The Observer reports that the NY Times will announce later today "that it plans to cut the number of sections it has in the paper during some days of the week and it will fold in the Metro Section and Sports section into other sections of the newspaper." Sources tell the Observer, "the Metro Section is moving into the A-section and the Sports section will move into the Business section for some portion of the......

A longtime NY Times employee is suing the Gray Lady for not promoting him. Charles Cretella, who is, per the Post, "a part-time copy editor who's been with the Gray Lady since 1968," claims the company discriminated against him due to his age and sexual harassment allegations. Cretella was suspended for "inappropriate behavior towards a new hire," but Cretella says the hire was the inappropriate one. Cretella's lawsuit says, according to the Daily News, that......

Portfolio reports that the NY Times, in a conference call with analysts about second-quarter earnings, will be raising its newsstand price from $1.25 to $1.50 starting on August 18. It's unclear what the increase for the Sunday edition, currently priced at $4.50, will be ($4.75? $5.00?). The NY Times cut 1.5 inches from its print size last year and its stock has been suffering. Also in the world of the broadsheet, the WSJ is raising......

The Drudge Report says Senator John McCain submitted an op-ed to the NY Times, hoping for some equal time as Senator Barack Obama's "Plan for Iraq" was published last week, but the Times turned it down. Apparently NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley emailed the McCain campaign, "It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written."......

Photoshop skills are necessary in the bitter cable news wars. TV Newser noticed how Fox & Friends responded to a Saturday NY Times article about the Fox News Channel's ratings--specifically how CNN and MSNBC have been able to make gains on Fox's leadership position. Pointing out that Times editor Steve Reddicliffe might be bitter about not getting paid $750,000 to edit News Corp.-owned TV Guide anymore, Fox & Friends' Steve Doocy said, "[Steinberg] is essentially......

In case you missed it, Jerry Seinfeld eulogized the recently-deceased comedian George Carlin in a Times Op-Ed today: "He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. He made you sorry you ever thought you wanted to be a comedian. He was like a train hobo with a chicken bone. When he was done there was nothing left for anybody."......

Last week the NY Times' House & Garden section took a look at the mysteries planted by an architect in a ritzy Fifth Avenue apartment. This week, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report that Paramount has purchased the rights to the article for a feature to be produced by J.J. Abrams. Writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky have already been hired to adapt the piece into a film. Times reporter Penelope Green told the story......

Last week the LES gentrification piece in New York magazine circa 1984 began circulating again, and now a look back to October 6th, 1985 when the NY Times published an article titled "If You're Thinking of Living In; The East Village." Ah, a time when buyers bargain shopped for run-down buildings in the now pricey neighborhood, seeking out "maximum space for minimal outlay." Even today residents are echoing the "Die Yuppie Scum" sentiment around the......

How does someone find out that his son is the second person climbing the New York Times Building in one day? Apparently when the Daily News calls. Renaldo Clarke Sr., a retired Con Ed worker, had been watching the footage of the guy scaling the side of the new Eighth Avenue skyscraper but didn't realize it was his son until the tabloid informed him. From the News: Told the climber was his son, Clarke,......

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 NY Times treats us to a trend piece, sounding off the alarms of a newsflash: ambitious young people subsist on low incomes in NYC! Some choice quotes are sprinkled throughout:“For a little while I only ate grapefruits for my lunch because they have a lot of nutrients and they got me through the day.”“If I shop, I can’t have a social life and I can’t eat.”Before moving from San Francisco last fall, Ms. Werkheiser......

It's one thing to write about investors unhappy with your boss's business decisions. It's another, probably more awkward thing to write about his separation from his wife! Which is probably by the a short article reporting the separation of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his wife, artist Gail Gregg is unbylined (well, it's says "By THE NEW YORK TIMES") . Sulzberger, also chairman of the NY Times Company, and Gregg, both 56, issued this......

The charges have been dropped against the two men who were arrested for trying to cash a dead man’s $355 social security check. Back in January, David Daloia and James O'Hare made headlines with their foiled scheme to capitalize on O’Hare’s roommate’s death by pushing his corpse in an office chair up to a Pay-O-Matic check cashing joint in Hell’s Kitchen. They were arrested en route after a detective spotted the visibly deceased third man.......

Newsweek has a feature on Rupert Murdoch and his desire to take on the NY Times with his new purchase, the Wall Street Journal. But more interesting for media watchers might be the end of the fourth paragraph, where Newsweek reports:"The fight could escalate in unknown ways if billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ends up acquiring the Times. As NEWSWEEK has learned, top associates of the onetime information executive are encouraging him to do......

Dith Pran, the New York Times photographer whose survival of Cambodia's "killing fields" was turned into a movie, died at age 65 in NJ. Dith had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in recent years. The NY Times obituary details how Dith "scraped and scrambled to survive the barbarous revolutionary regime of the Khmer Rouge" in the 1970s. Dith worked as a translator with then-NY Times reporter Sydney Shanberg and taught himself how to take photographs.......

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......

