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After months of citywide debate, amended bills and two lengthy legislative hearings, city council members officially passed the so-called living wage bill by a 45 to 5 vote. But not before one final bit of drama.

As expected, Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the "prevailing wage" bill passed by the City Council last month. And he declared his intent to veto the so-called living wage bill that will likely pass the City Council next week. The City Council, meanwhile, says it will override the mayor's vetoes on both counts.

Supporters of a bill to raise New York’s minimum wage made their case to state lawmakers on Monday in Harlem, at a hearing called by Assemblyman Keith Wright. He and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are sponsoring legislation that would raise the minimum wage in New York to $8.50 an hour, up from $7.25.

More than 350 colleges and universities and 12,000 students are expected to attend the New York City National College Fair at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Sunday, an annual event organized by the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

New York City investigators say a job-placement agency falsified its records for nearly 1,400 people over two years.

It’s match week for New York City’s Eighth graders applying to high schools. But for those students who did not get a match or who did not like their choice, there is a second chance.

Principals in New York state are banding together in growing numbers to raise objections to the state's use of student test scores in a new evaluation system for principals and teachers. They are meeting this week at C.W. Post on Long Island to discuss the issue.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is proposing making kindergarten mandatory for the city's 5-year olds and instituting a loan program to help middle-income families pay for child care. Read full prepared remarks here.

Apple is hoping to put an end to the days of students weighed down with a backpack full of textbooks. The tech company said it's aiming to change the way students use textbooks with a free app for downloading those schoolbooks to an iPad.

A City Council stalemate over a so-called living wage bill has ended with a deal that could raise the pay for several hundred workers a year at city-subsidized developments.

For the first time, emergency dispatchers from the NYPD, FDNY and Emergency Medical Dispatch services are in the same location and using the same technology to respond to 911 calls. The mayor touted this coordinated approach as a major milestone in the city's emergency call system, which has been in need of an overhaul for decades.

New York City police say a man has confessed to a string of arson attacks at an Islamic cultural center and four other sites on New Year's Day.

The American Museum of Natural History plans to put its galleries and laboratories on offer to master's students in a new training program in earth science education. The Master of Arts in Teaching program is meant to address a shortage of qualified earth science teachers in high-need public schools in New York.

New York City education officials and the teachers union say they will not be able to reach an agreement on a new teacher evaluation system by a December 31 deadline. Without an agreement, the city Department of Education will have to forfeit $60 million in federal grant money meant to help 33 struggling schools.

For many high school seniors, this vacation week may be spent working on, or perhaps agonizing over, college applications. Deadlines for many universities are in January, while others, such as CUNY, follow a February 1st cutoff. A college admissions counselor offers some advice on getting through the application process.

The U.S. is officially bringing its mission in Iraq to a close after nearly nine years at war, the loss of more than 4,400 U.S. service members and more than 32,000 wounded in combat.

Several advocates for sex trafficking victims are pushing the City Council for legislation that would penalize livery car drivers for knowingly transporting individuals forced into prostitution.

A group of civic leaders in Queens is proposing once again to turn an old rail line that runs through Forest Hills into an elevated park. Several community leaders proposed the idea a few years ago, but the project stalled. Now, leaders say there's more political buy-in.

A New York State supreme court judge issued an injunction saying that Con Ed cannot evict the developer of an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center site despite being owed back rent.

Had a hankering to plant a community garden? Want to scrub the graffiti off a nearby building and paint a mural instead? The non-profit group Citizens Committee for New York City is taking applications for its annual neighborhood improvement grants. The program gives small grants to projects in low-income neighborhoods.