Now that his fake-girlfriend nightmare is over, NFL prospect Manti Te’o scouts a squad of leggy cheerleaders in Atlantic City.
The Notre Dame linebacker was accepting the Maxwell Award and Chuck Bednarik Award as last year’s top player. At Friday’s ceremony, he dodged questions about his online romance with a terminally ill girl that was revealed to be a hoax.
WireImage
Jack Dorsey wanted to base his tech start-up, Square, in New York City — but he was in a hurry.
The 36-year-old Twitter co-founder said he changed his plan and based the payments platform in San Francisco because access to engineering talent was easier out West — and he wanted to build Square quickly.
Dorsey, a New York University dropout, made the comments at the school alongside his longtime investor Fred Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, who was chosen to be an early backer of Twitter because of his Big Apple moxie.
“He’s got that New York aggression,” Dorsey said of Wilson. “In Silicon Valley you have a lot of passive aggression.”
That attitude gave Wilson’s Union Square Ventures a leg up in its bid to invest in Twitter, he said.
The two were the featured event at NYU’s Entrepreneurs Festival, which runs through this weekend.
Twitter, which turns seven this month, is a $10 billion company likely headed for a public offering. Four-year-old Square raised $200 million last year at a more than $3 billion valuation.
John Paulson is moving against MetroPCS.
The hedge-fund billionaire, whose Paulson & Co. hedge fund is the biggest shareholder of the wireless carrier, said yesterday he intends to vote against the proposed sale to T-Mobile.
“MetroPCS is contributing 42 percent to the pro forma company’s value but its shareholders are only receiving 26 percent of the pro forma company’s equity,” the firm said.
Paulson’s opposition throws the success of the deal into doubt.
T-Mobile, America’s fourth-largest carrier, has reached a deal to buy 74 percent of pre-paid leader MetroPCS in a stock and cash transaction.
The March 28 vote by shareholders is expected to be close, said a source.
Private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, which in 2005 bought into MetroPCS and owns an 8.3 percent stake, supports the merger.
Paulson & Co., in a letter, said, “We believe that as an independent company MetroPCS will be able to pursue a higher value transaction with industry peers than previously made offers at significant premiums to MetroPCS’ current [$9.80] share price.
The hedge fund could be alluding to Sprint, which has been rumored to be interested in the company — but sources with direct knowledge of the situation said Sprint has no present plans to make a counter-proposal.
jkosman@nypost.com
Federal prosecutors charged a Long Island man with insider trading yesterday after he supposedly sold an advance earnings report to an undercover FBI agent for $7,000.
Damian Perna, 30, who works at Merrill Lynch, obtained draft earnings reports for several publicly traded firms before they were released, according to charges.
Perna, who lives in Oceanside, joined forces with unidentified cohorts and used the illegal information to make a series of trades from June 2011 through last October, said US Attorney Loretta Lynch.
Officials emphasized that Perna’s alleged misconduct took place before he worked at Merrill Lynch.
Getty Images
Loretta Lynch
Perna pleaded not guilty at a hearing yesterday.
Prosecutors told the judge that Perna had advance reports for Consolidated Graphics, Miller Industries and the Alamo Group — each listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Magistrate Judge Ramon Reyes released Perna on $100,000 bond.
mmaddux@nypost.com
It’s the MTA’s most reliable service — constant fare hikes.
The transit agency will increase fares for the fourth time in five years this weekend, infuriating fed-up riders who are now searching for cheaper ways to get around town.
The hikes will send the cost of a monthly MetroCard to $112. At this time in 2008, the same card cost just $76.
That’s an incredible 47 percent increase in five years.
“I might invest in a bicycle,” said Steven Syrek, a 34-year old Ph.D. student who lives on the Upper West Side.
“After three months of not buying a MetroCard, I could afford a bike.”
He would, however, miss one subway benefit.
“I couldn’t read during my [two-wheel] commute,” he said.
Bean counters at the always-broke agency said they plan to hike fares every other year to make ends meet.
This year alone, said MTA officials, the agency needs the hikes to fill a $382 million budget gap.
Some straphangers said they’ll try to work from home to save on commuting costs.
“With the fare hike, I’ll try to avoid the subways as much as possible,” said Crown Heights, Brooklyn, resident Aliya Barnwell, 30, who rides the 4 train.
She’s even considering upgrading her current bicycle to a more rugged model to use during the winter.