A 29-year-old woman scheduled to testify in a kidnapping case today was possibly thrown from a Harlem building yesterday morning. Joy Blackman, who was a witness to a kidnapping and was also a witness against her accused rapist in a separate case, was found dead in an alleyway at 145 West 145th Street. The building's roof alarm had been triggered between 1:15 a.m. and 2:15 a.m., Newsday reports no one seemed to check the roof.......

Yesterday, some neighborhoods were dealing with the aftermath of rains and 60 mph winds that swept through their neighborhoods. And luckily the casualties were mostly cars and trees, as WCBS 2 shows, though there were some power outages (downed power lines). The huge tree that fell in Corona (lower photos) actually hit three cars: The NY Times found that it landed on the Farez family's 1996 GMC Safari - purchased just four months ago......

The scandal around the memoir-turned- fake-recalled- from-bookstores memoir Love and Consequences continues to embarrass the book publishing industry. Writer Margaret Jones, who told her publisher she was a half-white, half-Native American raised by a black foster family in South Central L.A. and former Bloods gang member, was exposed as Margaret Seltzer, white private school graduate from Sherman Oaks, California. Her real (white) sister called the publisher Riverhead Books after reading a lengthy NY Times feature......

Photograph of Clinton, holding the hands of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and celebrating in Ohio, by Mark Duncan/AP Fresh off her big night of wins in Ohio and Texas, Hillary Clinton spoke on CBS's Early Show and mentioned the words "dream ticket" in relation to the heated Democratic presidential race. Harry Smith told Clinton, "We talked to a lot of people in Ohio who said there really isn't that......

There are some residual delays on Metro-North this morning after yesterday's East Harlem building collapse that led to the suspension of all service in and out of Grand Central. The trains' speed restrictions were lifted at 6:30 a.m. and there may be 5-10 delays. A crowd formed in Grand Central as commuters waited out the suspension or devised alternate routes to get home as the New Haven, Hudson and Harlem lines were all down. But......

After his $500,000 donation to NY State Republicans was revealed, Mayor Bloomberg explained why he did it to reporters while attending a Mayors Against Illegal Guns conference, "I've said repeatedly, I will help those who help us. They have stood up for the city a number of times — when we needed to have a voice in Albany and we didn't have that voice from the Assembly or from the governor, whether it was the......

Today's big Texas primary, the Post has delivered a cover with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as old West gunslingers. And since Obama's hand in on his gun, it makes sense the headline for the story is, "Barack Goes For Hill Kill." (Obama believes in gun control, though he backed a law allowing retired cops to carry concealed weapons). At any rate, in spite of Obama leading and her campaign desperate for wins in Texas......

The Bronx DA's office says an 83-year-old engineer lied about using steel in a building that caught fire and collapsed and left two firefighters dead in 2006. Jose Vargas, who pleaded not guilty, was arraigned in court yesterday. The three-alarm fire broke out at a 99-cent store on Walton Avenue on August 27, 2006; the building's roof and first floor collapsed, killing Lieutenant Howard Carpluk Jr. and firefighter Michael Reilly. Vargas, who signed inspection papers......

Team Obama can breathe a sigh of relief, they officially got the Russell Simmons endorsement. From a letter sent out this weekend, Simmons declared:Today I am announcing my personal endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States. During the last nine months, I have closely observed the presidential campaigns, analyzed the issues and platforms of the major candidates, and have had substantive discussions with Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. From the sidelines......

As details continue to emerge about the plot to fake a baby's abandonment in Queens, the fate of the baby has remained questionable. Now the Administration for Children's Services say the 14-year-old mother, who may not have known about the plot, may get the 6-month-old baby back. An ACS spokeswoman said, "The child has the right to be raised by the parent." The Post reports the mother, Yelemer Cosme Perez, is in ACS custody while......

Thank you, NY Times, for updating us on the activities of George Elmer Pataki. Although Pataki has been out of politics, he still spent $1.4 million from his political action committee on "Broadway theater tickets, gatherings at the Yale Club and payments to political loyalists and advisers." Now, Pataki's PAC was formed in Virginia, which has, according to the NY Times, "no limits on contributions" and a "light regulatory touch in terms of spending." A......

Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, who has spent many months (if not years) hinting about his boss's presidential ambitions, is still stirring the pot of rumors. Last night on NY1's Inside City Hall, Sheekey, "promoted the idea of an Obama-Bloomberg presidential ticket." Sheekey revealed that after Bloomberg's official announcement/NY Times op-ed about not running for president, Barack Obama had a chat with the billionaire mayor:"Certainly you could joke that Obama's call was a fundraising call yesterday.......

After the city was moved by the story of a baby abandoned in the backseat of a livery cab and how the driver dropped off the baby at a fire house, prompting the police and media to look for the baby's relatives, it turns out the livery cab driver was involved in the abandonment scheme. Driver Klever Sailema was arrested today, as were another man and woman. Oh, no. According to the police, "Sailema was......

Images from WNBC and WABC The police are looking for a man suspected of stabbing two Key Food employees, one of whom died at a hospital two hours after the afternoon attack. Other employees at the East Village store say James Gonzalez, a part-time maintenance worker, stabbed ex-girlfriend Tina Negron with a 10-inch knife, because he was upset over their breakup. Negron had been in the elevated manager's booth when Gonzalez apparently attacked. Bookkeeper......