• Clipper Equity’s ingenious PR notwithstanding, the would-be Starrett City buyer was thwarted again. On Saturday, the state’s Housing Commissioner rejected the firm’s second bid for the complex, concerned with the group’s poor track record in the area. [TheStreet.com]
• A blaze in a Bronx apartment building injured 53 people by AM New York’s count (the Post has the number at 41), including 14 firefighters. The three-alarm fire began on the first floor and quickly spread up and out through hallways. [amNY, NYP]
• Barack Obama (who evidently can’t just come to a city; he either “swings through” or “invades” it) is back in New York for more fund-raising. He’ll hang at a couple of good addresses before stopping by the Letterman show. Obama’s previous New York City take is estimated at $3 million. [NYDN]
• Bush knew. About Bernie Kerik’s past, that is, when NYC’s then-top cop was nominated to head Homeland Security. Thus, the doomed pick could have been a purely political gesture. Oh, and Alberto Gonzales had a hand in it, too. [NYP]
• And East Hampton becomes a two-newspaper town: The Press, an import from one town over, is taking on the 122-year-old local institution the Star (as New York reported last month). Get ready for war. [NYT]
