At The Polls: NY City today is likely to elect progressive candidate Bill de Blasio as its next mayor. It’ll be a left turn after 12 years of conservative, and effective, Michael Bloomberg.

  NPR says Virginia must choose between two candidates for governor it dislikes the least: former Clinton protégé Terry McAuliffe, and Tea Party conservative Ken Cuccinelli. Democrat McAuliffe is the favorite.

Colorado will be weighing whether to raise taxes to pay for better education. The aforesaid Bloomberg has donated $1 million to the pro-school campaign, as have Bill and Melinda Gates of Microsoft wealth.

New York State voters will decide whether they want legalized gambling in seven full-scale casinos spread around the state. Previous efforts have failed, but the gambling industry has spent $59 million in NY in the last eight years. Backers, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, promise it will create jobs and lower taxes. It’s already been good for Gov. Cuomo, who has collected more than $1 million in political donations from the gambling guys.

And NJ Gov. Chris Christie is expected to win re-election by a landslide, teeing up for a possible presidential run in 2016.

Greed is Good: The Hedge Fund SAC Capital has agreed to pay a $1.8 billion fine to settle criminal and civil charges against the hedge fund giant. It’s the biggest settlement ever in an insider trading case.

Not to be outdone, Johnson & Johnson has agreed to a $2.2 billion settlement over dishonest marketing practices. The medical Mothra paid doctors and pharmacies to push several of its medicines.

Shooter: A man who entered a large shopping mall firing a gun in Paramus, NJ last night was later found dead after killing himself. Thousands of people ran from the mail and several hundred locked themselves into stores. No one was hit.

Out In Maine: Six-term Maine Congressman Mike Michaud, who’s running for governor of the “get your deer” state, announced that he’s gay in order to defuse what he called a whispering campaign by opponents. He’s in a three-way race to unseat Republican Gov. Paul LePage. Michaud wrote in an op-ed article “Allow me to save them the trouble with a simple, honest answer: ‘Yes I am. But why should it matter?'”

Out of Bounds: In a strange incident in the NFL, Miami Dolphins veteran guard Richie Incognito has been suspended after accusations that he wrote racist and obscene messages to team mate Jonathan Martin, who left the team saying he felt he was in physical danger. Incognito, who weighs in at 319, is accused of writing a message that calls the 312-pound, mixed-race Martin a “half nigger.” One message from Incognito is reported to say, “I’m going to kill you.” The NFL has a culture of hazing that’s sometimes on steroids. Unknown is whether this is an incident of extreme locker-room culture and stupidity, or a serious threat.

Billions and Billions: Analysis of information from the Kepler space telescope suggests there may be billions of planets with liquid water, where life as we know it may be possible. There’s a habitable zone around every star where the temperature is acceptable for life. Scientists call it “The Goldilocks Zone.”

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