• So after all that outraged wife-chauffeuring tabloid ink, Alan Hevesi handily won reelection, 57 percent to 39 percent. Anyone want to bring up the scandal now? Didn’t think so. “You can make the case that the public has spoken,” says Mayor Bloomberg. [NYDN]
• A 5-year-old Brooklyn boy is dead after a ruthless hit-and-run. An SUV lurched onto the Flatbush sidewalk, struck a family of four and continued on — until shocked drivers in other cars nearby gave chase and blocked its way. And another errant Brooklyn SUV collided with, of all things, an ambulance this morning, injuring at least five people. The ambulance’s driver had to be cut out of the wreckage. [NYP, WNBC]
• The City Council met to discuss an urgent topic: raising its own members’ salaries 25 percent. Surprisingly, almost everyone’s in favor. The current base salary for the part-time job is $90,000. [amNY]
• Remember the long, hysterically pitched discussion of whether cell-phone service in NYC subways would be a good or a bad thing? MTA doesn’t. Four companies submitted competitive bids to retrofit the city’s trains with cell-phone transmitters back in January; ten months later, the Authority still hasn’t made a decision. [NYT]
• And Christie’s cleared $491 million in one night, almost doubling the record for an art auction. It could have been even more, but the house ended up withdrawing the Picasso, on whose convoluted origins (Mendelssohn, Nazis, Andrew Lloyd Webber) we reported, at the last moment. Still, some vigorous paddle work there. [NYT]
