Jersey City elementary school teacher Aliaa Gouda woke at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday and found she had missed 10 calls from Egypt.

A 1/4 to 3/4 of an inch of ice fell on the tri-state area Tuesday night, downing power lines and tree limbs, cancelling flights and making for treacherous driving conditions. The brutal wintry mix of ice and sleet has given way to rain as temperatures rise, but power outages are wide-spread in the area.

Mayor Bloomberg kept up pressure on Governor Cuomo on Wednesday, saying the newly elected executive's budget will cost the city more than a billion dollars in education aid, and force the city to layoff "thousands" of workers.

"The cut for education is $1.4 billion no matter how you phrase it," said Bloomberg at a City Hall press conference, rebuffing comments made by the governor's staff that the city's loss was smaller. 

A yearlong study of the Gowanus Canal confirmed what many New Yorkers and environmentalists already suspected: the waterway is severely polluted and may never be safe enough for swimming and fishing.

New Yorkers who commute between Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens will have another transportation option this June. The city's Economic Development Corporation has awarded a contract that paves the way for all-day, year-round East River ferry service.

Riders of the B63 bus from Cobble Hill to Bay Ridge through Park Slope and Sunset Park can now track their bus by mobile phone or computer.

Census figures show about 50,000 people of Egyptian ancestry live in New York and New Jersey combined. Most Egyptians are Muslim, but about 10 percent of the country’s population is Coptic Christian. They are the largest minority group in Egypt and, in recent days, many in the New York metro area have been following news of Egyptian protests with less excitement than trepidation.

New York is a city of specialists from foodies to academics, laborers to shopkeepers. Every Wednesday, Niche Market will take a peek inside a different specialty store and showcase the city's purists who have made an art out of selling one commodity.

Many New Yorkers are eating out during this Restaurant Week. And that means a busy time for a lot of people — one in every 15 workers employed in the city's private sector are in the food and beverage industry. But getting a job as a waiter is not easy.

New York City is commemorating Black History Month while considering landmarks status for a Queens neighborhood and four buildings on Staten Island.

Thomas Dold of Germany must have been in an Empire state of mind.

Leaders of Egyptian Christians are among those in New York who have paid close attention to the protests in Egypt and have called on Coptic congregations to pray and fast for peace for the first three days of this week.

The New York Historical Society is hoping to make history itself.

The fate of 25 low-performing schools hangs in the balance this week as the Department of Education waits for the go-ahead to gradual phase-out and replace those schools beginning this fall.

Another storm expected to dump two to five inches of snow on the city is on its way.

The people who brought New York the arresting images of a woman whose fingers were amputated because of a crippling nicotine addiction and the folks who showed how effortlessly soda turns into fat have unleashed a new grossed-straight video.

The Environmental Protection Agency has found high levels of PCBs in another school it tested this month during spot checks for the toxic substance in the city's schools.

PHOTOS: Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City this weekend calling for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The city may be under a blanket of snow -- but it's summer in Soho.