As the city was drenched alternately by rain and perspiration, Mayor Bloomberg fanned presidential-run rumors by lighting out for the Western territories and announcing that he'd cooled on the Republican Party. The mayor's greenhouse-gas-battling congestion-pricing plan hit Albany gridlock. After a Harlem assemblyman accused Governor Spitzer of "acting like a Democratic Giuliani," South Carolina police arrested the real Giuliani's state campaign chief for acting like a Republican Pablo Escobar, charging him with cocaine distribution. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly mandated that cops who fire a gun will henceforth be tested for a different controlled substance, namely booze.

Newly sentenced Peter Braunstein explained the Thelma & Louise–esque motivations for his time on the lam. "I thought that I'd see America and then die," he told the court. "You know, have the cops shoot me to death." Another criminal hippie — the woman who allegedly shot the leader of her Staten Island commune — was found in Philadelphia, hiding from The Man with an AK-47 and 1,000 rounds of ammunition. The Bard family, den mothers to three generations of downtown eccentrics, were checked out of their gig managing the Chelsea Hotel. Laura "JT LeRoy" Albert testified in a fraud case against her; her words will likely figure in innumerable future dissertations on authorial identity.

Jay-Z, alleged to pull down more than twice as much as Donald Trump, was named Manhattan's highest-earning celebrity, while relative pauper Jason Giambi reluctantly agreed to discuss steroids with Major League Baseball's investigative team. Bulking up won't be a problem at fast-food joints this summer; the city postponed plans requiring the restaurants to post the calorie counts for everything they serve. And the shocking ending of Hillary's Sopranos spoof video — the selection of Celine Dion's "You and I" as her campaign theme — had Clintonologists abuzz. "If I could travel across the world," says the song, "the secrets I would tell." — Mark Adams