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The sound of numbers crunching could be heard all over the city last week. Mayor Bloomberg agreed to pick up Merrill Lynch’s 20 percent stake in Bloomberg LP for $4.4 billion — which values the company at $22.5 billion and jumps his estimated net worth to somewhere around $20 billion. Wacky Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad estimated that September was a good time for a return visit to the Big Apple. A $52 million fund-raising month helped Barack Obama recover from being offended by The New Yorker’s controversial cover cartoon. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke bailed out troubled mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while news broke that the consumer price index is rising faster than it has since 1982.

7/11/08

6:15 PM

On the Loose

Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

The reverend Jesse Jackson’s accidental admission that he’d like to emasculate Barack Obama was hardly the week’s only awkward idle chatter. Hillary Clinton teamed up with Obama for $4 million of meeting and greeting in midtown. Outspoken Virginia senator Jim Webb talked down the idea that he’d be the Democratic vice-presidential candidate. Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson discussed the excruciatingly slow progress of rebuilding the World Trade Center. Representative Charlie Rangel was initially at a loss for words after the Times revealed his sweetheart leases on four rent-stabilized apartments.

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It Happened This Week

6/20/08

6:00 PM

Wäiting Pätiently

Photo: Paul Martinka/Polaris

As lovers of cheap Swedish furnishings camped out in Red Hook last week prior to the opening of a new Ikea, others were putting their houses in order. Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama broke a little china by hiring Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton’s extremely estranged former campaign manager, to act as chief of staff to his future V.P. (Obama and Clinton later promised to clink glasses at a D.C. fund-raiser next week.) Michelle Obama charmed stylish contributors downtown (including some at a party hosted by Calvin Klein in his West Village home) and made a morning stop at The View.

6/13/08

6:40 PM

Hot Dog

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The dog days of summer arrived a month ahead of schedule this past week, but the smothering heat and subway delays weren’t all that left the city panting. John McCain fetched cash at two $28,500-a-head Manhattan fund-raisers, and suggested that Mayor Bloomberg might make a good loyal companion on the Republican ticket. Barack Obama shepherded his veep vetter, Jim Johnson, out the door when sweetheart mortgage deals came to light. Ex-governor Eliot Spitzer formed a vulture fund to sic on troubled real-estate properties, while former escort Ashley Alexandra Dupré and her smokin’-hot mom turned heads on the Jersey shore.

6/ 6/08

6:00 PM

It Burns

Photo: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

As the price of a pack of smokes in the city shot through the $10 barrier last week, even nonsmokers were fired up. Nicorette aficionado Barack Obama gave a triumphant speech after finally clinching the Democratic nomination, while Hillary Clinton at first dragged her feet about conceding after officially losing the primary race. Bill Clinton exploded over a Vanity Fair piece alleging, in part, that he couldn't control his temper.

5/30/08

6:00 PM

Seize the Day

Photo: Jason B. Nicholas/Atlas Press

In a week in which another construction crane fell on the East Side, killing at least two, everyone seemed to be living like it was their last day on Earth. Governor Paterson approved recognition of gay marriages performed in other states. Harsh attacks on the Bush administration in former spokesman Scott McClellan’s memoir hit the news waves (helping PublicAffairs publisher Peter Osnos lock up the wonk beach-reader market). Representative Anthony Weiner took a holiday from his “no comment” policy on his personal life to reveal he was dating Hillary Clinton’s “body woman,” Huma Abedin.

5/23/08

6:00 PM

Port of Call

Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Polaris

Gas prices remained astronomical and American Airlines debuted a $15-per-suitcase surcharge, but that didn't matter to the thousands of Fleet Week sailors who floated into town wearing white (to mark the arrival of Memorial Day, probably). Hillary Clinton, fresh from an invigorating Tuesday in Kentucky, prepared to pack up husband Bill and her $20-million-in-campaign-debt baggage for a Florida confab of Democratic leaders. Barack Obama would not publicly declare himself the Dem nominee; his booster Ted Kennedy didn't let the diagnosis of a brain tumor stop him from sailing at Hyannis Port.

5/16/08

6:00 PM

What the ... ?

Photo: Joshua Lott/Reuters

Anchor Sue Simmons talked her way into the headlines last week by dropping the F-bomb during a live promo for WNBC’s eleven-o’clock news, but foul language could be heard all around. Hillary Clinton’s shrinking band of supporters emitted a collective WTF? when her 41-point victory over Barack Obama failed to regain her any traction toward the Democratic nomination. (John Edwards’s subsequent endorsement of Obama elicited four-letter reactions.) GOP candidate John McCain, known to swear like a retired naval officer, came to town to do Saturday Night Live.

5/ 2/08

6:30 PM

Totally Messed Up

Photo: Joshua Lott/Reuters

Last week’s news that marijuana-related arrests in the city were up tenfold in the past decade could help explain a rash of fuzzy thinking. Barack Obama, who had been waiting for the smoke to clear over the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons, instead snuffed out his relationship with his former pastor after Wright gave an aggressive, paranoid press conference. Hillary Clinton, gaining on her Democratic foe in North Carolina, showed possibly impaired thinking when she came out strongly in favor of the unanimously economist-opposed plan to suspend gasoline taxes this summer. Governor Paterson seconded the idea, then in the same breath warned of disastrous, looming state-budget deficits. Mayor Bloomberg revealed that he’s writing an advice book titled Do the Hard Things First, while the city yanked 25,000 dubious parking permits.

4/25/08

6:00 PM

Warmed Over

Photo: Getty Images

In a week when spring temperatures broke 80 degrees and gas hit $4 a gallon, Hillary Clinton’s Earth Day victory in the Pennsylvania primary all but guaranteed a long, hot summer ahead. Contributors seemed to buy the cash-poor Democrat’s heated rhetoric — she promised to “obliterate” Iran if it bombed Israel — and pledged a cool $10 million the day following her win. After a judge acquitted three cops in the shooting death of Sean Bell, the city didn’t ignite in protest.