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​It's a sad, sad day when another cat is kicked to the street, forced to fend for his/herself in a city where mice-hoarding opossums run rampant like bed bugs in SoHo. Fortunately for Matilda, the Algonquin's famed feline resident, such will not be her fate following the hotel's recent merger with Marriott International Inc. More >>

As has been speculated, former city council member and recent unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic comptroller nomination David Yassky will serve as the new Commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Yassky served on the council's transportation committee, which was chaired by John Liu, who got the Democratic comptroller nomination and won the election. Yassky replaces Matthew W. Daus.

Meanwhile Yassky's former press secretary, Evan Thies, who ran unsuccessfully to succeed Yassky last year, has gone over to PR, starting up a new public affairs marketing company called Brooklyn Strategies.

A lot of people have said that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo couldn't get in the governor's race, despite his high poll numbers in prospective match-ups, because of his responsibility over the Paterson probe.

Well, that's no longer a factor: Cuomo has recused himself from the probe of the governor's handling of the David Johnson case, handing it off to a special investigator -- former Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye.

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​Formerly one of the world's most respected athletes, now disgraced, asking America to forgive... Well, no, not really. Marion Jones, the sprinter stripped of her Olympic medals for doping and jailed for lying to prosecutors about it, is joining a WNBA team, the Tulsa Shock. And though, like Tiger Woods, she was extremely contrite at her moment of downfall, Jones seems very eager to put her past behind her. "The word redemption is not in my vocabulary," she told the press.

She did have to work out with the team before the announcement was made, but now the Tulsa management is enthusiastic, laying on the people-make-mistakes and glad-to-have-her-with-us palaver in equal measure. (Jones, 34, played on the UNC college team in the early 90s; She's been out of prison for a year and a half.)

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​America's going non-white! It's been long reported that the U.S. is projected to be minority-majority by 2042. Now researchers from Cornell and the University of New Hampshire say, "for America's children and youth, that future is here already": In the Census year that ended in July of 2008, 48 percent of the children born in the U.S.A. were from minority-group parents.

The growth is mainly among Hispanic parents. Between 2000 and 2008, says the report by Professors Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter, Hispanics "accounted for more than one-half of all US population growth."

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​Last week the New York State Police superintendent, Harry Corbitt, after defending his department's conduct in the Paterson-David Johnson scandal -- he said troopers visited Johnson's abuse accuser just to "give her options" -- suddenly retired, citing "media showing up in my driveway." Stepping up as acting superintendent since then has been his second-in-command, First Deputy Superintendent Pedro Perez, a 28-year veteran of the force.

Now Perez is retiring. Deputy Superintendent John Melville will take over the department until Paterson appoints an actual superintendent, barring another resignation.

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​Dionne Mack-Harvin was thought to be doing a good job as head of the Brooklyn Public Library, and celebrated as the first African-American major library system head in New York. But last week she quit, a spokesperson saying she was "interested in exploring new opportunity in public service."

The Daily News suggests Mack-Harvin may have been nudged toward the door by a downsizing incident, in which a firm hired to handle layoffs at the library let the Washington Post witness them in action, resulting in embarrassment for the employees and the Library.

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​At first we didn't see the significance: The British Daily Mail reveals that for a science show called Bang Goes The Theory, a crew has developed a car that runs on coffee. They call it the Carpuccino. Wait, don't go. The punchline is, the car is totally impractical. It gets "three miles per kilo of ground coffee" and is between 25 and 50 times more expensive to run than a gasoline-powered car.

Why do we care? Because it might mean that the recession is over -- spiritually, at least.

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Eric Massa is leaving Congress sooner than we thought. When he announced his retirement Wednesday -- some people suspected it actually had to do with an ethics probe rumored to be about Massa's harassment of a male aide, but Massa said it was due to health reasons -- the first-term Representative gave the impression that he would hang in until the end of his term.

But now Hotline On Call has a source that says Massa will resign his office on Monday. The Washington Post also has the story.

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The governor's communications director resigned today. "As a former officer in the United States Navy, integrity and commitment to public service are values I take seriously, " said Peter Kauffmann, and "I cannot in good conscience continue in my current position." Translation: I know nothing, noooothing.

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