Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images History was made in the East Room of the White House this afternoon when President Obama held the first ever presidential Twitter town hall. For a little over an hour, Obama, sitting on unnecessarily high stools with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, took questions submitted to him over Twitter with an #AskObama hash tag and chosen by a group of economic exp... more.

Sometimes, people getting naked on the subway is scary. Sometimes it is weird and sort of funny. And sometimes it is just plain gross, as it is with the latest people-doing-crazy-shit-on-the-subway video that Gawker unearthed today. In it, a woman appears to bathe her nether regions using a jug of water, soap, and a towel. You have to hand it to her: It probably makes more sense to shower on one o... more.

Is this all?Photo: iStockphoto Ascending to a judgeship used to be a plush way for a lawyer to close out a career: It's a prestigious gig, the pay was decent, and the hours were excellent. Especially in New York, where the pay for a judge was the highest nationally in the seventies, at its relative peak. But a pay freeze on judges' salaries over the past twelve years, coupled with a sharp increas... more.

Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Yesterday the Post ran a bold, intriguing headline — "Obama to ask Cuomo to be 2012 running mate: sources" — which, upon close inspection, turned out to be about as bold and intriguing as Larry Crowne. The "sources" in question were two people, former New York GOP leader William Powers and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, with absolutely zero ... more.

Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images In a lengthy reported piece that went online today, the Times takes aim at one of rival Rupert Murdoch's crown jewels: the sensationalist British tabloid News of the World. The paper retells the story of the 2007 arrest and conviction of a reporter, Clive Goodman, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, who together hacked into the private voice mails of su... more.

Who to vote for?Photo: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg via Getty Images Finance types might not be publicly supporting President Obama the same way they did four years ago, but they haven't run away to the GOP — yet. At last week's Daniel fundraising dinner, the president raised $2.3 million, instead of the projected $1.5 million. There were some fairly deep-pocketed Wall Streeters willing to go p... more.

Photo: Getty Images Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has returned to Caracas from Cuba, where he recently announced he was being treated for cancer. Chavez's return comes in time to mark the 200th anniversary of Venezuela's independence on Tuesday, a holiday typically celebrated with a parade. Chavez's return has not dispelled concerns that his condition may hinder his capacity to rule and preven... more.

Photo: Andreas Branch/PatrickMcMullan.com After News of the World reporter Neville Thurlbeck and former news editor Ian Edmondson were arrested earlier this week, the tabloid has offered an "unreserved apology" to celebs whose private voice mails somehow found their way into print, and will likely dole out $160,000 settlements to each angry famous person. Cinema sexpot Sienna Miller and about two... more.

Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters Prosecutors are planning to drop the sexual-assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn within the next two weeks, the New York Post reports. The paper quotes a "top investigator" who said a scheduled court date on July 18 would be the latest the case would be dropped, even though last week, as DSK was released from house arrest, prosecutors were still saying that ... more.

Photo: Getty Images In 2009, a still relatively fresh President Obama campaigned all-out for New Jersey's incumbent governor, Jon Corzine, in a race that was seen as an early referendum on Obama's own popularity. They even held hands. Corzine ("our Wall Street guy," as Obama called the ex-Goldman head then) lost. But no hard feelings on either side, apparently. The Post reports that Corzine, who... more.

Photo: Getty Images President Obama was in New Jersey today holding hands with and drumming up support for Jon Corzine. The New Jersey Democrat is the first incumbent governor to seek reelection since Obama became president and his success or failure will, fairly or not, be regarded as Obama's success or failure. In front of a crowd of 3,000, Obama talked about how Corzine helped mitigate the eff... more.

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images In his stump speech throughout the campaign, Mitt Romney has often insisted that while President Obama didn't cause the recession — gracious acknowledgment, that — he did make it worse and longer. Romney has never provided proof for such an assertion, and an AP fact check has debunked the claim. The economic recovery has been painfully slow, yes, but it ha... more.

Well, maybe now it does: Yesterday, a hacker broke into the @foxnewspolitics Twitter account to tweet the chilling (fake) news that President Obama had been assassinated on July 4. Twitter death hoaxes are nothing new, and mainstream news organizations have gotten swept up in them before. These attracted attention in part because of the dramatic details, in addition, of course, to the source of ... more.

Photo: Getty Images; DJ Baskin and M Vilensky As the late Elaine Kaufman once said, "Time was, men was men. Now they call a lawyer and sue you." Alas, not in Jersey, where betrayed democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney is threatening to punch Chris Christie, after Christie reportedly reneged on a verbal agreement to call Sweeney, and rejected every Democratic move in his line-item veto of t... more.

Helen Beard, a 41-year-old British mother, was lounging by the pool of Orlando, Florida's Econo Lounge on Thursday when she heard "a horrific scream" coming from the babysitter of a 1-year-old child who was falling from a hotel balcony. Quick on her feet, Beard caught the baby, Jah-Nea Myles, with her bare hands. Myles had slipped through the balcony railing, but she was fine, safe in the arms of... more.

Photo: Patrick McMullan Sonja Morgan is blaming her 80-year-old ex-husband, John Adams Morgan, for her well-documented financial troubles. The ongoing divorce proceedings are "bitter," explains the Real Housewives of New York star, because her ex, a descendant of J.P. Morgan and President John Adams, is refusing to pay her a $3 million lump-sum divorce judgment, claiming the judge made him pay m... more.

Mark Richard Geisenheyner. Fifty-one-year-old Mark Geisenheyner, the suspected gunman in a shooting that left 43-year-old Joseph Shay and his 2-year-old son Gregory Erdmann dead on Sunday, was killed Monday in the basement of a rural Pennsylvania home, following a standoff with police. When swarmed by a SWAT team, Geisenheyner, armed with a handgun, reportedly refused to surrender. Officials said... more.

Photo: Patrick McMullan Now that Bethenny Frankel's gone, tipsy Sonja Morgan is our favorite Real Housewife of New York City, which is why we were worried by this news: According to Gawker, the sometimes-Sapphic socialite has filed for bankruptcy, citing $19 million in debt against her $13 million in assets. The website says that at least $7 million of this problem is due to a John Travolta movie... more.

Photo: Getty Images According to the New York Post, the unnamed maid who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault, whose credibility has recently come into serious question, believed she would get money in return for sexual services performed on Strauss-Kahn. "She figured he's a rich dude, and she would get paid," a source explained. The maid reportedly knew what Strauss... more.

Julian Assange using a Mac.Photo: Newsweek Members of the hacker group Anonymous have seized a small amount of internal passwords and usernames from — gasp — Apple, and posted them publicly on the file-sharing website Pastebin. It seems safe to assume the Anonymous crew uses Macs, so they're just biting the hand that feeds this time. ... more.