Thousands marched through the streets of the West Village Monday evening to denounce the murder of Mark Carson, who police say was shot and killed because of his sexual orientation.

“A Gay Man Was Brutally Murdered Here…” reads a red sign propped up against the door of an out-of-business Barnes and Noble on Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. It’s surrounded by candles and flowers and two photos of 32-year-old Mark Carson who was shot in the face early Saturday morning in what police are calling a suspected hate crime.

Disability Rights Advocates allege that the city's emergency response plan fails to include the needs of the disabled. A lawsuit has been underway in federal court and the Department of Justice recently submitted a report to the judge supporting the advocates claims.

A judge has ruled that the city must continue to pay for hotel rooms for 890 Sandy evacuees who still don't have permanent homes to move into. The city tried to end the hotel program April 30th but Legal Aid sued, arguing the date was set arbitrarily.

City Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Christine Quinn spoke candidly about her personal struggles with alcohol and bulimia, and answered earnest questions from about three dozen young college women seated in a small, intimate room at Barnard College Tuesday.

The Gowanus Canal, a smelly polluted waterway in Brooklyn that's a designated superfund site, is soon to be substantially cleaner, according to city officials.

Hundreds of Sandy victims still without permanent homes are waiting for a judge to decide whether they must leave the hotels they've been staying in since shortly after the storm hit.

No one had really heard of “adult day care centers” before they emerged at the center of a bribery scandal involving a Bronx Assemblyman.  But as it turns out, a recent change in state regulations means the centers have become a potentially lucrative enterprise for their operators – and with almost no oversight.  It’s no wonder they are at the center of a bribery scandal.

Legal advocates for the elderly are warning that adult daycare programs,  like the one at the center of a political corruption case involving State Assemblyman Eric Stevenson, are highly susceptible to fraud and abuse because no license is required to open them, no government agency is charged with visiting or inspecting them and more of these centers are now eligible to receive government funds.

When Sandy hit, it exposed an underclass living marginal lives in basements and other rundown homes, many inhabited by people who entered the country illegally. And because many don’t qualify for federal aid, they’re at a greater disadvantage.

Ten women, all of them domestic violence victims, have sued the New York City Housing Authority for allegedly botching their applications for public housing. Domestic violence victims are supposed to receive the highest priority for public housing apartments once they've proved they are being abused by submitting police reports, orders of protection and other documents.

A federal trial is continuing in the case of disabled New Yorkers, who say the city needs a protocol for evacuating them during disasters, such as Sandy.

The New York City area is home to about 4 million Catholics, and each church that serves this population has its own challenges and needs. WNYC's Cindy Rodriguez and Brigid Bergin check in on a left-of-center church uptown, and one in Sunset Park offering services in four languages.

The city is arguing that disabled individuals have a responsibility to plan wisely for disasters and it's not just up to government to keep them safe. City lawyer Martha Calhoun made that argument at the start of a trial on whether disabled people are needlessly suffering during disasters because the city fails to account for their special needs.

Opening arguments begin today in a federal trial that is expected to shine a spotlight on how disabled New Yorkers fared during recent disasters such as Hurricane Irene and Sandy. The trial stems from a class action lawsuit filed in September of 2011 by the group, Disability Rights Advocates.  The group alleges the city's 900,000 disabled people are largely left out of disaster preparedness plans.

Teen mothers are speaking out about a city-funded ad campaign to discourage teen pregnancy. The ad has drawn fire from groups that work with pregnant teens who say it unfairly stigmatizes poor and minority girls.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that the state Department of Financial Services will launch a review to determine whether large, well-known banks are reneging on a promise to provide homeowners affected by Sandy mortgage relief. The state's move comes after WNYC reported on Staten Island Sandy victims facing threats of foreclosure.

While many families whose homes were damaged by Sandy are receiving some mortgage relief from banks, advocates say the measures will only postpone a rash of foreclosures, not prevent them.

The city plans to use federally funded housing vouchers to place some of the poorest Sandy victims in private apartments. But vouchers must still be approved by the federal government and there's concern they may not come soon enough to keep some families from ending up in shelters.

The Mayor's recent pledge to stop holding people in jail overnight after they've been caught with small amounts of marijuana has done little to appease pastors and civil rights activists who feel black and latino men are unjustly harassed by police.