December 24, 2004
AN XMAS SPECIAL: WATERPIK ON BLOCK
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWaterpik Technologies Inc., the maker of the well-known Waterpik automatic toothbrush and other oral-hygiene products, is on the block, The Post has learned. Waterpik has retained J.P. Morgan to explore...
WARNER DEAL TO PLACE MUSICATMS ON CAMPUS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWarner Music announced a deal yesterday that will make its vast catalog available in kiosks on college campuses and at retail locations across the country. The new outlet for music...
GOODY BOWL: MARKETERS PUSH WARES ON ATHLETES
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amIf you really want to know what the big men on campus crave these days, look no further than the thousands of goody bags handed out at this season's college...
VERSACE HAWKS MAKEUP DIVISION
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe Versace Group said yesterday that it has reached a deal to sell its fragrance and cosmetic division to Euroitalia Group for a price that wasn't disclosed. As part of...
US AIRWAYS GROUND WORKERS TAKE 13% PAY CUT
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amFears of a possible airline strike during the Christmas holiday eased yesterday when US Airways ground employees agreed to take 13 percent pay cuts to help bail out their employer....
$13M FOR KELLOGG'S NEW CEO
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe veteran ad man who created Tony the Tiger is also getting a sugar-coated pay deal as the surprise head of Kellogg Co. James Jenness, 58, named earlier this month...
NEWS STAFF IS MORT-IFIED - FEAR CHOICE IS 'VOLUNTARY' BUYOUTS & POSSIBLE LAYOFFS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amNO danger of Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman getting confused with the jolly elf this holiday season. While some rest on year-end bonuses as they gather with friends and family,...
MUSIC PICK
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amTAVERN TOAST: A few blocks north of Times Square, Central Park's famed eatery Tavern on the Green will be counting down the New Year to the music of rock legend...
STARR REPORT
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amNull 'nets new home Gary Null, who was dropped by WBAI earlier this month after 27 years, has landed on the Internet - at voiceofamerica.com, which will air "The Gary...
DANCE PICK
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amAILEY FINALE: First, the bad news: There is little more than a week left to catch the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, which ends its five-week holiday season at City Center...
KIDS' PICK
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amBIG APPLE CIRCUS: The troupe presents it's annual show by "bringing to life" works by Renoir, Degas, Picasso and other famous artists. Recommended for children age 4 and up. Performances...
BACON SIZZLES - 'WOODSMAN' COMETH TO A THEATER NEAR YOU
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amTHERE isn't a wasted frame in Nicole Kassell's hugely impressive debut film, "The Woodsman," starring Kevin Bacon in a career-best performance as a recovering pedophile. Kassell, a young NYU film...
'OFFICE' STAR GOING HOMER
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amRICKY Gervais, the mastermind behind the BBC's cult hit "The Office," will write an episode of "The Simpsons." "I had lunch with [series creator] Matt Groening and we chatted over...
ALL 'FIRED' UP - NOW IT'S BRAINS VERSUS HUSTLE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amHERE we go again - NBC has unveiled the latest crop of Donald Trump wannabes set to star on the "Apprentice 3" This time the group of highly competitive overachievers...
FLAT 'ALBERT' - JUST SAY NAY! NAY! NAY! TO CARTOON REMAKE; BLOATED 'ALBERT' FALLS FLAT
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amHEY! Hey! Hey! Stay away from "Fat Albert." Resurrecting the beloved '70s cartoon "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" as a blend of animation and live action for the big...
THANKS '04 THE SONGS - DEVO TO DYLAN, A ROCKIN' FINE YEAR
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amTHE year in music may have begun with that now infamous "wardrobe malfunction," but 2004 also brought countless more moments we'd rather remember - from concerts planned (Devo) and impromptu...
SPREADING HOLIDAY JEER - SEASON'S GREETINGS FROM THE GREAT WHITE WAY
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amI didn't receive very many holiday greetings this year. I guess I'm just not that popular around Broadway. But if I were, I imagine my mailbag would be full of...
KID-PORN DOC LOSES LICENSE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amALBANY - A New Jersey doctor has lost his New York medical license after pleading guilty earlier this month to possessing child porn. Dr. Edelfonso Mendez, 40, who is married...
WEIRD BUT TRUE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA town in Idaho has a real-life version of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." Every day at dusk, thousands of crows descend on Twin Falls, some slamming into houses full force....
