NY Post: Business

Latest Business from the New York Post Online Edition, which delivers the Post's world-renowned gossip, best sports in town, and more.

• MERRILL-GO-ROUND
  Merrill Lynch is inching closer to offloading its stake in financial information giant Bloomberg LP, and a blind trust run by Mayor Bloomberg is emerging as the probable buyer, sources tell The Post. The sale is part of a broader plan by...


• EX-REFCO CHIEF BENNETT GETS 16 YEARS
  Former Refco Inc. Chief Executive Officer Phillip Bennett was sentenced to 16 years in prison for defrauding investors out of $2.4 billion in what US prosecutors said was "among the very worst" white-collar crimes. Bennett was also ordered to...


• YOUTUBE HANDS PROFILES TO VIACOM
  If you've ever watched a video on YouTube, Viacom now has access to your personal user data and viewing habits. Google has been ordered by a New York federal judge to turn over a database of YouTube user logs that includes personal user log-on...


• EU TIPTOES AROUND INFLATION
  Europe took cautious steps to lead a global fight on inflation with an expected hike yesterday in interest rates - leaving the US to stand pat with a weak dollar and export bonanza. European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet edged up its key...


• BETS ARE OFF ON CASINO BUYOUT
  The final days are closing in on Wall Street's once golden buyout era with the scrapping of another big deal - the $6.1 billion buyout of casino and racing giant Penn National Gaming. It marked the collapse of a staggering 291 mergers since the...


• BUSINESS BRIEFS
  CountrywideA Delaware judge refused to halt a settlement of lawsuits alleging that Countrywide's directors' miscues damaged the lender and that the board failed to get a fair price in Bank of America's $2.5 billion buyout. JPM Jobs JPMorgan...


• LEHMAN STAFF GET LESS CASH
  Lehman Brothers, the securities firm that's saving cash following its first quarterly loss, is increasing the stock portion of employee pay this year, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The ratio of stock awards in pay packages will rise...


• THE FEDS HAVE COME UP WITH AN EXIT TAX!
  HERE'S a Yankee Doodle Doozy of an idea from the taxman: if you've had enough of the United States and choose to renounce your citizenship, you will now have to give up a large chunk of your assets. The same new tax also will hit foreigners who...


• GENERAL MELTDOWN
  Bloated by years of gas-guzzler greed, General Motors has collapsed almost overnight from a driving force into a virtually broke loser facing bankruptcy. GM shares skidded yesterday into the single digits, a 54-year low, banishing the one-time No...


• TANKING BANKS' DEBT SOUGHT BY $1B FUND
  Hedge fund Highbridge Capital Management is trying to raise $1 billion from wealthy investors for a fund focused on buying bank assets hammered by the credit crisis. According to one investor who was considering committing funds, the planned...

NY Post: Entertainment

Latest Entertainment from the New York Post Online Edition, which delivers the Post's world-renowned gossip, best sports in town, and more.

• MASCOT NAPPING
  STRANGE and quirky doesn't begin to do justice to Scott Prendergast's "Kab luey," in which he also stars as Salman, a man-boy trapped for hours every day in a giant blue mascot uniform. Slacker Salman has been summoned to Middle America by his...


• MEMORABLE STARS IN TALE OF FORGETFULNESS
  THE smart indie comedy "Diminished Capacity" deals with three kinds of dementia: those relating to aging, concussions and being a Chicago Cubs fan. Tying those three things together is a task that the witty script does with surprising adroitness...


• FRENCH TWISTS UNDO MYSTERY
  'TELL No One," the second feature by director Guil laume Canet, is a thriller based on an American novel of the same name, but with the story moved to France. It opens with a seemingly happy couple skinny-dipping in the moonlight. They have a...


• HE'S GONZO BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
  IT may be impossible to make an uninteresting documen tary about Hunter S. Thomp son, but is it unfair to ask "Gonzo" for more Hunter and less Jimmy Carter? And less George W. Bush, whose departure from office will be a boon to moviegoers...


• VERY YOUNG GIRLS
  TWO of the most despicable people you'll ever meet are brothers Anthony and Chris Griffith, New York pimps whose sordid story unfolds in the documentary "Very Young Girls." They turn underage girls into streetwalkers, and couldn't care less. To...


• CENTRAL SPARK
  WATERFALLS are nice and all, but a free Bon Jovi concert in Central Park? That rocks. And we do mean literally. The show, sponsored by Major League Baseball, will take place July 12 on the Great Lawn. It'll be the first rock concert there since...


• GO FOURTH AND FIND BARGAINS
  Many NYC stores are slashing prices this Fourth of July weekend on summer favorites by top designers. Oh, say can you shop? ARMANI EXCHANGE 645 Fifth Ave., at 51st Street; (212) 980-3037 Sale: until Sunday. Open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Make your own...


• WEED BETWEEN THE LIES
  JONATHAN Levine's "The Wackness" seems a tad less hilarious at sea level than it did at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the audience award and had viewers rolling in the aisles at a 9 a.m. screening. Which is not to say you can't get high...


• GREAT FARE
  WHAT'S covered in Dipsy Dog mix, immersed in frying oil and blanketed in powdered sugar? Just about everything to eat at the State Fair Meadowlands, which runs through July 13 at Giants Stadium. Like a cheesy '80s music video, the food here is...


• 1ST SHOW (AND TELL)
  WANT to know the one question that unlocks the deepest, darkest secrets of someone's past? Forget "Where'd you go to college?" (too obvious), and "What Strawberry Shortcake character did you most closely identify with growing up?" (too cliché...

NY Post: Sports

Latest Sports from the New York Post Online Edition, which delivers the Post's world-renowned gossip, best sports in town, and more.

