Arun Venugopal

New York, NY —

Mayor Bloomberg joined former Yankee manager Joe Torre yesterday to open a new family justice center in Queens. The center is designed to make it easier for victims of domestic violence to come forward by bringing together counselors and legal experts. Torre's "Safe at Home ...

New York, NY —

The Bloomberg Administration is calling on the federal government to change the way it measures poverty. Under the city's new method the percentage of New Yorkers considered poor would actually rise. WNYC's Arun Venugopal has more.

REPORTER: The new approach is meant to update a method ...

New York, NY —

The city's plan to begin a bike sharing program is being met with enthusiasm by biking advocates.

The Department of Transportation has put out a request for expressions of interest for companies who can help initiate a program like one in Paris which has 20,000 public ...

New York, NY —

Staten Island may be the last bastion of the Republican party within the five boroughs, but that just could change this year. The seat occupied by Congressman Vito Fossella will be up for grabs come November, and Democrats are well positioned to take it back ...

New York, NY —

The New School announced the launch yesterday of its undergraduate program in Environmental Studies. The degree program is meant to combine the scientific study of urban ecosystems with sustainable design.

Joseph Westphal is provost at the New School. He says students will be able to take ...

New York, NY —

A Manhattan city councilman is renewing calls for a Canal Street traffic management plan after the death of a 57-year-old woman on Monday.

The woman was killed when a dump truck crashed into a Chinatown bus at the corner of Canal and Bowery. According to Councilman ...

New York, NY —

The death of 67-year-old Frank Powers, the Republican candidate for Congress on Staten Island, has thrown the party into turmoil.

WNYC's Arun Venugopal has more.

The GOP was hoping Powers could keep the seat in Republican hands, after Congressman Vito Fossella decided against running for re-election.

Party leaders ...

New York, NY —

Senator Hillary Clinton returned to the public eye today, with her first appearance since she conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama earlier this month.

REPORTER: Clinton attended the high school graduation of Aleathea Williams, a friend and campaign volunteer who attended Pelham Preparatory Academy ...

New York, NY —

The city has opened its first Financial Empowerment Center, in the Bronx today.

It's meant to help low-income residents with financial planning, such as managing debt.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said a new study showed people continue to use check cashing services, even as banks try to increase ...

New York, NY —

A last-minute deal yesterday between the city and the state will keep Off Track Betting open and its employees working. WNYC's Arun Venugopal has more.

REPORTER: Under the agreement, the city will no longer run the 68 OTB's that operate locally. They'll be bundled into a ...

New York, NY —

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is initiating legal action against the CVS and Rite Aid drugstore chains.

Investigators, with the attorney general's office say they found numerous products on shelves long after their expiration date at stores across the state. These included expired medicines, as well as ...

New York, NY —

The heat is causing disruptions to the power supply in isolated pockets around the city.

One resident of Sunnyside, Queens, a former sheet metal worker who would only give his first name. Jimmy says he is dreading another power outage like the one that hit his ...

New York, NY —

The city is hoping to speed up the cleanup of brownfields, through the creation of an Office of Environmental Remediation.

REPORTER: The agency is designed to help developers and communities go through the remediation of sites that were contaminated from industrial use. Jeff Kay heads the ...

New York, NY —

Despite Friday's arraignment of a veteran crane inspector on bribery charges, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says corruption is not widespread in the city's Department of Buildings.

BLOOMBERG: I don't think it is very prevalent. I do think that any case of it however is very serious and ...

New York, NY —

The city is giving away 250 empty barrels to homeowners in Queens so they can catch rainwater and hopefully avoid sewage overflows. The Department of Environmental Protection's Julie Stein says the homeowners snapped up the rain barrels.

STEIN: They're excited because southeast Queens is an area ...

New York, NY —

The Bloomberg Administration, in its ongoing campaign to limit the number of illegal guns entering the city, claimed another legal victory. As arguments were to begin in a Brooklyn federal court today, a Georgia gun dealer opted out of a trial. WNYC's Arun Venugopal has ...

New York, NY —

A Georgia gun dealer agreed to have its sales monitored.

The decision came a day before a trial was to begin, as the dealer, Adventure Outdoors had earlier rejected the terms of a lawsuit.

Ken Taber is a lawyer with Pillsbury Winthrop, which had represented the ...

New York, NY —

Motor vehicles are the leading cause of accidental death among New York's children.

That's according to a new child fatality report just issued by the city.

According to Health Commissioner Tom Frieden, fires are the second leading cause of accidental death, especially in poor neighborhoods.

FRIEDEN: There is ...

New York, NY —

Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered the keynote address at the World Science Summit this morning, and used the occasion to defend his ban on smoking. He said the scientific data outweighed the criticism he got from the public at the time.

BLOOMBERG: And I can tell you, ...

New York, NY —

The Port Authority is pushing back the deadlines on three of the towers at the World Trade Center. The agency granted developer Larry Silverstein another four to six months to complete the projects, because Merrill Lynch may be moving in to the complex. Larry Coscia ...