The Associated Press

Albany police are dismantling tents at the Occupy Albany encampment on the first day of winter, the deadline city officials gave the protesters to move out of a city park across from the Capitol.

About 1,500 new police officers have graduated from New York City's Police Academy during a ceremony at Madison Square Garden.

Authorities have identified the burned body of a New York man found shot to death along a rural eastern Pennsylvania road last month.

Stepping up the pressure to reach a deal, President Barack Obama has promised House Speaker John Boehner he is committed to immediately starting work on a full-year extension of payroll tax cuts if the House first passes a short-term compromise.

Former New York City Congressman Anthony Weiner is ending a rough year with some good news.

The House Tuesday rejected legislation to extend a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for two months, drawing a swift rebuke from President Barack Obama that Republicans were threatening higher taxes on 160 million workers on Jan. 1.

Two firefighters who were badly burned at a Brooklyn apartment fire are in serious but stable condition.

Partisan to the core, Congress hit a speed bump in its standoff on legislation to prevent a Social Security payroll tax increase for 160 million workers on Jan. 1. The Republican-controlled House will wait until Tuesday to reject a Senate measure providing a two-month extension of Social Security payroll tax cuts due to expire on Dec. 31.

The man suspected of dousing a 73-year-old woman with gasoline and then setting her ablaze in an elevator was charged Monday with murder and arson.

A political operative has been sentenced to up to four years in prison after being convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The last U.S. soldiers rolled out of Iraq across the border into neighboring Kuwait at daybreak Sunday, whooping, fist bumping and hugging each other in a burst of joy and relief. Their convoy's exit marked the end of a bitterly divisive war that raged for nearly nine years and left Iraq shattered and struggling to recover.

The House has passed a $1 trillion-plus catchall budget bill paying for day-to-day budgets of 10 Cabinet departments and averting a government shutdown.

Delta Air Lines Inc. is boosting its flying out of New York's LaGuardia airport, adding routes that target American Airlines and put it in a better position to compete against United.

The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges former executives of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae misled investors with subprime mortgages.

Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich clashed sharply with one rival, took pains to compliment another and said it was laughable for any of them to challenge his conservative credentials Thursday night in the last campaign debate before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses kick off the 2012 primary season.

Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine disputed an allegation that he knew more about customer money that vanished from MF Global, the firm he ran, than he previously testified.

Obesity rates have declined among New York City's public schoolchildren in kindergarten through eighth grade over the past five years, said a government study published Thursday.

With child sex-abuse scandals rocking college sports programs, New York lawmakers plan to revisit lifting time limits on victim lawsuits, an issue pitting the Catholic Church and other institutions against advocates for children.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is prohibiting the practice by some health insurers of requiring prescriptions to be purchased by mail, in what is a win for local drug stores.

After a yearlong search, police on New York's Long Island announced Tuesday that they believe they have discovered the skeletal remains of a New Jersey prostitute whose disappearance sparked an investigation into a possible serial killing spree.