News

New Measures Raise Privacy Concerns

By Jennifer Grogan

When high-profile entertainers, business executives and politicians exercise, they want the latest equipment and the best trainers. Most of all, they want an escape from the masses. For a mere $23,500 a year, they can go to the VIP section of the Equinox Fitness Club in Manhattan, which uses the latest technology to ensure their privacy.

A Text Messaging Campaign Tries To Get Young People To Vote

By Rebekah Dryden

Text the word “vote” from a cell phone to 75444 and you’ll get this reply: “Thx! Now txt back ur addr 2 get ur voter reg form.” Welcome to voter registration in the tech-savvy world of Gen Y. Two former web execs are harnessing an up-to-the-minute social tool—the text message—to lure young people into civic participation.

By Don Winter

Mayor Bloomberg is a Republican. He is not a die-hard Republican who is loyal to the party first and to his beliefs second. Instead he is a man who has faith in his own beliefs and trusts in his own life experiences, without having to wait for the brain trust of the party apparatus to tell him what to do.

By Mike McPhate

Conspiracy theories were running wild in East Harlem the other night.

Residents had gathered in an auditorium to discuss the fate of their local hospital, the Metropolitan. Speakers told the largely black and Spanish-speaking crowd that white businessmen are meeting in clandestine boardrooms to decide whether to shut the hospital down. They described a nefarious plan by Governor Pataki to close the state’s most needed medical facilities. Hollering and swaying like a gospel congregation, the crowd vowed to fight.

By Mike McPhate

John Spencer, who hopes New Yorkers might one day call him senator, last week became the guy who called Hillary Clinton ugly.

Spencer mocked Senator Clinton’s face as a young woman, saying "You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," the New York Daily News reported. "I don't know why Bill married her."

By Meaghan Dolan

The attorney general seat hasn’t exactly stirred hearts and minds in recent years. The 2002 election didn’t generate much action with incumbent Eliot Spitzer easily rolling over Republican nominee Judge Dora Irizarry with 66 percent of the vote. But this year, with Spitzer moving on to pursue the governor’s seat, it’s a hotly contested race.

By Mike McPhate

Alan Hevesi is struggling to recover from a sudden political beating.

The incumbent comptroller had seemed assured of victory against his little known Republican rival Christopher Callaghan. He seldom gave interviews and declined to attend a debate.

By Mike McPhate

Faso—The Lone Ranger Who Wants To Be Governor
John Faso sees himself as a lone warrior fighting for good in a lazy and unethical world.

In his 16 years in the state assembly, the Republican candidate for governor often fought alone. He once cast the only vote against a seemingly unassailable bill which proponents said would ensure men and women equal pay for equal work. The problem, said Faso, was no one bothered to read beyond the title.