“I’d rather make an investment than pay the MTA more,” she said.
The first wave of hikes kicks in on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Friday, when fares will increase by up to 9.3 percent.
“I’m mad about it but what can I do?” said physical-therapy student Joanna Esteves, who travels from Mineola to Penn Station on the LIRR.
“I can’t stop going to school,” she said.
To compensate, she’s considering opting for a less expensive iPad data plan, which should save her about $20 a month.
Also, “I think I won’t be able to eat out as much,” she said.
Anyone with an unlimited-ride MetroCard purchased before Sunday must activate it by March 10 to obtain the full value.
The MTA will also hike fares in 2015 — bringing in another $500 million.
Officials say they desperately need the money to pay for fixed costs, like soaring pensions and employee-health care.
jennifer.fermino@nypost.com
Legless Olympian Oscar Pistorius, possibly facing life in the slammer for killing his model girlfriend, told cops yesterday that he’ll soon be on the “run.”
The “Blade Runner” disclosed to South African authorities that he’ll resume training while he’s out on bail for the Valentine’s Day shooting of Reeva Steenkamp.
It was the first time Pistorius, 26, had to check in at a police precinct. The terms of his $113,000 bail package say he has to do so twice weekly.
“It’s his wish to continue to practice,” said James Smalberger, a Pretoria corrections official.
Pistorius’ spokeswoman, however, denied that the athlete wanted to resume racing on his world-famous prosthetic limbs.
“Absolutely not,” said Janine Hills.
“He is currently in mourning, and his focus is not on his sports.”
Andrea Peyser
He’s ringmaster in the Circus of the Damned.
Dr. Drew Pinsky is the nation’s leading huckster for celebrity addicts — the go-to guy for almost-famous faces lost to liquor, sex, ecstasy and crack.
Since 2008, Dr. Drew has glammed up and tarted up B- and Z-list celebs on his hit VH1 show, “Celebrity Rehab” — renamed “Rehab” last fall so as not to exclude folks who’ve yet to make it big by falling on their faces. He’s turned addiction from an affliction to a wise career move.
From Tiger Woods’ Bimbo in Chief Rachel Uchitel — self-diagnosed as addicted to inappropriate men — to plastic-surgery enthusiast Janice Dickinson, no life is too trivial or sad to exploit.
ABC via Getty Images
Dr. Drew and Mindy McCready
Thanks to the good doc, feeling powerless in the face of drugs or, who knows, compulsive, naked tweeting, are not weaknesses. He’s done more to make addiction look hip and trendy since stoned rocker Jimi Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit in 1970 at age 27.
Eight days ago, Dr. Drew lost it. With the passing of country singer and “Rehab” alum Mindy McCready (pictured with him), who died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, folks suspicious of the Rehab Industrial Complex are taking a dim look at Dr. Drew.
It’s about time.
“I think ‘Dr’ Drew Pinsky should change his name to Kevorkian. Same results,” singer Richard Marx tweeted the day McCready died Feb. 17, referring to the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who helped terminally ill patients off themselves.
Marx backed off the next morning. Sort of. “I went too far with the Kevorkian crack.” Then he continued to lay blame at Dr. Drew’s feet. “It is, however, my opinion that what Dr. D does is exploitation and his TV track record is not good.”
“Dr. Drew has lost another one,’’ was the reaction to McCready’s death from Eugene Kovar, grandfather of dead “Rehab” player Joey Kovar.
Five of Dr. Drew’s “Rehab” stars have, to date, succumbed to their demons, including actor Jeff Conaway and Rodney King. Three have died from the 2009 season alone — rocker Mike Starr of Alice in Chains was lost to a drug overdose in 2011, “Real World” star Kovar died in August from opiate intoxication, and McCready. Dr. Drew diagnosed her on the show as suffering from “love addiction.”
This is serious?
Dr. Drew is no killer. But he has reason to fail. He sits at the epicenter of the multibillion-dollar addiction industry, whose existence depends on the relapses of people he’s trying to cure.
“Whenever a celeb overdoses or has an addiction problem, buy Drew Pinsky stock. It’s good for his brand,” said Michael Levine, a Hollywood publicist and author who says he likes and respects the doctor.
Can you ace this Academy lesson?
Winners 1927-1977
Winners 1978-2012
In honor of the 85th AcademyAwards, airing tonight at 7on ABC, British graphic artist Olly Mosswas commissioned to design this puzzle poster of every Best Picture winner.
