The New York Observer

When David Axelrod gave his Boston press conference slamming Mitt Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts this morning, he was greeted by a group of young protesters including several well dressed young volunteers from Mr. Romney’s nearby national campaign headquarters. Rick Gorka, the Romney campaign’s traveling press secretary, told The Politicker “around 75″ Romney suppporters turned out to protest Mr. Axelrod.

“The main point of us being there was to welcome Mr. Axelrod to Boston and to remind reporters of Governor Romney’s record of creating jobs and balancing the budget in Massachusetts,” Mr. Gorka said. “We had some campaign volunteers … we had some supporters. It was a good group of folks who came out to help us in our project.”  Read More

More than two months after the voters cast their ballots in the race to replace Carl Kruger in the State Senate has finally come to a close. The Republican candidate, David Storobin, has won.

“All the votes are in, disputed and otherwise. The count is fully over. David Storobin won by 16 votes,” Mr. Storobin’s campaign wrote on his Facebook page. ” The election will be officially certified on Tuesday at 1:30 pm, but there will be NO MORE counting. David Storobin is the new Senator!” Read More

An exuberant-though-sleep-deprived Michelle Williams presided over the festivities last night at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, where Clarins sponsored a “Million Meals Concert” to benefit FEED, and their goal of providing one million school meals to children in need.

Williams was filling in for Nick Cannon, who at the last minute was unable to fill his role as emcee (yet Tweeted a photo of his and Mariah Carey’s toddler son, Roc, “big pimpin in Italy!” on Tuesday afternoon). Williams told The Observer that her Memorial Day weekend took her from Atlantic City (for Beyonce’s Big Post-Partum Concert) to Atlanta, where she got the call.

“So I went from Atlantic City, to Atlanta, to here today, hosting, performing, run-throughs, wardrobe fittings. Washed my hair today…hotel shampoo’s good, you should use it!” she said, adding, “That was a lack-of-sleep comment.” Read More

The Mike Bloomberg administration may want to ban large sodas soon rather than later.

Candidates vying to replace Hizzoner at City Hall didn’t sound too inclined today to continue the policy announced today of banning large sodas at restaurants and concession stands should they win the mayoralty.

City Comptroller John Liu wondered why Mr. Bloomberg was so gung-ho about banning large sodas but reticent to require all cyclists to wear helmets.  Read More

At Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s press conference touting his efforts to stop the sale of large soft drinks in restaurants, one reporter in attendance brought up the interesting fact that his administration also supporting “National Donut Day” tomorrow and inquired as to whether that muddled the mayor’s message on the issue.

Indeed, at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, Entenmann’s will be unveiling “Custom-made Entenmann’s large donuts, 1-foot in diameter” at Madison Square Park at the same time they unveil a “Proclamation Letter by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.” Read More

The journalist Andrew Blum was covering architecture when he got the idea for Tubes. “I was writing mostly about architecture, about buildings, but somehow writing about architecture meant sitting in front of a screen all day, then getting up and walking over and immediately looking at the other screen in my pocket. That seemed like a very strange way of relating to the physical world I was writing about.”

Mr. Blum decided to reverse his research process. Instead of using the Internet to research architecture, he started using architecture to research the Internet. And by architecture, of course, we mean the tubes. Read More

Former President George W. Bush returned to the White House today for the unveiling of his official portrait. At the ceremony, Mr. Bush encouraged First Lady Michelle Obama to protect his portrait and gave some advice to President Barack Obama.

“When the British burned the White House … in 1814, Dolley Madison famously saved this portrait of the first George W.  Now, Michelle, if anything happens there’s your man,” Mr. Bush said. “I am also pleased, Mr. President, that when you are wandering these halls as you wrestle with tough decisions, you will now be able to gaze at this portrait and ask, what would George do?”
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