the wounded warriors at Fort Sam Houston and...
LIEBERMAN & MCCAIN: FREEDOM-LOVING PATRIOTS
If Sen. Joe Lieberman cared about terrorism and national security enough to endorse Sen. John McCain for president, then why doesn't he care enough to cross the aisle, caucus with...
RESCUE NOT NEEDED
The multi-bank attempt to purge the capital markets of billions of dollars worth of busted bonds is being flushed itself. The three banks that put together the bailout fund -...
EARNINGS OUTAGE HITS CIRCUIT CITY'S SHARES
Shares of Circuit City nose-dived nearly 29 percent yesterday - its steepest decline in more than five years - after the struggling electronics chain shocked investors with a big quarterly...
MATALIN TO PUBLISH ROVE MEMOIR
Karl Rove, the former top adviser to President George W. Bush, has opted to have his memoir published by Threshold, a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster that's led by...
CERBERUS VICTORIOUS
Hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management, run by secretive billionaire Stephen Feinberg, won a heated lawsuit in a Delaware court yesterday that allows it to walk away from its $7 billion...
SPORTS SHORTS
NFL: Taylor suspect deal? In Miami, the attorney for one of the four suspects charged with killing Redskins star Sean Taylor said he is talking with prosecutors about a plea...
JINTS LOOKING TO REIGN IN WEATHER
If the Giants truly wanted to leave no stone unturned and ratchet up their preparation to obsessive levels, they needed to practice this past week outside on their field turf...
JACOBS CAN BE A GIANT WATER BUFFALO
WHEN the weather outside is frightful, it would be a terrific idea to just give the damn ball to your frightful running back. Eli Manning will be slinging in the...
NO SHOCK: SMITH WANTS TO STEP UP
Today in Charlotte, N.C., tight end Jeremy Shockey undergoes surgery to repair his fractured left fibula. Tomorrow in Buffalo, the Giants face the Bills in need of someone to pick...
LEON THE 'GREAT'
Leon Washington turned all of those punishment laps as a rookie into a personal victory lap yesterday. Washington's teammates on the Jets voted him the winner of the club's Curtis...
KELLEN BETTER, BUT CHAD STILL LIKELY STARTER
Kellen Clemens threw deeper and more fluidly yesterday than he had all week, but Chad Pennington still appears likely to start at quarterback for the Jets tomorrow at Tennessee. Clemens,...
ISIAH & CO. DOG IT AGAINST CATS
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Four years and 200 losses. Happy anniversary, Isiah Thomas. Not! The 200th loss in Thomas' sorry Knick stint was perfectly appropriate, with the Knicks playing the same...
MARBURY FILES GRIEVANCE OVER FINE
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Stephon Marbury, away from the Knicks indefinitely, has filed a grievance with the league over his $195,000 fine for missing a game last month in Phoenix after...
TENSION BOILS BETWEEN 'Q' AND HIS COACH
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Isiah Thomas' quick third-quarter hook of Quentin Richardson led to a wild bench altercation that illustrated the mounting frustration and chaos of Team Titanic II. Just 1:26...
NETS BUILD NEW HOPES
Maybe the win in Miami was the building block game for the Nets. Like the first win against Cleveland. Oh, wait. They lost to the Knicks after that to start...
EX-YANK BYRNE DIES AT 87
When Tommy Byrne is buried in North Carolina on Thursday, the left-handed pitcher who was also a solid hitter will have a Yankees cap on his head. "Being a Yankee...
JUST AN OVERSIGHT
A day after one of the leaders of a House oversight committee said no players would be invited to hearings next month, the chief of staff for the chairman of...
KNICKS ON KOBE BRYANT'S SHORT LIST
Amid the darkness and hopelessness of the Knicks' season came a purple ray of light when Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant revealed today that New York's troubled franchise is on his...
WEIRD BUT TRUE
A man shopping for a pair of size-10 sneakers was stunned when he found $5,200 in cash stuffed into a black Reebok at a Florida mall store. The Vero Beach...
Happy anniversary, Isiah
By MARC BERMANCHARLOTTE - Isiah Thomas celebrates his four-year anniversary running the Knicks on Saturday. Asked to reflect on the four years, this is what Isiah could have said."Obviously, I'm...