A Long Island woman stands accused of peddling more than just sausage from her hot-dog truck. Police arrested Catherine Scalia, 45, on May 4 on a prostitution charge after she allegedly offered her buns and more to an undercover cop and took him back to her East Rockaway residence.

   Scalia, a mother of four, pleaded not guilty. Baldwin-area residents complained to police was handing out suggestive business cards. She and a friend were busted in December 2004 for running a similar operation out of the hot-dog truck.

   Linda Evangelista once famously said supermodels "don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day." Apparently, they also need a whole lot of money to raise their children.

   Evangelista is in the midst of a nasty child-support case against Francois-Henri Pinault, Salma Hayek’s billionaire husband and the father of Evangelista’s 5-year-old son, Augustin. She's trying to hit up Pinault, heir to an $11.5 billion family empire, for $46,000 a month in Manhattan Family Court.

   Next time you get pulled over for doing 72 mph on the New York State Thruway, resist the urge to say, "Hey, officer, how's tricks?"

   An investigation into alleged misconduct has led to the suspension of three State Troopers. State police said Titus Taggart, a Thruway patrol trooper assigned to the Buffalo area, allegedly organized off-duty parties that may have involved the promotion of prostitution.

   Two troopers assigned to the Henrietta barracks have also been suspended without pay after being accused of misconduct.

   The Buffalo News ran a scathing editorial against the Buffalo Teachers Federation on April 29, all but asking for a state takeover of the school district.

   The BTF is indisputably an impediment to fixing a broken operation, but it's hard to fault the union for standing its ground on the latest hot-button issue: Allowing teachers to be evaluated in large part on the academic performance of students who miss a third of the school year or more.

   BTW, there's no way Albany intervenes.

   One of the worst former members of the worst government body in the country -- the New York Senate -- got a beat-down in court May 4. Hiram Monserrate entered a guilty plea to improperly using New York City Council money to finance a failed political campaign.

   The disgraced Democrat acknowledged he was guilty of mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy.

   In 2008, Monserrate and Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. jumped ship, giving Republicans a brief majority in the Senate. Espada, of course, is now battling his own legal issues.

   Eh, so what if the guy drops himself in the drink? All that really matters to business owners is that Nik Wallenda will attract lots of tourists to Western New York and Southern Ontario on June 15 for his attempted tightrope walk across Niagara Falls.

   "We've got to make the best of it that we can," John Percy, president and chief executive of the Niagara Tourism & Convention Corp, told The Buffalo News. "I think we'll hit the ground running. We have to plan to put Niagara Falls in the best light that we possibly can."

   The selection of David Paterson as lt. governor was regarded as an inspired bit of work by Eliot Spitzer because of his legislative experience and connections around the state. Once Client No. 9 was chased from office though, Paterson proved to be in way over his head in the state's No. 1 job.

   Paterson did not stand for election to a full four-year term and was replaced by Andrew Cuomo. Now, Cuomo has appointed Paterson to the MTA board, one of the outfits the ex-gov further screwed up by allowing himself to taken to the cleaners in crucial union negotiations.

   A huge New York City law firm is imploding before our very eyes, a victim of its ambitious growth via a recent merger and ill-advised compensation deals.

   An April 30 memo to Dewey & LeBoeuf LLC's 85 remaining partners advised those who haven't already exited -- and at least 11 partners did so the previous week -- that that they are free to pull the rip cord.

   The head of Dewey’s restructuring practice said there are no plans to file bankruptcy. Stay tuned, though.

   The New York Racing Association suspended its president and its general counsel after a state report challenging assertions by the association that it was unaware it had been incorrectly applied a higher-than-permissible takeout rate to its trifecta and superfecta bets.

   Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the state’s inspector general was investigating whether NYRA and its officials violated any state laws. State budget czar Robert Megna heads an oversight board that has the power to recommend that the association’s franchise to operate Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga be revoked.

   The Buffalo Bills want big changes -- as in $200 million or so worth -- made to Ralph Wilson Stadium but don't seem particulaly inclined to pay for much (if any) of the work themselves. Instead, Erie County and the state are being pressured to pony up the money.

   The pressure is only implied, of course. But Bills management has certainly taken note of how other NFL teams have gotten their improvements or new stadiums without having to do much more than remind fans and politicians that Los Angeles would welcome the return of pro football (not to be confused with USC).

   How shameless is Charlie Rangel? A public rebuke the former chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee received didn't stop him from running for re-election in 2010. Worse still, voters in his district sent him back to Washington.

   Now, Rangel is running again in the aftermath of being censured in 2011 by the House, the most serious congressional penalty short of expulsion. Rangel was convicted of 11 ethics violations, including tax issues and using congressional resources to raise money for an academic center bearing his name.

   One of the Senate's former top "leaders," Sen. Pedro Espada, is fighting charges that he misappropriated all sorts of funds for personal use from a government-funded health clinic in the Bronx. For good measure, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service are also poking around.

   In case you don't recall, Espada is one of the two Democrats who switched sides in the summer of 2009 to briefly hand control of the N.Y. Senate back to Republicans. The Democrats eventually lured both back with packages of perks.