Each film is represented by an Oscar statuette tailored toaplot point or actor’s performance. We’ll give you this one to start: last year’s winner was “TheArtist,” the silent film represented here in black-and-white.
“The hardest one was ‘Gentleman’s Agreement.’Wenever heardof themovie,” explains Jensen Karp, co-curator of the California-based Gallery 1988, which oversawthe project.
“Agreement” stars Gregory Peck as a reporter who pretends to be Jewish in order to cover a story on anti-Semitism. We’ll leave you to figureout how the film is represented—and the year it won.
What will fill in the 2012 Oscar statue? The nine best picture nominees are “Lincoln,” “Lifeof Pi,” “ZeroDarkThirty,” “Amour,” “Argo,” “Les Miserables,” “Silver LiningsPlaybook,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “DjangoUnchained.”We’re scared what an Osama bin Laden Oscar might look like.
If you’re stumped by the statuettes, the answers are:
1927-28: “Wings”; 1928-29: “The Broadway Melody”; 1929-30: “All Quiet on the Western Front”; 1930-31: “Cimarron”; 1931-32: “Grand Hotel”; 1932-33: “Cavalcade”; 1934: “It Happened One Night”; 1935: “Mutiny on the Bounty”; 1936: “The Great Ziegfeld”; 1937: “The Life of Emile Zola”; 1938: “You Can’t Take It With You”; 1939: “Gone With The Wind”; 1940: “Rebecca”; 1941: “How Green Was My Valley”; 1942: “Mrs. Miniver”; 1943: “Casablanca”; 1944: “Going My Way”; 1945: “The Lost Weekend”; 1946: “The Best Years of Our Lives”; 1947: “Gentleman’s Agreement”; 1948: “Hamlet”; 1949: “All the King’s Men”; 1950: “All About Eve”; 1951: “An American in Paris”; 1952: “The Greatest Show on Earth”; 1953: “From Here to Eternity”; 1954: “On The Waterfront”; 1955: “Marty”; 1956: “Around the World in 80 Days”; 1957: “The Bridge On The River Kwai”; 1958: “Gigi”; 1959: “Ben-Hur”; 1960: “The Apartment”; 1961: “West Side Story”; 1962: “Lawrence of Arabia”; 1963: “Tom Jones”; 1964: “My Fair Lady”; 1965: “The Sound of Music”; 1966: “A Man for All Seasons”; 1967: “ In the Heat of the Night”; 1968: “Oliver!”; 1969: “Midnight Cowboy”; 1970: “Patton”; 1971: “The French Connection”; 1972: “The Godfather”; 1973: “The Sting”; 1974: “The Godfather Part II”; 1975: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”; 1976: “Rocky”; 1977: “Annie Hall”; 1978: “The Deer Hunter”; 1979: “Kramer vs. Kramer”; 1980: “Ordinary People”; 1981: “Chariots of Fire”; 1982: “Gandhi”; 1983: “Terms of Endearment”; 1984: “Amadeus”; 1985: “Out of Africa”; 1986: “Platoon”; 1987: “The Last Emperor”; 1988: “Rain Man”; 1989: “Driving Miss Daisy”; 1990: “Dances with Wolves”; 1991: “The Silence of the Lambs”; 1992: “Unforgiven”; 1993: “Schindler’s List”; 1994: Forrest Gump”; 1995: “Braveheart”; 1996: “The English Patient”; 1997: “Titanic”; 1998: “Shakespeare in Love”; 1999: “American Beauty”; 2000: “Gladiator”; 2001: “A Beautiful Mind”; 2002: “Chicago”; 2003: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”; 2004: “Million Dollar Baby”; 2005: “Crash”; 2006: “The Departed”; 2007: “No Country for Old Men”; 2008: “Slumdog Millionaire”; 2009: “The Hurt Locker”; 2010: “The King’s Speech”; 2011: “The Artist.”
With five days to go before Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the Vatican is being rocked by an explosive report that he decided to quit after learning of a network of influential gay prelates who were being blackmailed by gay outsiders.
The revelation stems from Benedict’s ordering a committee of three cardinals to investigate the unauthorized release to journalists of Vatican papers — the “Vati-leaks” scandal — and to make the findings for his eyes only.
Ironically, the two-volume, red-leather-bound cardinals’ report running nearly 300 pages was itself leaked.
