CBS says readings of TCE, or trichloroethylene vapors, as high as eight micrograms per cubic meter were found in Google buildings. Not to get too Erin Brokovich on you, but the normal range is five per cubic meter.

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Mr. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate and one of the “three men in a room” that control decision-making in Albany, received this high praise for adding yeshiva tuition tax credits into the state budget and his recent work to fund bus service to those same private religious schools. Mr. Hikind is a longtime assemblyman and power broker in the Jewish neighborhoods of southern Brooklyn and, despite being a Democratic Party official, has been more than willing to endorse Republicans.

At the end of last year, Mr. Skelos traveled to the Masbia soup kitchen in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn where, after donning a velvet yarmulke, he chopped carrots, peeled potatoes and ladled kosher soup to the needy. He proceeded to tell a story about smuggling Jewish artifacts into the Soviet Union and joked that his own Greek Orthodox beliefs gave him insight into Orthodox Judaism, letting Yiddish words like tzitzis and shul roll off his tongue all the while. Cameras rolled and mobile phones snapped photos for the Jewish media to consume later, of course. Read More

At a press conference earlier today, a plethora of officials, including three top tier mayoral candidates, blasted Wal-Mart for its various sins. And each of them emphasized that they do not want the superstore within the boundaries of New York City, thank you very much.

Declaring Wal-Mart’s corporate boardroom a “crime scene,” Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer “wished them luck in their upcoming criminal investigation” and stated, “They’ve disgraced the United States of America.” Read More

You might say NADA, an organization that now boasts some 300 members and has run an annual fair in Miami since 2003, is in expansion mode. Last summer it inaugurated a modest fair in Hudson, N.Y. And earlier this month Gallerist visited, for the purposes of leading a panel discussion, the first installment of Nada Cologne, a 33-exhibitor event that took place inside the vast, 186-exhibitor Art Cologne, which, now in its 46th edition, is the world’s oldest art fair. Read More

“Michelle and I, we’ve been in your shoes,” President Obama said. ”Check this out, all right. I’m the president of the United States. We only finished paying off our student loans off about eight years ago. That wasn’t that long ago. And that wasn’t easy.” Read More

“Incumbents have the means and incentives to engage in economic and/or technical discrimination against online video distributors,” Mr. Diller told lawmakers, referring to our cable and broadband overlords. To level the playing field, he said, “I think you need to rewrite the [Telecommunications] Act of ’96. It’s overdue given the Internet. And it needs revision.” Congress, he added, should “prevent cable and telecommunications companies from leveraging their dominance in existing markets” to control emerging technologies. Read More

“He is a dear friend. You might say I love the guy,” Mr. Hikind said about the candidate, for example, as a small army of Orthodox community leaders surrounding the elected officials applauded the endorsements. Read More

Asked about Speaker Silver’s bill at a press avail in Battery Park City yesterday, Mr. Cuomo demurred.

“I haven’t seen his bill. I support campaign finance,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I have been pushing it very hard all throughout the session and we have a few weeks left and I am hopeful that we  will get something done, but I haven’t gone through the Speaker’s bill.” Read More