On March 25, police say Lacorey Johnson, 19, used a .380 caliber silver handgun to shoot Tysheen Davis inside the building the two young men grew up in. The families live four floors apart.

New York City will soon take responsibility for its youthful offenders instead of shipping them to facilities upstate, an option that has been viewed as ineffective and costly.  The change is something child advocates and city officials have been pushing for for years.

This isn’t the first time the general contractor overseeing construction at the building that collapsed last week has been involved in a fatal accident. Since 2008, Bovis Lend Lease has been bound by a legal agreement to reform its safety practices, after a deadly blaze at the Deutsche Bank building took the lives of two firefighters in 2007. 

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance lobbied in Albany on Wednesday for a bill that would create harsher penalties for repeat domestic violence offenders and which is stalled in the Senate.

Victims of human trafficking crimes are not utilizing visas that allow them to live and work in the United States legally for four years according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In 2011, 967 victims applied for the visas and 557 were approved, along with 722 of their family members, far less than the cap allowed for.

In a new report that grades every state by transparency and corruption, New York ranks 36th and New Jersey is ranked as the least-corrupt state in the nation. WNYC reporters Cindy Rodriguez and Bob Hennelly discuss the findings, the (somewhat flawed) methodology, and what's important when it comes to measuring corruption.

A recently released report gives New Jersey high marks when it comes to how the state redraws its legislative districts after each U.S. Census, while New York received a failing grade.

Loopholes and lax government enforcement leave New York’s statehouse ripe for misdeeds, according to a new report that measures state’s risk of corruption.

After their local union was dissolved due to corruption allegations, 700 dock builders are in the process of voting on which union should represent them: The New York City District Council of Carpenters or the newly formed Amalgamated Union. The District Council, which has more than 20,000 members, allege that Amalgamated was created by former members kicked out of the union for being corrupt.

The loss of a city housing voucher has left many poor tenants scrambling to keep a roof over their heads. The tenants — some of whom are elderly, frail or sick — had all been homeless and moved out to apartments with help from the voucher. Now that it has ended, tenants and landlords are struggling to cope.

A malfunctioning elevator that killed a 41-year-old advertising executive last December had an important safety mechanism disabled, according to a city investigation released Monday.

The city's Department of Environmental Protection will soon install high tech sensors at five sewer overflow sites along the city's waterfront. The sensors will transmit real time information to a central facility in Flushing, Queens alerting DEP of an overflow problem and allowing the agency to notify the public in minutes, according to the agency. 

A court ruled Tuesday that they city cannot move forward with its requirement for homeless single adults to prove they have no other place to go before being found eligible for shelter.

Dozens marched to the offices of the city's Human Resources Administration in Lower Manhattan Friday to protest a policy they say will lead to more homelessness among poor New Yorkers living with HIV or Aids.

A new report finds that dozens of hospitals in New York State are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars to care for the uninsured. At the same time, they are making it more difficult for needy patients to receive financial assistance, causing some patients to go deep into debt.

Dozens of churches across the city are holding their final services inside public schools Sunday, after a federal appeals court ruled formal worship in schools violates the separation of church and state. Many of these small churches have yet to find other places to worship.

More than 20,000 hotel workers appear to be reaping the benefits of a thriving hospitality industry. A recent labor contract agreed to on Tuesday has workers earning a 29 percent raise over 7 years.

The Department of Homeless Services announced on its web site Friday that it will not pay February rents for at least 9,000 formerly homeless families and individuals currently receiving rental assistance through the Advantage housing program.

See what urban policy reporter Cindy Rodriguez is reading on her beat this morning.

A court has ruled that New York City is no longer required to pay rent for 11,000 formerly homeless individuals and families that are receiving a housing subsidy funded by the city and the state.