NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mark Madoff, the elder son of convicted swindler Bernard Madoff, was found hanged in his New York City apartment in an apparent suicide, police and his lawyer said on Saturday.

Mark Madoff, 46, was found dead on the two-year anniversary of the arrest of his father. Bernard Madoff is now serving 150 years in prison after confessing to running a decades-long Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of billions.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg denied again on Wednesday he would run for president but his latest critique of the U.S. political system has stirred new speculation about his political plans.

Bloomberg’s newest comments on national politics come at a time of voter discontent with the major political parties. He also has a record of changing his mind.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest critique of the U.S. political system on Wednesday stirred renewed debate whether the independent billionaire may mount a third-party run for the White House.

Bloomberg has said repeatedly he will not run for president in 2012, but he also once ruled out seeking a third term as mayor. He then engineered changes in the city’s term limits law so he could run again in 2009, when he won for the third time with a self-financed campaign.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – For Kathryn Confer, refinancing the mortgage on her home in Erie, Pennsylvania, became a race against time — first because she was drowning under a 10.5 percent interest rate and then because of the Congress.

Confer wanted to avoid the unintended consequences of the political compromise struck by President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans to extend lower tax rates to all Americans, including high earners.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Steve Martin glides from acting to music to writing so fluidly that he gives the impression it all comes easily to him.

Martin admits “a certain kind of ease” with writing fiction, as exemplified in his new novel “An Object of Beauty” from Grand Central Publishing, but only now does he feel that way, at age 65, years removed from the “wild and crazy guy” who burst into show business as a stand-up comedian in the 1970s.

NEW YORK, Nov 19 (Reuters) – MSNBC television suspended
conservative morning host Joe Scarborough for two days for
giving money to political candidates, meting out the same
punishment given to liberal host Keith Olbermann two weeks ago
for a similar offense.

Scarborough said the donations went to his brother and
three longtime family friends and he wrongly believed the
personal nature of the gifts exempted him from the NBC News
policy on campaign contributions.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Brooklyn coffee shop is offering customers a real jolt: 10 shots of espresso in a single serving with the nickname “porn in a cup.”

The Pulp & The Bean in the Crown Heights neighborhood put the item on the menu on Tuesday with the official name of “Dieci,” Italian for “10.” The nickname comes from a sign advertising the drink outside the store, whose specialty item was first reported by the New York Daily News.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Brooklyn coffee shop is offering customers a real jolt: 10 shots of espresso in a single serving with the nickname “porn in a cup.”

The Pulp & The Bean in the Crown Heights neighborhood put the item on the menu on Tuesday with the official name of “Dieci,” Italian for “10.” The nickname comes from a sign advertising the drink outside the store, whose specialty item was first reported by the New York Daily News.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hip-hop artist Kanye West on Friday canceled a performance on NBC’s “Today” show to protest what he called a “set up” when he was interviewed on the program over his flap with former President George W. Bush.

West was due to perform on the morning talk show on November 26, the Friday after Thanksgiving, but canceled after the perceived slight during an appearance on “Today” on Wednesday. Live performances are ratings draws for “Today,” the top-rated U.S. morning talk show.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The city that has bragged of falling crime during the past two decades is struggling to explain why murders are up 15 percent this year.

As crime plummeted in the 1990s, New York rebranded itself as the safest big city in America, luring back tourists and businesses that fled in the 1970s and 1980s, when the city was associated with graffiti-splashed subway cars, littered streets and a crack cocaine epidemic.