Reuters
SACRILEGIOUS:Pope Benedict XVI commissioned a probe that unearthed evidence of gay clergy members within the Vatican being blackmailed by gay laity.
Italy’s leading newspaper, La Repubblica, reported this week that the report was turned over to Benedict on Dec. 17 and he decided that day to resign.
The cardinals questioned dozens of Vatican officials and concluded the Holy See was corrupted by rival factions.
“Everything revolves around the non-observance of the Sixth and Seventh Commandments,” the report said, according to La Repubblica.
That’s a reference to “Thou shall not steal” — for the alleged pilfering of the Vatican bank — and “Thou shall not commit adultery,” which alludes to homosexuality.
La Repubblica added that members of one faction were “united by sexual orientation.”
“Some prelates are ‘externally influenced’ — we would say blackmailed — by laity who are linked by bonds of a ‘worldly nature,’ ” the paper said.
A similar report appeared in Italy’s news weekly Panorama, which named a Roman sauna where gay encounters allegedly took place.
Other Italian news media reported that Benedict was shocked by the findings.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi had indicated the pope may meet with the cardinals who compiled the document before he steps down next Thursday.
The newspaper La Stampa said Benedict was considering handing the report to the College of Cardinals when they begin their conclave to choose his successor.
Lombardi yesterday rebuffed efforts to get official reaction to the media reports.
One of the three cardinals who investigated Vati-leaks, Julian Herranz, hinted at the findings.
“There will be black sheep, like in all families,” he told El Pais.
ALBANY — As if sports fans don’t already pay enough to see their beloved Yankees, Knicks and Rangers.
They’d have to dig a little deeper into their pockets to go to games under a bill a Brooklyn Democrat is promoting.
State Assemblyman Nick Perry’s legislation authorizes the city to slap a 25-cent fee on every ticket to a sporting event worth more than $4, with the money going to finance youth sports and recreation programs.
“I believe that constructive recreational activities as a part of the school curriculum are extremely important in the development of a student,” said Perry, who called existing program funding inadequate.
State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long called Perry’s bill misguided.
“New Yorkers have already been nickeled and dimed to death,” Long said. “It’s already too expensive to live here. It’s already too expensive to attend sporting events. And I don’t trust any bureaucrats not to raid the fund when they have a shortfall.”
Game-day tickets for Yankee Stadium range from $15 to more than $300.
ekriss@nypost.com
AFP/Getty Images
Detective Hilton Botha, the lead investigator in the case against Olympian Oscar Pistorius, faces attempted murder charges in a 2011 shooting, police said.
PRETORIA, South Africa — South African police say the lead investigator in the case against Olympian Oscar Pistorius faces attempted murder charges in an October 2011 shooting.
Police Brig. Neville Malila said Thursday that detective Hilton Botha is scheduled to appear in court in May on seven counts of attempted murder. Malila says Botha and two other police officers fired shots while trying to stop a mini-van in the incident.
On Wednesday, the prosecution case against Pistorius began to unravel with revelations of a series of police blunders and Botha's admission that authorities have no evidence challenging the double-amputee Olympian's claim he killed his girlfriend accidentally. Pistorius faces a charge of premeditated murder.
You know things are bad when you go to Afghanistan looking for relief.
That’s what Sen. Bob Menendez did when he set off on a visit in the thick of headlines about FBI investigations, influence-peddling and hookers. Little could he have known that his host in Kabul — Afghan President Hamid Karzai — would use their meeting to chide the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the bad example the United States is setting with regard to corruption.
But that’s just what happened. A tweet from The Washington Post’s Ernesto Londono reported that the embattled New Jersey senator got a “lecture about corruption from Karzai.” Another tweet, this one from an AP reporter, said “Karzai really laid into Sen. Menendez,”
Reuters
Hamid Karzai
In a word, yowza. Afghanistan is arguably the most crooked nation on earth, and the Karzais are its first family of corruption. Hamid’s brothers have been implicated in theft, bank fraud, drug-running and more. So getting lectured by Karzai on corruption is like being lectured on urban planning by Godzilla.
Surely it’s noteworthy that, as a connoisseur of corruption, Karzai seems to see its mark in Menendez. Innocent until proven guilty, we say — but if anyone can hold his own with a shameless president of Afghanistan, we expect it would be a senator from New Jersey.
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An NYPD sergeant was arrested yesterday for watching child pornography online, cops said.