ED. BIG FUMBLED CASE OF PERV SCHOOL AIDE: MAYOR
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA male school aide accused of having sex with a student at Lehman HS should have been removed from the school months before - but the superintendent failed to act,...
ALARMING DISARMING AT APPLE AIR TERMINALS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amGuns, knives and boxcutters aren't just for gang members anymore - they also may be hidden on the guy waiting to get on your next La Guardia flight. Security screeners...
XMAS CHEAT SHEET FOR WIVES TO CATCH STRAYING SPOUSES
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amMommy may be kissing "Santa Claus" - but Daddy could be cheating for real. The days and weeks following Christmas are the best time for wives who suspect their spouses...
NYPD DAILY BLOTTER
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amBROOKLYN * Two men were arrested for robbing another man with an ice pick on a Sunset Park street, authorities said yesterday. The incident took place at 2 a.m. Wednesday,...
HOPE AND FEAR IN BETHLEHEM
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amJERUSALEM - In the new optimism of the Mideast, Bethlehem finds itself blessed with more visitors this year than at any time since the Palestinian offensive began in 2000 -...
TOP KOFI AIDE'S EXIT STARTS DIPLO-PURGE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWASHINGTON - The resignation of the chief-of-staff to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was part of a major housecleaning of top bureaucrats being launched in response to the U.N. oil-for-food scandal,...
WALL ST. SHARK'S FISHY 500G HOBBY - 'SCAMMER' SKIPS OUT ON AQUARIUM BILLS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amCrooked young Wall Streeter Calvin Darden - busted by the Manhattan DA's Office last week for allegedly swiping $5 million from bosses and investors - has spent more than half...
COULD THIS BE THE FACE OF JESUS AT 12?
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amItalian police believe this is how Jesus Christ may have looked at the age of 12. Authorities in Italy used a computer usually employed to "age" photos of longtime fugitives....
APPLE FIRE DEATHS LOWEST SINCE 1919
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe number of city fire deaths has hit an 85-year low, FDNY officials announced yesterday. So far this year, 81 New Yorkers have been killed by fire. The last time...
SCHOOL DRINK STINK - BIGS BAN BEVERAGES
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amSchool officials in south Brooklyn have issued an ultimatum to parched students: Buy your drinks from us or go thirsty. The directive came down this month from the superintendent for...
GIS GET SPECIAL (& FREE) DELIVERY
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWar is hell - and getting mail to a war zone is hell on the wallet. So workers at the Dyker Heights Post Office at 84th Street and 13th Avenue...
ADD HS TO TROUBLE LIST: POL
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amTroubled Lafayette HS in Brooklyn should be on the city's list of "impact schools," which take get-tough measures with students and get additional security, an elected official said yesterday. The...
WRAP STARS TO THE RESCUE - GIFTED PROS GIVE ADVICE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amIt was a Christmas emergency - a woman elbow-deep in wrapping-paper scraps and crinkled balls of tape desperately trying to figure out how to wrap a 6-foot-tall coat rack. Minutes...
'CHOKE' RAPIST TO GET 15 YRS.
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA Queens man will spend 15 years behind bars for a savage attack last year in which he used an ammonia-soaked rag to choke his girlfriend's younger sister as he...
QNS. 'GREENS' ROLLING
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amEmployees of Green Bus Lines, which serves thousands of riders, mainly in Queens, will end their job action today, their union said yesterday. "We'll go back to work," said Treasurer...
NYPD 'PROMOTES' CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe NYPD gave out some early Christmas presents yesterday, promoting 179 people. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly gave 88 cops the bump to sergeant, made 36 officers detectives, and promoted three...
SLAIN MARINE'S BRAVE PARENTS GIVE HOLIDAY PRAYERS TO THE HEROES
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWhen William and Angela Lynch returned home from a walk on the Jones Beach boardwalk on Oct. 31, they didn't notice the three Marines parked in front of their Jericho,...
SKETCH OF L.I. JEWEL MURDERER
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amPolice released a sketch yesterday of the man who shot and killed a Long Island jewelry-store employee during a diamond heist. The suspect, described as a 5-foot-9 white male with...
TEACHER TALKS AT AN IMPASSE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amIt's official - contract talks between public school teachers and the city are at a stalemate. The state Public Employment Relations Board yesterday declared the ongoing negotiations deadlocked, over objections...
VERRAZANO TERROR LIAR FACES BOOT
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA Brooklyn man was sentenced to time served yesterday for telling a chilling lie to the FBI by reporting a bogus plot to blow up the Verrazano Narrows Bridge -...
