Brigid Bergin

New York, NY —

Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples were turned away from marriage bureaus across the country including the new one in Lower Manhattan in an annual ritual that took on renewed urgency, following setbacks for the gay marriage movement.

Matt Flanders says he challenged the clerk when ...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker gave a rousing assessment of his city's future in last night's State of the City address, invoking Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise," as a metaphor for the city and its residents. The increasingly impassioned Mayor spoke for 80 minutes before a full house at the Newark Symphony Hall. He cited examples of the city's progress -- from decreasing homicide rates to an increasing tax base.

Booker also cited the involvement of several celebrities in development projects around the city. Singer Jon Bon Jovi is part of a project to build 51 residential units for people with special needs; media mogul Oprah Winfrey has donated $1.5 million to Newark charities; and basketball player Shaquille O'Neal is involved in projects to build a 25-story luxury tower and upgrade a movie complex.

The Mayor also acknowledged the contributions of ordinary citizens who are giving back to the city through public service.

Tune in to All Things Considered this afternoon for more on Booker's State of the City.

 

It's safe to say, "fenugreek" is getting its 15 minutes of fame. Sure, it was idenitified as the source of that syrupy smell on Manhattan's west side. But, more importantly, what does it taste like and how is it used? WNYC's Richard Hake posed those very questions to ...

Congressman Charlie Rangel and his taxes are in the news again.

A new report from the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation finds Rangel had at least 28 omissions in his taxes over the past 30 years. It also found that assets would appear or ...

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can often feel far away from our every day lives. But for the families of the fallen, the impact is real and often poignant. Last month, Brooklyn Marine Lance Cpl. Julian T. Brennan died in Afghanistan. His death brought the total number of Americans ...

New York, NY —

Investigators are taking a closer look at the damage to a battered US Airways jetliner that crashed in the Hudson River. In particular, officials are looking at a black-box recording that revealed the thumping sound that cut the plane's two engines and a pilot's "Mayday" ...

New York, NY —

The sounds of the Bahian Allstars who played out 2008 with a Samba beat at S.O.B.'s. The club in SoHo hosted a new year's party called "Havana Meets Rio!" Club artistic director Mario Pereira explains the idea behind the evening.

PEREIRA: The feeling, the love, the ...

New York, NY —

New Year's Eve celebrations take many forms in New York, and for those who couldn't stand the madness of Times Square, there was the 20th annual Jivamukti Yoga School Silent New Year's Eve.

Attendees participated in a three-hour silent meditation leading up to midnight. Sharon Gannon ...

New York, NY —

When a Brooklyn Rabbi and his wife were taken hostage during the Mumbai terrorist attacks 2 weeks ago, Rabbis with Chabad here in the United States went urgently looking for someone who could speak Urdu, English, Hebrew and Yiddish. The man they found is Pace ...

New York, NY —

If you didn't see yesterday's New York Times, then you missed what is now the most e-mailed article from their New York section. The story starts with a leak in the city's complex water system that's turned into a 36 million gallon-a-day gusher.

To fix this ...

New York, NY —

This week, the New York Foundation for the Arts awarded $100,000 to eight small dance companies through its BUILD program. Its goal is to help strengthen dance organizations by investing in their management and infrastructure. But it's not the only group pushing artists to rethink ...

New York, NY —

More than 5,000 seats are still available in the city's pre-kindergarten classes and City Council members are trying to spread the word.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn and other Councilmembers are distributing flyers across the city to encourage parents to sign up their four-year-olds by Friday.

Although October ...

New York, NY —

People gathered in groups large and small to watch the Palin-Biden showdown last night.

Twenty-six-year-old Paul Banister thought Sarah Palin held her own.

PALIN: I actually think she didn't have a lot of specifics but she didn't fail. I had a lot of people texting me, saying, ...

New York, NY —

While lawmakers try to find a solution for Wall Street's financial crisis,local artists are bracing for a dip in the corporate dollars that support some of their work.

REPORTER: The non-profit arts advocacy group The Field hosted close to 100 local artists at Joe's Pub for ...

New York, NY —

Republican delegates gathered for their national convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, are in a wait-and-see mode, as party officials monitor the hurricane pounding the Gulf Coast. New Jersey's delegation has turned its hospitality hotel suite into a donation center for hurricane victims. Meanwhile, other delegates ...

New York, NY —

A new study suggests the risk of earthquakes to New York City is substantially greater than previously thought.

A group of Columbia University seismologists says new analysis using modern instruments reveals potentially powerful seismic structures beneath the New York region, like a formerly unidentified intersection of ...

New York, NY —

After negotiating through the night and into the early morning, Con Edison has reached a tentative contract agreement with the union representing 9,000 of its workers, averting a possible strike.

A weary-sounding Joe Flaherty, who's a spokesman for the union Local 1-2 says both sides documented ...

New York, NY —

The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently added the Lower East Side to a list of "endangered places." For local artists and arts organizations, there's a sense they feel endangered too – but some have found strategies for survival. Brigid Bergin has this report.

The age gap showed up in exit poll results for Democrats in New York and New Jersey. In New York, 3 in 5 voters over 60 chose Clinton, while 3 in 5 voters under 30 chose Barack Obama. In New Jersey exit polls, Obama got about 60% of voters ages ...

New York, NY —

REPORTER: Tyne Daly and Eartha Kitt - just some of the stars who gathered to toast Edward Albee at the Rainbow Room last night.

The evening was a birthday celebration for the playwright and soon-to-be octogenarian who's written modern classics including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" ...