• KNICKS WAITING ON DUHON
  The Chris Duhon Watch continued into the Fourth of July holiday weekend as the Bulls backcourt point guard apparently doesn't have a formal offer from Orlando yet and isn't thrilled with the Knicks' modest two-year package. He may want to just...


• SKIDDING METS A REAL FIGHT CLUB
  ST. LOUIS - Jose Reyes and Keith Hernandez had to be separated on the Mets' charter plane Sunday night after a tense confrontation over Hernandez's critical comments about the All-Star shortstop. A team source described the situation aboard the...


• 'O' YEA! METS ROLL
  ST. LOUIS - The Mets rested cleanup hitter Carlos Beltran, littered their lineup with reserves and had their No. 5 starter on the mound last night. So, naturally, they went out and blasted the team with the second-best record in the National...


• SNY POSITIVELY STUPID ON AMAZIN' LOSS
  MEMO to SNY: Cut it out, cut it out, now. We're not that stupid. The Mets blew another one, Wednesday night in St. Louis. They had a 7-5 lead in the eighth, but lost to become a 41-43 team. They had David Wright on third, one out in the eighth...


• TIME TO DUKE IT OUT WITH PHILS, NOT SELVES
  PHILADELPHIA - This is what happens when you have a history as shallow and abbreviated as the Mets' history: It is possible that two of the five most popular Mets in history can actually get nose-to-nose on an airplane, deep in an argument in the...


• PRESSURE-PHILLED
  It's time for the Mets to start putting up or shutting up. If interim manager Jerry Manuel's inconsistent crew wants to be taken seriously in the season's second half, a big weekend in Philadelphia, starting Friday night, is a must. "The Mets...


• CASTILLO HEADED FOR DL
  ST. LOUIS -- The Mets decided yesterday that Luis Castillo's health was too much of a distraction, finally placing the gimpy second baseman on the DL with a strained left hip flexor. Castillo's availability (or lack thereof) had been a constant...


• NETS' LOPEZ GETS PHYSICAL
  Brook Lopez figured the speed and the physical nature of the NBA game would represent the biggest adjustment from college. Judging on just three workout sessions at the Nets' summer league training camp, he figured right. "Really, the speed of...


• JAGR GONE
  Jaromir Jagr will never have his number retired in a ceremony at the Garden. But make no mistake. No. 68 was one of the most significant players to ever wear the Blueshirt. That's was, and not is, because Jagr's three-and-a-half-year career as a...


• RANGERS ACQUIRE NASLUND
  This is about tomorrow and this is about yesterday - not only Jaromir Jagr - being gone. This is about the Rangers believing that losing in the second round of the playoff just isn't good enough. Glen Sather told Jagr yesterday the Rangers will go...

NY Post: News

Latest News from the New York Post Online Edition, which delivers the Post's world-renowned gossip, best sports in town, and more.

• PETE'S IN PITS AFTER CHRISTIE'S KO PUNCH
  THINGS went from rotten to rock bottom yesterday for Christie Brinkley's horny hubby, the demented leech called Peter Cook. The demure supermodel took the witness stand on Day Two of this Long Island sexual farce. She sniffled. She sobbed. And...


• 'DELIVERY' MAN
  It's a girl! - for the boy who used to be a girl. The healthy baby girl born to Thomas Beatie, 34, was delivered the "natural" way Monday at a hospital in Bend, Ore., a source told ABC News. "She's really cute, really pretty," the source said...


• OBAMA PULLS ABOUT-FACE
  But after Republicans said he was flip-flopping on his signature primary-race issue, Obama insisted they were deliberately misrepresenting his position. At a press conference in Fargo, ND yesterday, Obama said, "I am going to do a thorough...


• SCAMMER CAN'T EVEN KILL HIMSELF RIGHT
  He failed in life, and then he failed at death. Fugitive financial fraudster Samuel Israel III claimed yesterday that he swallowed 175 morphine tablets, then ate a pile of fentanyl transdermal pain patches in a botched suicide bid hours before he...


• MAC'S NEW CAMPAIGN BOSS TAKES 'HIRE' ROAD
  Steve Schmidt's rallying cry, in a memo to McCain's 11 regional directors, comes amid criticism from GOPers that the campaign has been lackluster and ineffective. "We are going to be adding a political director and field director . . . to...


• NYPD DAILY BLOTTER
  Manhattan Armed with a metal bat, James Willis, 41, attacked an unidentified 37-year-old man shortly after 8:30 a.m. on June 24 at 132nd Street near Madison Avenue. "Yo, I hate you f - - -ers. I told you to stay off my block," he shouted...


• IMMI-GREAT DAY TO BECOME A CITIZEN
  They were born in 39 different countries - from Afghanistan to Jamaica to Guyana - but yesterday, they stood side by side in Manhattan and became Americans together. Surrounded by friends and relatives who cheered and waved the Stars and Stripes...


• GOP BOSS FIRES BACK AT BLOOMY
  State Republican Chairman Joseph Mondello blasted Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey with both barrels yesterday for seeking his ouster in order to "use the Republican Party to run for governor, or whatever else they want to do."...


• QUINN PORKS A WALLOP
  Speaker Christine Quinn's friends on the City Council brought pounds of pork home to their districts - while neighborhoods represented by members on her enemies list often get beans, a review of this year's budget shows. Her biggest victim was...


• SAMARITAN THIEF ALERTS COPS TO 'TERROR' VAN
  He's a criminal, but he "did the right thing" when it mattered - alerting cops to what he feared was a terror plot the day before the Fourth of July. At about 5 p.m. yesterday, an unidentified thief with a police record broke into a red van that...