VELELLA BALL (& CHAIN) - IN JAIL FOR NEW YEAR'S
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amGuy Velella will ring in the new year behind bars. The state's highest court dumped a lump of coal in the freed felon's Christmas stocking yesterday, refusing a request to...
LOVE REIGNS ON RAINY DAY - ENGAGING COUPLE AT ROCK CTR.
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amRaindrops kept falling on his head. But that didn't stop Mike Kugit from proposing to longtime girlfriend Renee Colasante at the Rockefeller Center skating rink yesterday. Under a steady drizzle,...
KERIK PAL BOLTS - FOLLOWS BERNIE OUT THE DOOR AT GIULIANI'S FIRM
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA longtime associate of Bernard Kerik quit Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm yesterday, a day after the embattled former police commissioner abruptly resigned from the company. Sunny Mindel, a Giuliani spokeswoman,...
H'WAY TRAGEDY - QNS. MAN KILLED IN 100-MPH SMASH-UP
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA Queens man died - and his friend was charged with manslaughter - after the speeding car they were in struck a divider on the Grand Central Parkway yesterday, authorities...
'JUNIOR' STAYS JAILED FOR HOLIDAY
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amIt's a blue Christmas for the Gottis. A federal judge yesterday refused to grant bail allowing John A. "Junior" Gotti - one-time street boss of the Gambino crime family -...
EMPIRE STATE LEAPER ID'D
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amCops have identified last month's Empire State Building jumper as a 21-year-old Michigan man. The body of Shawn Gibson, of Saline, was identified through fingerprints nearly a month after his...
SANTA'S HIP-HOP HELPERS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThere was some cool Christmas wrapping - and rapping - going on yesterday as a trio of red-hot hip-hop stars played Santa Claus at the Bowery Mission. 50 Cent, Tony...
NEW GUIDEBOOK FOR COPS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe NYPD will issue a new "tactical manual" compiled by top cops in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a Brooklyn teen who startled a policeman on a housing...
HOSP GETS A LEAN BILL OF HEALTH
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amBill Clinton showed his doctors yesterday that he knows how to follow orders - stopping by the hospital that diagnosed his heart problem and wowing the crowd with his stunning...
RIPPER IN COURT - BABY-SNATCH CASE IS MO.-BOUND
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amBaby-snatch butcher suspect Lisa Montgomery is heading back to Missouri, where cops said she strangled a pregnant mother and cut the fetus from her womb. The suspect, who is in...
'SANTA' ANSWERS CALL - CONNECTS BROOKLYN GIRL TO DAD IN IRAQ
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amSome kids ask Santa for the latest toy or the newest computer game. But young Annie Beltre of Brooklyn wished for something a lot more important. "Dear Santa," her letter...
QNS. MAN KILLED IN 100-MPH SMASHUP
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA Queens man died - and his friend was charged with manslaughter - after the speeding car they were in struck a divider on the Grand Central Parkway yesterday, authorities...
$PLIT FROM PLO - BOWLMOR LANES WILL GIVE BACK $1M INVESTED BY EVIL GUTTERSNIPE YASSER
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe owners of Bowlmor Lanes yesterday said that they had purged all of Yasser Arafat's money from their corporate coffers. At a press conference at the trendy Greenwich Village bowling...
TENT KILLER'S ARMY DISGUISE - WORE A UNIFORM OF IRAQI SOLDIER
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWASHINGTON - The terrorist responsible for the mess-tent massacre in Mosul wore an Iraqi military uniform to elude security at the U.S. Army base, a top general disclosed yesterday. Brig....
CON ED WIRE ZAPS POOCHES
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amNearly a year after an East Village woman was electrocuted by a Con Ed service box, two dogs were jolted in Chelsea yesterday when they stepped in an electrified puddle,...
VILE 'CHOKE' RAPIST WILL GET 15 YRS.
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amA Queens man will spend 15 years behind bars for a savage attack last year in which he used an ammonia-soaked rag to choke his girlfriend's younger sister as he...
GIFTS FROM THE HEART - ATLAS FOUNDATION BRIGHTENS HOLIDAYS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amP.S. 20 on Staten Island is what New Yorkers would familiarize as one of the those. Built in 1915, it could've been a post office, a precinct house or a...
METS SIGN GALARRAGA
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWhile still figuring out if they are in play for the winter's big catch, Carlos Beltran, the Mets landed the Big Cat yesterday, signing Andres Galarraga to a minor-league contract...
