The Highlands Region in the northwest corner of New Jersey provides water for more than 5 million households in the state. A utility company, Tennessee Gas Pipeline, is expanding the natural gas line that runs through the environmentally protected area. The fight over the project has become the centerpiece of why environmentalists complain about Governor Chris Christie's tenure.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is taking the military to task after an annual review showed the number of sexual assaults in the military increased.

Data from DIY cicada trackers and soil temperature readings from the U.S. Climate Reference Network are helping us predict this spring's Brood II cicada emergence. Check out the map (which already has some cicada sightings!), and let us know if you're seeing and hearing cicadas near you.

For more than a hundred years, visitors have been passing through Ellis Island. But since it opened as a national park, instead of the poor, huddled masses entering the 19th century building it's their descendents and tourists streaming in. All that changed after Sandy, whose flood waters covered the entire island.

If you can't beat 'em... eat 'em? Some tips and recipes for enjoying cicadas during the 17-year Brood II invasion along the East Coast.

Periodical cicadas emerge in cycles of 17 and 13 years, making them a kind of cultural bug clock -- a buzzing reminder of invasions of yore, and a good excuse to think back on where we were the last time they burst from the ground in massive, memorable hordes.

Sandy exposed the city's vulnerability to flooding, just as development along the water's edge has been booming. Waterfront parks are part of that growth and they could have a unique advantage helping the city deal with rising waters. James Russell, an architecture critic with Bloomberg News, took WNYC on a tour of these developing esplanades, which are transforming the city’s waterfront.

Leaked internal Veterans Affairs documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting show that delays at Department of Veterans Affairs New York office are far worse than the agency has publicly let on.

Lurking in the ground beneath our feet, waiting in their burrows for the first signs of spring are tens of millions of cicadas.

Lurking in the ground beneath our feet, waiting in their burrows for the first signs of spring are tens of millions of cicadas.

After 17 years, cicadas are expected to emerge and overwhelm a large swath of land from Virginia to Connecticut — climbing up trees, flying in swarms and blanketing grassy areas so they crunch underfoot.

For three hours on Wednesday, New York's Archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, sat before lawyers and answered questions about the 575 people who claim they were molested by priests in Milwaukee. Dolan led that archdiocese for seven years, prior to coming to New York in 2009. Attorneys for the victims claim Dolan was part of a long standing practice in Milwaukee of shielding church finances and subverting justice.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan was deposed Wednesday in an abuse case against Roman Catholic clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which he led from 2002 until 2009.

One of the FDNY’s bravest was awarded the Public Safety Medal of Valor on Wednesday.

During his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama covered a wide range of issues from using government money to create jobs and grow the middle class to combating climate change. He set up a clash between his administration and a deeply divided Congress over some issues such as guns and immigration.

It was a short race – just under a quarter of a mile – but it was all uphill.