Alberto Randazzo, 36, of Queens, was charged with use of a child in a sexual performance, promoting sexual performance by a child and possessing a sexual performance by a child.
Cops wouldn’t say if the arrest came after an ongoing probe.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After backlash from customers, the producer of Maker’s Mark bourbon is reversing a decision to cut the amount of alcohol in bottles of its famous bourbon.
Maker’s Mark COO Rob Samuels yesterday said the company would maintain the alcohol volume of its product at 45 percent, or 90 proof.
Last week, it said it was lowering the amount to 42 percent, or 84 proof, because of a supply shortage.
The brand has struggled to keep up with demand. Distribution has been squeezed, and the brand had to curtail shipments to some overseas markets.
In a tweet yesterday, the company said: “You spoke. We listened.”
Mayoral candidate and former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr. tried to pull strings in the Democratic Party to get his wife a judgeship before ditching the party, sources told The Post.
Carrión, 51, solicited a Civil Court nomination for his wife, attorney Linda Baldwin, 49, from key Bronx Democrats early last year, party insiders said.
But the bid failed.
“Just because he was borough president doesn’t mean we should support her,” said a party insider.
Carrión never revealed to his Democratic colleagues at the time that he was about to become a turncoat and seek the Republican line in the 2013 mayor race.
The Bronx Democratic County Committee nominated Eddie McShan, who won election to Civil Court.
Baldwin did not enter the primary after the chilly reception Carrión received from Bronx Dems, the insiders said.
In early November, Carrión announced his switch to the Independence Party, which allows him to run on the Independence and Republican lines.
Carrión served as borough president as a Democrat, leaving office in 2009 to become President Obama’s first White House urban affairs czar. Baldwin, a registered Democrat, took a post with the Department of Justice in 2009.
Carrión’s campaign called the claims “petty, pointless, political gossip that you would expect as Mr. Carrión’s groundbreaking independent candidacy for mayor continues to gain broad support.”
cgiove@nypost.com
Benny Avni
Mere hours after North Korea seemingly carried out an underground nuclear test Tuesday morning, our UN ambassador, Susan Rice, vowed to take “swift” and “significant action” against Pyongyang’s rogue regime at the Security Council.
To bolster her efforts, new Secretary of State John Kerry picked up the phone Wednesday to consult with his counterparts in all relevant capitals.
Well, almost all: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was unavailable, apparently too busy.
After the phone sessions, Kerry announced, “The international community now needs to come together with a swift and clear, strong, credible response.” And added, “What our response is with respect to this will have an impact on all other nonproliferation efforts,” including Iran’s.
REUTERS
The most bizarre personality cult ever: North Korean synchronized swimmers perform at a celebration on the birthday of late leader Kim Jong-il.
So Turtle Bay diplomats are sharpening their resolution-drafting pencils, as higher-ups in Washington, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and (when available) Moscow work to coordinate the response to the latest provocation by “Dear Respected” Kim Jong-un. (“Dear Respected” is the regime’s term for the new tyrant, after “Dear Leader” for his dad and “Eternal Leader” for his grandpop.)
Expect the council to impose a new set of sanctions soon. As Rice vowed Tuesday, the council “will not only tighten the existing measures, but we aim to augment the sanctions regime.”
But what does the tough talk mean?
The United Nations has already sanctioned pretty much everything that moves in Pyongyang. The best it’ll be able to do now is add new hard-to-pronounce names to its sanction lists and designate more North Korean banks and companies (which change names faster than UN bureaucrats can identify their designation) for embargo. Oh, and maybe add more materials of possible use to North Korea’s nuclear programs to the no-commerce lists.
Later, America and others may follow by adding some names to our own additional-sanctions lists.
All this may slow down North Korea somewhat. But very little of Pyongyang’s business with the outside world is done formally (or legally). Instead, it deals with other sanctioned regimes, like Iran’s, and with rogue Russian, Pakistani and other nuclear and ballistic technicians.
This kind of shadowy business is financed by bagfuls of cash, rather than banking systems. To seriously limit it, America and its allies have to aggressively intercept deliveries of illicit materials and funds.
The good news: Such interceptions are largely already authorized by past UN resolutions. Also, the Bush administration created a treaty, the Proliferation Security Initiative, which authorizes its nearly 100 members (including Russia) to search and seize vessels suspected of illicitly proliferating WMD-related items.
