The local papers have weighed in and made the Mets' firing of manager Willie Randolph their number 1, 2 and 3 topics. Angry over how Randolph was fired (flying him all the way out to Los Angeles?!? And Omar Minaya claiming that the media speculation pushed him to fire Randolph?), yes, but the tabloids were probably angry over something else: The fact that the firing took place around midnight PST/3 a.m. ESt, which meant it was too late to get into yesterday papers! So today, it's all about the Mets....

The Post and Daily News gleefully put the old Gray Lady on their covers with the same headline--"The New York Climbs"--in the Times' headline font. The NY Times tucks mention of the pair of unrelated climbers, Alain Robert and Ray Clark, who scaled its building to the bottom of the front page. A year ago, the Post and Daily News didn't use the same headlines, but they did use the same cover and back......

The Post is doubling its weekday price to 50 cents. Why? It's the "result of increased production and transportation costs." The Post's owner, News Corp./Rupert Murdoch, first offered the tabloid for 25 cents in 2000. When the Post managed to surpass its archrival, the NY Daily News, in circulation in 2007, the Post went back on sale at 50 cents, but for only 10 days, leading Daily News editor Martin Dunn to say, "We did......

Earlier this week, it seemed all but certain that the Tribune Company would sell Long Island newspaper Newsday to the News Corporation. But given News Corp.'s ownership of the Post and Wall Street Journal, not to mention two NYC area TV stations (WNYW and WWOR), criticism of the potential deal has given Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman an argument why he's better suited to buy the paper. Zuckerman matched News Corp's $580 million bid and......

Newspapers all over the country are paying close attention to the stunning news that Governor Eliot Spitzer paid for a prostitute - and was apparently a regular client - to "visit" him from NY to DC. Our local papers all take a shot at the former crusading Attorney General who rode into the Governor's Mansion on a promise of reforming Albany. The Post calls him "NY's NAKED EMPEROR" and demands he should resign. After......

The shocking news of Heath Ledger's death in an SoHo apartment is front page news. The Post uses a lovely photograph of Ledger and ex-fiancee Michelle Williams while the Daily News uses a still from Brokeback Mountain. Both focus on drug-related cause of death, though the News emphasizes it more. Newsday gives more attention to the economy while placing news of Ledger's death in a sidebar (Newsday's readership is more Long Island-based). amNew York uses......

If there's one thing to warm up New Yorkers - and New York newspaper editors thinking about a holiday issue - today, it's the Giants' NFC Championship win over the Green Bay Packers. Let's look at how they touted the big win. The Post opts for quarterback Eli Manning on the cover and kicker Lawrence Tynes on the back sports cover. Points for puns on both headlines. The Daily News and Newsday both use the......

Gary Anthony Ramsay, the former NY1 reporter who was fired after calling into the station's live call-in show under a different name (to complain about former police commissioner Bernard Kerik), is weary. At least that's what he told blog Deep In the Heart of Brooklyn, in a long, breathtakingly soul-searching email. DITHOB's blogger, Brooklyn Beat, had previously wondered "Dude, Where's My Anchor" and someone purporting to be Gary Anthony Ramsay wrote back and gave the......

Sean L. McCarthy has got it made. Blogger of comedy for The NY Daily News, New York's Funniest Reporter , and he spends his nights hanging out with some of the funniest people in the world. A truly enviable position! What's his secret? How did he get to where he is? Gothamist wanted to know and found out! You recently won the Funniest Reporter competition. How'd you prepare? The New York Underground Comedy Festival......

Need to lose a few pounds? Try some pickles -- Drew Nieporent swears by them: "You should slice them the long way, so they last longer. I have lost 50 pounds in 100 days." [NY Daily News] Is your favorite chip on the list of those tested by the Times this week? Kettle Chips are the overall chip champ, but Ed Levine laments the omission of Cape Cod Dark Russets. [NYT; Serious Eats] In case......

Over 120 waiters from Sparks Steakhouse, both current and past employees, have been permitted to join a class-action lawsuit in federal court over money alleged to have been deducted illegally from tips. The plaintiffs' lawyer classified it as "the largest class-action ever against a restaurant." [NY Post] Pete Wells chimes in on the lobster roll legal battle between Rebecca Charles and Ed McFarland, and focuses for a moment on the fiduciary duty aspect of the......

PM Update: The jury has found Braunstein guilty of 14 of the 15 charges. He was acquitted of the arson charge (the fire he started in order to convince the victim to open up her apartment door as he posed as a firefighter). Earlier: Yesterday, the prosecution and defense gave closing statements in the Peter Braunstein trial. The Daily News succinctly sums it up as: "Is he fiend or nut job?" Lawyers for Braunstein do......

The strange Staten Island abduction of a 13-year-old boy twists again. The boy, who said he was taken at knife point while walking to catch a bus to school, had been handcuffed and stripped to his underwear in Brady's Pond, had told police he was attacked by someone he met on MySpace. Which is confusing, because the boy had originally said a stranger attacked him, but then police suspected there was another story. But now......

Newly anointed State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli may be a "nice guy" who finished first, but the State Legislature's dealings to put him in place makes our head spin. The Legislature, and more importantly the Assembly, had agreed to select someone an outside panel would find qualified. The thing is, no one on the shortlist was an Assembly member, so the Democratic-run Assembly which calls the shots in Comptroller selection, decided to pick Assemblyman DiNapoli......

The Staten Island mother of an 11 month old baby was arrested after she left her baby home alone so she could go drinking. Thirty-one year old Evelyn Graft was returning home in a livery cab from a night in Brooklyn. Graft told the driver she wanted to go home "as quickly as possible" because her baby was home alone. The Staten Island Advance reported that by the time the cab arrived at her New......

