NYPD tells cops to trim facial hair

The increasingly diverse NYPD wants to get a little more uniform: Cops have been told to say goodbye to their goatees, chinstrap beards and designer hair affectations more suitable for, well, designers.

A Jan. 8 memo clarifies a regulation that says officers are not allowed goatees, chinstrap beards (think Abraham Lincoln) or other “designer beards,” like Mike Piazza’s goatees and creative facial hair when he played for the Mets.

Police officers are allowed to have mustaches – the most notable wearer is Chief of Department Joe Esposito – and undercover officers can pretty much do whatever they want when it comes to facial hair.

Washington

Sebelius will give response to Bush

Looking for a new face, congressional Democrats reached outside the beltway Tuesday and chose Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to respond to President Bush’s State of the Union speech this month.

With calls for political change in the wind, Democratic leaders selected a two-term, female governor from a red Midwestern state who works both sides of the political divide.

In an echo of the rhetoric of the presidential campaign, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sebelius “epitomizes the leadership that is moving America in a new direction.”

Bush will give the annual State of the Union speech before a joint session of Congress and all of official Washington on Jan. 28. The party out of power traditionally gets airtime to offer its own political vision for the coming year.