Adam Lisberg

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Mayor Bloomberg wrapped Barack Obama in the Israeli flag Friday, telling a Jewish group the senator is a friend of Israel and denouncing rumors he is secretly a Muslim. "Let's call those rumors what they are - lies," Bloomberg, who is Jewish, told an adoring crowd of 150 people at the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County.

Mayor Bloomberg said Monday a police detective who died of lung disease after working hundreds of hours at Ground Zero was "not a hero." Accepting an award from the Harvard School of Public Health, the mayor defended the city medical examiner's conclusion that Detective James Zadroga died of drug abuse. "Our chief medical examiner believes that the deceased was using some of his drugs in a manner for recreational drugs," Bloomberg said.

Employees who left City Hall to join the campaign were paid at their old city salaries, and didn't share in the 8% raises that the mayor's office staff got this year.