The bad news: China isn’t a PSI member and it takes its Security Council obligations quite lightly. Aircrafts carrying nuclear- and missile-related items between, say, Iran and North Korea feel quite safe flying through Chinese airspace, where they’re virtually immune from interception.
So even if America and our allies manage to hermetically seal traffic at sea (a huge if, when our president compares costly aircraft carriers to “horses and bayonets”), North Korea and its partners in crime can safely do business via air and land.
Beijing, you see, would rather ignore the behavior of Pyongyang’s erratic and ever-annoying regime — even as Kim tests a nuclear device mere 62 miles away from the Chinese border — than let it collapse. And this calculation seems to stand despite Beijing’s recent change, with Xi Jinping now Communist Party chairman.
So no amount of “international community” pressure is going to impress young Kim.
To start changing the equation, America must signal to Xi that the West can no longer live with it. Start by talking publicly and often about the need to rid the world of its most evil regime and to reunify the Korean peninsula. Mr. Kim, tear down this DMZ!
But for that, much more than mere “consultation with allies” will be needed.
Unless America shows bold leadership in the current crisis, President Obama’s “global zero” dreams of a nuclear-free world will (as Kerry so astutely observed) quickly turn into a nightmare world, filled with nuclear-empowered rogues.
Twitter: @bennyavni
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Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat who at 89 is the Senate’s oldest member, said yesterday he will not seek re-election next year to a sixth term.
His decision opens a clearer path to the seat for Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2014.
Before Lautenberg had announced his intentions, Booker said he would seek the seat.
Ads by Lautenberg, a self-made multimillionaire businessman who became a leading liberal voice in the Senate, offered no reason for his decision to retire from Congress but vowed to keep working for constituents until his term ends in January 2015.
Getty Images
'Sen. Lautenberg has been a strong model of leadership and service to me.' — Cory Booker after Frank Lautenberg (above) said yesterday he wouldn’t seek re-election
Getty Images
Cory Booker
“This is not the end of anything, but rather the beginning of a two-year mission to pass new gun-safety laws, protect children from toxic chemicals, and create more opportunities for working families in New Jersey,” he said in a statement.
Booker, 43, is a rising star in the Democratic Party, known as much for his rescue of a woman from her burning home last year as he is for running a city troubled by high crime and unemployment.
Booker announced he would explore running for Lautenberg’s seat in December, then filed papers in January, drawing criticism from Lautenberg supporters who suggested the mayor should focus on his own struggling city.
“Senator Lautenberg has been a strong model of leadership and service to me since before I even considered entering elected office,” Booker said in a statement after Lautenberg’s announcement. “I look forward to continuing to work with him for the remainder of his term in the Senate and for many years to come.”
A survey by Public Policy Polling released last November found most New Jersey Democratic voters wanted to see Lautenberg retire at the end of his term rather than seek re-election.
The same survey found Booker leading the pack of potential Democratic candidates for the Senate seat, with six in 10 voters saying they want to see him run.
Lautenberg was first elected to the Senate in 1982, after incumbent Democrat Harrison Williams quit in a bribery scandal.
Lautenberg had retired from the Senate in 2000, but returned to win his seat again in 2002 after successor Robert Torricelli became embroiled in a corruption scandal. saying he was tired of chasing campaign contributions. But in 2002 he came out of political retirement at age 78, again helping the Democrats retain a seat after Senator Robert Torricelli dropped his re-election bid amid corruption charges involving improper gifts from a businessman.
He was last re-elected in 2008 at age 84.
The World War Two veteran was a co-founder, former chairman and chief executive of the payroll services company Automatic Data Processing.
Booker, a former Rhodes Scholar, burst on the political scene with a failed attempt to unseat entrenched Newark Mayor Sharpe James in 2002. Booker succeeded in ousting James in 2006.
One of the first public figures to understand the significance of social media, Booker uses Twitter incessantly to field questions about potholes, talk about policy and disseminate inspirational quotes.
More than a quarter of Newark’s residents still live in poverty. Critics say that as his national profile has soared, he has failed to grapple with problems in his city.
He contemplated a possible gubernatorial run against Republican Gov. Chris Christie, a powerhouse with high poll numbers, but opted instead for Lautenberg’s seat, forcing the elder statesman’s hand.
“This is still a Democratic state and the high likelihood is that this seat gets held by a Democrat,” said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.
Lautenberg’s office said in February 2010 the senator had been diagnosed with cancer and would undergo chemotherapy. That June Lautenberg said he had recovered completely.