There's nothing like a NY Post vs. NY Daily News pissing match! Yesterday, the Audit Bureau of Circulations announced the latest circulation figures, the Post now has a daily circulation of 704,011 copies (a 5% increase over last year) while the News is at 693,382 (1% increase). This makes the NY Post the fifth largest paper in the country - even ahead of the Washington Post. And the Post wasted no time in proclaiming......

Mayor Bloomberg released the 2006 Fiscal Year Mayor's Management Report yesterday. The MMR is the Mayor's way of being accountable for city initiatives and agencies, and during the press conference, the Mayor felt that there was still work to be done, saying, "Two-thirds of the things are going in the right direction. A third aren't going as fast as I'd like, or in the right direction.": Like what? The quality of streets has declined (which......

Tales of voodoo and secret families are coming to light as police investigate the tragic drowning deaths of two Staten Island children, apparently at the hands of their father who then threw himself in front of a subway. After working a 3pm-11pm shift at a nursing home, Francoise Mercier found her 5 year old son and 2 year old son dead in a bathtub in their Daniel Low Terrace apartment at 11:40pm. A few hours......

An Independence Bank on East 86th Street was robbed of $2,470 in a day light heist by a twenty something couple. The male robber handed the teller a note saying he had a gun, intimated he had a gun in his clothes, and then got the money; his female accomplice, who wore a cloverleaf t-shirt and black leggings with flip-flops was the lookout. And when they got the money, they just walked away. The NY......

It's weeks before the start of summer, but start the alarmist drum roll now: The NY Daily News has found a station under the Brooklyn Bridge selling gas for $4.50 a gallon. Granted, that's for premium gas, but regular was a whopping $4.14 - which is practically like rental car agency pricing. The station's co-manager explained that its tanks are small, and therefore required more gas deliveries, which is really ironic to us. The average......

- As early subscribers to their email dispatches, we really enjoy the work done by our -ist based cousins at Thrillist. After today’s article in the NY Daily News about their “48 legit destinations, each serving 'til at least 3am on weekends”, we are inclined to love’em more. - In other welcome food news, AM New York is reporting on a St. Patrick’s Day opening for Trader Joe’s in Union Square. - Finally, in tangential......

Flu off the Shelves Only 18% of NY state docs have received their ordered supplies of flu vaccine, according to the NY Daily News. And as many as 38% have no vaccine at all. Smaller medical practices may be getting short-changed as larger chain stores are gobbling up the medicine. Catatonic Is your girlfriend's cat driving you crazy? It really might be. A DC area psychiatrist suggests that a parasite in kitty's litterbox may......

Proving that some subway stations are in a sad, vicious circle of getting worse and worse every year, the NY Daily News selected ten subway stations, with the help of readers, the NYC Transit Riders Council and the Straphangers, that are awful. Bad stations seem to be ones less frequented (five stations in the Bronx, two on the G, and the lone Manhattan station being the J, M, Z station on Bowery) and in poor......

A police officer who was fired for running an internet message board where officers could complain about the NYPD is now looking to take the NYPD to court. Edward Polstein, who had been on the force for 18 years, ran NYPD Rant, which, as Newsday put it, "can be at turns racist, raunchy, misogynistic and comical" as well as "offer unedited, first-hand accounts of what goes on behind the scenes in the NYPD." The Daily......

The two NY Daily News sponsored NYC spelling bee contestants didn't advance in yesterday's fourth round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Alexander Martin, a Dwight School eighth-grader, misspelled "dissilient" (it means "springing apart, specifically bursting open"; Martin spelled it "desilient") and seventh grader Rajdeep Chahal at MS 137 was stumped with "feuilleton" ("the part of a European newspaper devoted to light fiction, reviews, and articles of general entertainment"; Chahal spelled it "fuolyurtone"). Even though......

Though it was the Washington Post's biggest story, the NY media suckerpunched the Post by running the revelation that former FBI No. 2 man, Mark Felt, was Deep Throat, the shadowy informant who helped reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal the Watergate scandal. Felt, now 91, confessed after the urging of his family, catching Woodward and Bernstein off-guard (Woodstein probably were probably planning a book to be published as soon at Felt died). Gothamist,......

Sorry for the short notice, but Product Shop NYC says that the Rolling Stones will be performing a few songs outdoors at Juilliard/Lincoln Center, starting at 12:45PM, to celebrate the news of their new tour. Gothamist did see some tents being put up yesterday on the traverse over West 65th Street, but we thought it was a fundraiser or something. The NY Daily News has a field day with how old the Rolling Stones are......

Gothamist was wandering down Greenwich Street in TriBeCa when we passed pet store Dudley's Paw. After cooing over the adorable stuffed animals dogs in the window, we noticed a gumball machine filled with "Liver Biscotti Dog Treats." Gothamist was intrigued, but we chalked it up to being what happens when you've got dogs whose owners have gourmet tastes. But the Daily News thinks it's big news, talking to the creator Brad Wilkinson who said the......

Even more audacious than the Eldridge Street marijuana farm that was upstairs from a nursery school, it seems that the Gambino crime family had huge pot operation in Brooklyn and Queens near schools. The federal authorities busted the ring yesterday, and we think Newsday quote sums up the operation: "An organized crime operation that's produced high-quality marijuana since 1997 at a 100-acre upstate farm, a Bayside house and a Brooklyn warehouse outfitted with hydroponic troughs......

When it comes to sweets, candy gets no respect. In New York, grown-ups can--without embarrassment--satisfy their collective sweet tooth with high-end chocolates, beautiful wedding cakes (and trendy cupcakes), gourmet doughnuts, and Viennese pastries. But for those of us who still get cravings for good old-fashioned candy, is there a place for us in NYC? Gothamist had been wondering this for awhile. And when an old college friend came to visit last week to see The......