• Rudy and Hillary, together again for the very first time. That’s right — Giuliani all but declared his presidential bid yesterday, filing a “Statement of Candidacy” with the FEC, meaning that the two candidates’ aborted Y2K power grapple for the Senate could finally be revived on a national stage. [NYT]
• Mayor Mike Bloomberg rips into the $330 million hole in city funding created by Governor Eliot Spitzer’s new budget, claiming the cuts will rob NYC of twice that amount — and questioning Spitz’s claim that closing up some tax loopholes will balance out the loss. [NYP]
• Six panhandlers sue the city for illegally arresting them after one of their own, Eddie Wise, scored $100,000 after a similar suit. They are just a few of a possible 7,000 such wrongful haul-ins. [NYDN]
• Having obviously visited the wrong debt-management counselor, a Queens man beats a cop with a bat and steals his gun, aiming to pull off robberies to pay back $16,000. The cop is in critical but stable condition and the arrested thug faces 25 to life, with the debt still unpaid, presumably. [Newsday]
• President Bush is putting $1.3 billion into the federal budget to help complete the Second Avenue subway — not to mention $215 mil to aid in bringing the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal. [amNY]
