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1/25/13 at 7:46 PM
Cable News News
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Sarah Palin’s Long Fox News Sign Off

BLOOMINGTON, MN - JUNE 29: Sarah Palin signs her book at the Best Buy Rotunda at Mall of America on June 29, 2011 in Bloomington, Minnesota. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)

In September 2008, Sarah Palin secretly met with Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes during her campaign tour through New York, a stop which included a friendly chit-chat with Henry Kissinger and a not-so-friendly chit-chat with Katie Couric. The private sit-down was a chance for Ailes and Palin to get to know each other. Ailes, who has said, "I never did focus groups on any talent I put on the air. It was all done out of my gut," spotted something early in the former Alaska Governor. "Say what you will, she hit a home run," he told Fox News executives after her electrifying convention speech at the Xcel Energy Center. It was in those early days that he was protective enough of Palin that he had Shushannah Walshe, a young Fox News reporter who was covering Palin's campaign banished from on-air interviews after she criticized Palin on Fox News. "It's not fair-and-balanced coverage," the reporter was told by a senior Fox executive. Walshe left the network soon after.

A little over a year later, Palin was working for Ailes as the highest paid contributor at the network, earning $1 million a year. But her time in Ailes's army proved almost as tumultuous as her stormy run as John McCain's VP pick. And this afternoon both sides decided to walk away.

1/25/13 at 5:42 PM
Talking About The Weather
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It’s Too Cold to Kill in New York City

By Joe Coscarelli

While the frigid temperatures make just about everyone miserable, at least no one's getting murdered. The NYPD recorded zero killings for seven days, from Wednesday to Wednesday, with the streak seemingly holding through Thursday as well. "To the extent that weather plays a role, great," said Ray Kelly today. "We are rooting for more cold weather." The last time we had such a streak was after Hurricane Sandy, Newsday notes, and when asked if weather had anything to do with it, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne shrugged, "Most homicides are outside, so maybe." In that sense, the seven-day forecast does not look good.

1/25/13 at 4:54 PM
Ink-stained Wretches
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Jim Roberts on Leaving the New York Times: ‘Twitter Still Has Me’

By Joe Coscarelli

Among the big-name exits at the New York Times in this round of buyouts, none was mourned more online than that of assistant managing editor Jim Roberts, or @nytjim as he's known to the world. While other departures in management — sports editor Joe Sexton, managing editor John Geddes, culture editor Jonathan Landman — received the usual public respect reserved for those toiling behind the scenes from colleagues and industry admirers, Roberts had made himself a public figure, tweeting prodigiously to his nearly 77,000 followers about the day's news from all outlets. As a 26-year veteran at the Times, he worked as both an old-school newspaperman and a digital pioneer at a paper working to find the right balance between the two. Fittingly, we caught up with Roberts about his big decision via e-mail.

1/25/13 at 4:24 PM
Oops
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Two Prisoners Escaped the NYPD in One Day [Updated]

A man in police custody for larceny slipped out of his handcuffs last night in the Bronx, the New York Post reports, becoming the second person of the day to do so. Earlier in Brooklyn, a murder suspect used a bathroom break as an opportunity to push down an officer and run for it. Neither have been reported found yet, but according to the New York Times, only one out of the sixteen runaways last year was not recaptured, so the odds are in the NYPD's favor, or that's what we'll keep telling ourselves. [Update: One down.]

1/25/13 at 4:02 PM
Political Prop Puppies!!
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Super Mayor Pulls Off Yet Another Superheroic Act!

By Dan Amira

View the video

ABC News was out and about in Newark last night, doing journalism, when they came across a dog that had been locked out in the bitter cold for an extended period of time. So reporter Toni Yates did the responsible thing and tweeted this urgent information at Cory Booker, who personally came down to the property and used his hero powers to lift the shivering dog off of the ground and place it into a police cruiser. Thank God he was there. Who knows how they would have gotten that dog into the car otherwise?

Five Notes on Lloyd Blankfein’s New Beard

By Kevin Roose

Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., reacts during a session on day three of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. World leaders, influential executives, bankers and policy makers attend the 43rd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the five day event runs from Jan. 23-27.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein showed up to this year's World Economic Forum in Davos sporting a new look: a thin, gray-ish beard that falls somewhere between five-day stubble and the Full Bernanke on the facial-hair spectrum.

Clearly, this is a huge deal. It gets Blankfein into the Wall Street Facial Hair Club and makes him roughly equal to Jamie Dimon in the "financial executives I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley" category. But how should you think about it? Here are five thoughts, in no particular order, on this sartorial development:

1/25/13 at 2:30 PM
Walkbacks
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Even NRA Lobbyist Thinks Obama Children Ad Was Over the Line

By Joe Coscarelli

The National Rifle Association video after Newtown calling President Obama an "elitist hypocrite" because his daughters are protected by guns was atrocious by any standard of human decency, and it only took the professional gun nuts two weeks to realize it. "I don't think it was particularly helpful, that ad," Jim Baker, head of the federal affairs division at the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (a.k.a., a lobbyist), admitted to Reuters. "I thought it ill-advised." He continued, "I think the ad could have made a good point, if it talked about the need for increased school security, without making the point using the president's children." So … if it was an entirely different ad then? Just checking. That Wayne LaPierre press conference, on the other hand? Pure gold — play it again.

1/25/13 at 2:26 PM
21 Questions
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David Carr Does Not Expect to Be Working for Donald Trump Anytime Soon

By Vanita Salisbury

Name: David Carr
Age: 56
Neighborhood: Montclair, New Jersey
Occupation: Columnist/Reporter New York Times, Author, The Night of the Gun. On Monday he'll be a guest at the Employee of the Month comedy talk show, alongside playwright Adam Rapp and comedian W. Kamau Bell.

Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Verlaine and the band Television, evoking air of New York that is mysterious and now unattainable.

1/25/13 at 1:47 PM
Aquatic Puppies!!
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Poor Dolphin Dies in Disgusting Gowanus Canal [Updated]

By Joe Coscarelli

WINTER in Alcon Entertainment’s family adventure “DOLPHIN TALE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

The festering sewage water of Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal was blessed by a beautiful sea creature on this freezing afternoon, DNAinfo reports. "It was probably injured or sick, I don't know why it would want to come in here," said a local. "It's disgusting. Hopefully we can get it out before it gets worse." Rescuers are on the scene and NBC New York has a helicopter delivering live coverage because it's Friday and people love dolphins. But you can't really see anything because the water is, as previously stated, kind of gross.

1/25/13 at 1:37 PM
America!
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Which Quixotic Conservative Utopia Is Right for You?

By Dan Amira

Everyone pretty much agrees that Obama's America is tanking, fast. Taxes are up slightly on the wealthy, Congress wants to ban our most efficient people-killing machines, and government regulation forced Beyoncé to lip-synch the National Anthem after she failed to submit the proper public-singing permits. Thankfully, there is hope on the horizon in the form of various quixotic conservative utopias that will definitely exist someday. Before you pack up your family and sell your home, though, take some time to decide which promised land is right for you.

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