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The weather may be cloudy, but amateur astronomers have plans to look skyward tonight, and throughout the weekend. It's the International Year of Astronomy, and New Yorkers are among those celebrating by breaking out the telescopes. Patrick DiJusto, ...

(Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Governor Paterson isn't losing any sleep over radio host Rush Limbaugh's plans to leave New York City. The conservative firebrand has called the tax hikes on high earners contained in Paterson's budget 'stupid,' and says he's ...

Pictured here on the ...

The New York real estate market took another dive during the first quarter of 2009 and sales are slogging, but what else is new?

Apartment prices fell by more than 20 percent and co-op prices were down 27 percent ...

On April 2, 1932, aviator Charles Lindbergh paid a $50,000 ransom for his infant son Charles Lindbergh Junior

On April 1, 1970, President Nixon signed the bill, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, banning cigarette advertisements on radio and television to be effective on January 1, 1971.

Starting today, a pack of cigarettes will cost at least $9 in NYC. (Getty Images)

Smokers might think it's an April Fools joke, but it's true. A ...

By Jennifer Hsu, Femi Oke of The Takeaway

Sam Jordan, a Takeaway listener in New Jersey, wants you to meet a real estate broker who he describes as more or less his real estate hero. Not something you hear about brokers these days. We found this broker who, even ...

Flickr photo by Abhi Here

 

With over $800 million in debt, the Sun-Times Media Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today.

Due to a decline in advertising revenue, this renders both of Chicago's major daily ...

New York's governor and legislative leaders are defending their budget deal, saying it makes tough choices at a time when the state's revenues are dwindling by week. The nearly $132 billion plan contains about $5 billion in cuts, and $5 billion in new taxes, including some on the wealthy. Governor Paterson, who had long opposed the millionaire's tax, says the final deal is a fair one.

'I think balance now between taxes on those with higher income and taxes on everybody so that there's a shared sacrifice.'

Brooklyn Republican State Senator Marty Golden decried all the new taxes in the budget and said Democrats are being irresponsible.

'This stimulus, this $25B, ends within 25-27 months. After that stimulus is gone, we walk into the abyss. There is no structural deficit dealt with in this budget.'

At 4 a.m on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, not far from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the first in a series of failures occurred in the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station.

Protesters rally against New York\'s Rockefeller drug laws outside Governor David Paterson\'s office on March 25, 2009 in New York City. (Getty)

Governor Paterson and legislative leaders have announced an agreement to ease New York’s decades-old Rockefeller drug laws, once among the harshest in the nation. Speaking at a news conference in Albany, the governor says they are rolling back many of the mandatory prison terms for low-level, non-violent drug offenders.

“Where people are addicted and have committed crimes because of their addiction, we are going to shift our services from punishment to treatment, we are going to eliminate in most cases and severely reduce in other cases, the mandatory minimums that were set by the Rockefeller drug laws.”

The governor further explained the goal to reduce addict recidivism, shown to currently stand at 50 percent. He called the current legal system unjust and ineffective, creating “a revolving door for offenders mired in a cycle of arrest and abuse.”

The new plan to go before the state legislature will shift the sentencing of convicted abusers to new “drug courts” that will oversee their treatment rather than their punishment.

Social theorist David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of CUNY and author of various books including The Limits to Capital, discusses the economic crisis and what it means for the future of U.S. global power.

Listen to the entire ...

President Jimmy Carter speaks at the Egyptian-Israel Peace Accords Signing Ceremony, in the White House on March 26, 1979.

Sound off in the comments below: 'How would higher fares and service cuts affect you?'

The MTA votes in favor of higher fares and service cuts:

Don't like the 25 percent fare and toll ...

Sweater cuffs, fuzzy. Mayor, not. Cell phone photo, fuzzy. Mayor, not.

A new poll finds that Mayor Bloomberg's approval rating among New York voters is the lowest it has been in his second term. But it's still ...

Did you see elephants last night? If you did and they were walking along 34th Street to Madison Square Garden, it wasn't a zoo outbreak, but the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus coming to town. The circus will be at the Garden through April 13th.

by Annie Shreffler

Hundreds of New Yorkers, many of them high school students, turned out on Sunday to begin World Water Week with a mile-long march. Volunteers carried water to show their support for the Tap Project, a UNICEF program to bring more safe drinking water to ...

On March 20, 1955, Robert Moses, joins in a dedication of the Brownsville Boys Club, offering his views on juvenile delinquency and the need for cooperation among city agencies.