You might think flying business class is always about being fanned with palm leaves while flipping through books on golf, but sometimes there are real hardships going on behind that curtain, as Lynne Meadow, who makes $395,824 a year as artistic director of the non-profit Manhattan Theatre Club, discovered last August on a flight from Rome to New York on Continental Airlines. The Sun has it that Meadow (pictured) is now suing the airline after......

More troubles from the airline sector: United Airlines and Continental Airlines announced measures to cut costs through decreasing its workforces and total number of flights. This comes as other carriers have announced higher fares, less flights, and additional charges. United is not only eliminating another 1,100 jobs and cutting domestic flights by 14%, it's also ending its discount airline Ted (USA Today reports Ted's "56 Airbus A320s will be reconfigured with United First-class seats"). United's......

Nets 112, Bulls 103 (OT): Despite blowing a 15-point, lead the Nets managed to win their 2007-08 opener against the Bulls at home. Antoine Wright had 14 points in the fourth quarter and overtime. His supporting cast included Richard Jefferson (29 points and 10 rebounds) and Vince Carter (24 points). The Nets and the Bulls both hope to move to the top tier of Eastern Conference playoff teams, and Day 1 was encouraging for New......

Bookeaters Return! What started off as an excellent concert lineup just got better and better as the date approached. The additions of Spoon's Britt Daniel and Kevin Drew were a bonus treat. Music, reading and charity aside, perhaps the biggest wow moment was show headliner Jim James' new closely cropped haircut. The My Morning Jacket front man sheared his trademark Muppet locks since the last time we've seen him about. Not that it affected the......

29-year-old artist Jacob Thomas has been putting pen to paper since he was a child, planting the seeds for what would become a full-time career. Hailing from Maryland, he did a four-year stint in the Coast Guard, where his creative talents didn't go unnoticed. He was asked to paint interiors of ships and design logos and other artwork for them, which in turn helped spur his own creative impulses. After several years in Pittsburgh, he......

If you've got millions, does the Port Authority have a deal for you! The Port Authority is considering bids for naming rights to the bus terminal. And some companies might be interested, since it's in the hubbub of Times Square, even though some critics think people might be confused. But PA officials doubt that even the most ardent preservationists would bemoan the loss of "Port Authority Bus Terminal" from the cityscape. And money earned by......

This is not a good time for Newark Liberty Airport. First there was the TSA sting to see how well screeners would do with undercover agents traveling with 'bombs" and things (not well). And now there's a story about a pilot landing a plane on a taxiway instead of a runway. The Post reports that a Continental Airlines filght "touched down on a taxiway just to the north of the runway - only feet from......

...and words escape us. Okay, fine: It's really, really goofy, which is probably about right for a sports team ditty (remember Let's Go Mets?) Nets part-owner Jay-Z chose the song from over 700 submissions, which makes us wish the other songs had been made public. It's by Michael Barnes, a 22 year old from Manhattan, and this is what Jay-Z/his press statement said, "In 'Going Hard' M Bars completely captured the intensity of Nets Basketball......

The story of tabby cat Emily, who ended up far from her Wisconsin home when the cargo container she wandered into wound up in France, has captured the country, because it involves gracious airline service, something good with the French, and a fuzzy feline. When employees of Raflatac in Nancy, France found Emily dehydrated and probably extremely freaked out in a crate of paper bales, they used Emily's tags to call her veterinarian. Hooray for......

NYC 2012 released the design for the Olympics Stadium in Queens yesterday. It's at the point where New Yorkers will soon need a crib sheet of all the stadium plans being proposed: Brooklyn Nets Arena, new Yankee Stadium, even the old West Side Stadium. The proposed Olympics Stadium would be the new Shea Stadium, but expandable to fit 80,000 visitors. The NY Times makes the point that it's not "high-tech" looking like the West Side......

We couldn't help but notice the abundance of talented white male rockers invading NYC this week. New and old and originating from various corners of the Earth, the white boys of rock n' roll are invading. Let us be your guide. Last time they were here, they rocked NYC under the Brooklyn Bridge. The Irish international living rock n' roll legends, U2, are coming to a stadium near you. Tuesday and Wednesday at Continental Airlines......

God, Gothamist loves how our area airports are working with the heightened security alerts. Like having a supervisor wave through a woman and her scissors at Newark airport, even though scissors are items non grata. The incident happened in the wake of the heightened security alert (you know, maybe planes were going to head into Las Vegas), and when a supervisor allowed a female airport security guard to pass through with a wrapped manicure set.......