THE FAN'S CORNER
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe challenge has been laid down. Paul Schwartz the reader wants to put his picking prowess against Paul Schwartz, the writer. "He's my idol," said Schwartz of The Post's Giants...
SECONDARY CONCERN - JETS CAN EXPLOIT PATS' INJURED DBS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amFollowing the Jets' eye-opening rout of the Seahawks last Sunday, a win that displayed a more dynamic and wide-open offense than most all of their previous games this season, their...
IT'S TIME REC ANGLERS GET A FAIR SHAKE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amIF THERE is one thing that I would like to get for Christmas it is to see recreational anglers get a fair shake. If this past election taught us nothing...
JOY TO THE JETS - YULE BE SORRY IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN GANG GREEN
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amTHE prevailing wisdom is that the Jets are in for it after the Patriots blew one in Miami on Monday night. And in a sense, it may be a little...
RICE TOPS XAVERIAN AT HAWAIIAN TOURNEY
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amOne of the first battles for supremacy in the CHSAA took place in an unusual place yesterday. Xaverian and Rice didn't meet in Brooklyn or The Bronx. Instead, the teams...
POPCORN BIZ TASTY FOR ISIAH
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amIsiah Thomas has found a refuge from running the Knicks - owning a popcorn company. Thomas finds the popcorn industry sweeter than his last failed business venture - owning the...
HOBSON EXPECTS TO PLAY
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amJET NOTES Linebacker Victor Hobson is expected to return to the field for the Jets Sunday for the first time since missing four games with a high ankle sprain. When...
LUKE LATEST TO FALL - YET ANOTHER HIT FOR JINTS' O-LINE
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amShaun O'Hara laughed at the thought of playing on Sunday without Luke Petitgout. "I don't know what we'll do," O'Hara said. "Somebody will have to come in for him and...
NOT A CREATURE STIRRING - YANKEES TRADE ON HOLD THROUGH HOLIDAY
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amGeorge Steinbrenner wanted Randy Johnson for Christmas but didn't get the 41-year-old left-hander from the Diamondbacks. Yet nobody is betting against Johnson becoming a Yankee before 2004 - a year...
FOOT FAULT KOS JAMAL 6 WEEKS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe Knicks received a kick in the stomach yesterday when an MRI revealed Jamal Crawford has turf toe that could sideline him until February. The Knicks announced Crawford has a...
NETS COMING UP BIG
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThanks to the Vince Carter trade, the Nets will be exponentially more dynamic up top, that's for sure. Still, the team sacrificed depth, size and some toughness under the basket...
WR HAS MUCH TO PONDER
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amGIANT NOTES Not much has gone right for the Giants during the second part of the season, but at least they seem to have a good kickoff returner. While Willie...
TEAMMATES FOREVER - SEIDEN, JACKSON LED '59 JOHNNIES
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amTHE 1958-59 season was the best basketball experience by far of Alan Seiden's life. To this day his voice levitates several octaves as he joyously recalls its solidarity and success....
SET TO SOAR - IN THE YEAR'S BIGGEST GAME, HERM'S CREW IS 'READY TO PLAY'
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amDink and Dunk Airlines won't beat the Patriots Sunday. Attack Jets will. This is the game and the moment the Herm Edwards Jets have been waiting four years for, a...
'BIG' CHANCE FOR CHAD - AFTER WEEK OF CONTROVERSY, JET QB CAN MUZZLE CRITICS
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThe question is not whether the Jets can beat the Patriots. It is: will they do it? If they do, it will likely start with media critic Chad Pennington brutalizing...
5 QUESTIONS FOR MIKE BREEN
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amThis week, NYP TV Sports' Andrew Marchand spoke with Mike Breen, play-byplayer for the Knicks and for ABC/ESPN NBA-casts. Breen will call ESPN's Indiana-Detroit game on Christmas Day. Q: When...
CHEFS OF THE FUTURE - 'MIKE & MIKE' IN MIX FOR COOKING SHOW
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amESPN is planning to add a cooking show to its lineup next year, NYP TV Sports has learned. The network expects to air the program after ESPN2's Cold Pizza, which,...
MARCHAND'S MATCHUP OF THE YEAR: APRIL VS. MAY (WHEN WILL JOHN STERLING AND SUZYN WALDMAN START SNIPING AT EACH OTHER?)
December 24, 2004 | 5:00amWith the inaugural "Matchup of the Year," we wanted to be proactive instead of reactive. So we are jumping into the DeLorean and looking to 2005. In the spring, Suzyn...