He accomplished a number of things during his tenure in the Senate. He convinced Congress to bar smoking on domestic airline flights and in federal buildings. He has been a strong supporter of gun control and was behind the 1996 law prohibiting people convicted of domestic abuse from owning guns.
He also wrote the law that required U.S. states to set 21 as the drinking age in order to continue to get federal highway aid, a move he says has saved tens of thousands of lives.
Best Buy won’t be coming home to daddy, after all.
Dick Schulze, the Minnesota entrepreneur who created the nation’s biggest electronics chain 30 years ago, has all but given up his bid to take the company private, sources told The Post.
The 71-year-old former chairman of the chain has been scrambling since last summer to corral a team of buyout firms to acquire Best Buy in a deal valued at upwards of $8 billion.
Private-equity firms, however, have been on the fence about a full-fledged takeover, concerned about the risks of piling as much as $6 billion of debt atop an already struggling retailer.
PE players are instead considering the purchase of a minority stake, a sign, people close to the situation said, of optimism about the company’s turnaround prospects.
“People think [Chief Executive Hubert] Joly is basically doing a good job,” according to one insider, referring to the French-born hotel exec who was hired as CEO last August after Schulze had made his initial buyout approach.
Schulze, who owns 20 percent of the chain, is in talks to participate in a downsized deal for a larger minority stake, sources said.
Nevertheless, he won’t be in the driver’s seat in the deal under discussion, according to insiders.
“At this point, this is something [Schulze] is sort of going along with,” according to one source briefed on the situation.
While the deal could create a sizable minority stakeholder, sources said it’s unlikely it would create an entity that controls more than the 35 percent of the shares needed to effectively control the company.
“That would create a shareholder revolt,” one Best Buy investor said of such a deal.
In another possible scenario, sources said Best Buy would grant one or two board seats to the prospective investor team, and the founder isn’t likely to be one of the nominees.
“[Schulze] already quit the board, and people don’t see a lot of sense in putting him back on,” one insider said.
While the identity of the investment firms couldn’t be learned, Best Buy’s tires lately have been kicked by KKR, TPG and Leonard Green — buyout firms with deep benches when it comes to retail management.
Billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media, whose investments include Sirius XM Radio, Live Nation and Barnes & Noble, is also said to have mulled a stake.
A Best Buy spokesman declined to comment and reps for Schulze didn’t respond to requests for comment.
james.covert@nypost.com
Yesterday morning, an ad in the Des Moines Register warned Gov. Cuomo not to OK fracking in New York. Hours later, the state announced that it will miss a key deadline and the fracking-review process will have to start over from Square One.
Is there any better evidence that Cuomo’s interests in fracking lie not in what it might mean for New York’s economy but what it might mean for his chances for president?
Recall that Des Moines is in Iowa — whose caucuses kick off the presidential primaries. The activists who placed the ad know that Cuomo has had his eye on the White House since he was just a gleam in his father’s. By placing their ad in Iowa, they ensured his attention.
Their message was unequivocal: “Not one well” it says in giant print. It ends with a warning: “Your choice now will be remembered forever.” That’s a slight exaggeration. By “forever” they mean the 2016 Democratic primaries.
On the other hand, if Cuomo does as they demand, back home in New York he’ll be remembered as the governor who sold out the state for personal ambition. Not that he seems to care.
Consider his excuse for missing the deadline: A state agency is still reviewing fracking’s health impacts. Even though another state agency reviewed the impact two years ago. Even though the federal government and other states have deemed fracking safe. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said yesterday he even drank fracking fluid to show how safe he believed the process to be.
But Cuomo understands the ad’s message: Should he dare allow fracking, an influential Democratic constituency will hold it against him if he runs for president.
New Yorkers should remember that too.
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Cops shot an armed teenager and apprehended another man after a gunfight erupted on a Brooklyn rooftop last night, sources said.
Police said a 16-year-old male opened fire on a Brownsville rooftop at 10:13 last night. When the officers returned fire they shot him three times.
The teenager was shot once in each arm and once in the leg.
“They were just shooting blanks,” said Hennesy Mark. “They were just shooting up in the air. It’s like a cap gun.”
Cops said the gun, which was retrieved at the scene, was real. Two men were arrested.
“They took a Spanish kid out on a stretcher,” said Tina Brown, 30. “ He was alive, but he didn’t look happy.”
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