Last week's special election to fill the vacated 30th Council District seat was a close one and suggested that Republican Anthony Como won. Como had led Democrat Elizabeth Crowley by 70 votes; an official announcement of the winner will be made this week, after the Board of Elections counts hundreds of absentee ballots and certifies the findings. Still, there are rumors that the election may have prompted the feds to take a closer look. Queens......

Perhaps realizing he's best received as a leader in a time of crisis and disarray--and no stranger to cheating on his wife while in public office--former Mayor Rudy Giuliani may offer himself as a candidate for governor in the case Governor David Paterson has to step down. Paterson was ushered abruptly into office after revelations of Eliot Spitzer's consorting with literal, rather than political and figurative, whores. In his first two weeks in office, Paterson......

Dennis Gallagher, the married City Councilman representing Queens who was accused of raping a constituent in a drunken encounter last year, announced his planned resignation after pleading guilty to sexual abuse and forcible touching. Last summer, a 52-year-old woman alleged that she met Gallagher at a bar in Queens and after a night of drinking went with the Councilman to his district office, where he raped her. Gallagher's office was searched by police and DNA......