Setting up a showdown over one of the most divisive issues in recent political memory, Speaker Christine C. Quinn announced Tuesday that the City Council would vote Thursday on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to revise the term limits law so he can pursue four more years in office.

Supporters of the change said the move reflected Mr. Bloomberg’s and Ms. Quinn’s confidence that they have gathered the 26 Council votes needed to pass the legislation.

There are also signs that public opinion is tilting against the change, and privately some allies of Ms. Quinn say she is anxious, if not desperate, to hold the vote before an advertising campaign opposing the change takes hold.

THE bronze statue of a bull in the heart of the financial district has taken on new meaning in recent weeks, and been a popular destination for those seeking an ironic photo op. On Tuesday afternoon, businessmen, tourists and children posed beside the bull as cameras flashed, highlighting a key stop on the tour of Wall Street ruins.

As it turned out, those history chasers were standing just a few feet away from another symbol of troubled times, one that resonates less widely but nevertheless cuts deep among a certain set.

The magnificent limestone building at 26 Broadway, once the headquarters of the Standard Oil Company, has been a recent focal point for downtown parents.
 

Regulators in New Jersey on Friday awarded rights to build a huge offshore wind farm in the southern part of the state to Garden State Offshore Energy, a joint venture that includes P.S.E.G. Renewable Generation, a subsidiary of P.S.E.G. Global, a sister company of the state’s largest utility.

The selection, which includes access of up to $19 million in state grants, is part of New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan, which calls for 20 percent of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. It also comes on the heels of decisions by Delaware and Rhode Island to let energy companies install offshore wind farms.

Energy experts say that these approvals could prompt regulators in New York to support projects off the south shore of Long Island and New York City.

In an otherwise admirable editorial highlighting a new report that shows New York City paid 235 teachers $81 million over two years to do nothing, the New York Times includes this paragraph:

"Under the new free-market system, teachers who lose their jobs because of budget cuts, program curtailments or school closings are supposed to go into a reserve pool for a short time before they are hired elsewhere in the system. An overwhelming majority of more than 2,700 teachers sent into the pool in 2006 did just that."

NEW YORK (AP) — It requires enough concrete to build a sidewalk from New York to Miami and enough pipe to reach the top of the Empire State Building 140 times over. Workers carved out enough dirt from the ground to fill more than 100,000 dump trucks.

The colossal effort is a water filtration plant being built 10 stories beneath a Bronx driving range, a one-of-a-kind project intended to become a nearly invisible part of the city's infrastructure.

But the plant has been anything but hidden so far.