In a week filled with lost causes, none was sadder than the fizzling of the congestion-pricing crusade. Mayor Bloomberg, the Saint Jude of $8 traffic fees, described State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver as having a "special type of cowardice" after he refused to bring the bill to a vote. (Hizzoner recovered enough by the following day to unveil a sunnier new cause — requiring solar panels on municipal buildings.) Hillary Clinton demoted unpopular swami Mark Penn; polls still showed her lead over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania to be slipping.

Governor Paterson finally got his first budget passed, even if he was absent from Albany for much of the deal-making. The Spitzers were spotted going to the doctor together. City comptroller candidate Melinda Katz confirmed she'd undergone in vitro fertilization to become a single mom (and kept the secret really well — she's due in early June). Top cop Ray Kelly announced random steroid testing for police officers. Parents reacted toxically to reports that PCBs had been found in public schools. Borough President Marty Markowitz defended his wife after she hoarded pricey Takashi Murakami place mats from Brooklyn Museum swag bags. The first customers strolled through John Varvatos's new Bowery shop/CBGB shrine.

Remy Ma planned a wedding on Rikers; apparently the bride will wear orange. Harvey Weinstein escorted his company's Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime. (NBC's Jeff Zucker sued to void the union.) 30 Rock returned after the writers' strike, reinstating Kenneth the Page's proper weekly frequency. Junot Díaz nabbed a Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Knicks legends Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley, nexus of the almost-glory years of the early nineties, were elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. And Charlton Heston, who bemoaned the fate of the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes before taking up less-fictional civic pursuits, died at age 84.—Mark Adams