Bob Hennelly

Dozens of police officers with dogs and battering rams swept through three Columbia University fraternities early Tuesday morning on a drug raid. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says five students and three off-campus individuals, who allegedly supplied the campus operation, were arrested.

New York Republicans are a step closer to getting a lock on the State Senate majority. Over the weekend, a judicially supervised recount gave a slim margin of victory to a GOP challenger from Long Island, giving Republicans a 32-30 edge in the upper house come January.

In the discussion of our nation’s growing debt, there’s an issue that may be going largely unreported in the wash of discussion of the federal deficit. All across the country, smaller budgets — county, municipal and state — struggle to pay for underfunded civic services. Is it possible that the services we’ve come to depend on since the New Deal are, in fact, acting as an “architecture of debt?”

While Washington Democrats and Republicans fret over the federal deficit, scant attention is being paid to the debt explosion on local municipal balance sheets in all 50 states.

The federal government is by no means the only big spender and big league borrower. Local governments have been on their own spending and borrowing binge.

This week Newark Mayor Cory Booker announced that due to multi-million dollar budget gap and an impasse with the city's police union, he had no choice but to layoff off 167 police officers. Booker is not the only New Jersey mayor facing hard choices.

Bob Hennelly, WNYC reporter, discusses the cuts to police forces in Newark and Camden, and other cuts to government services in New Jersey and around the region.

The City of Newark is laying off 167 police officers, roughly 12 percent of its force. The move came after a stand-off between the union and Mayor Cory Booker.

This week, supporters of the landmark Federal 9/11 Health and Compensation Act brought the badges belonging to the 29 NYPD officers who have died from health issues related to thei...

We have yet to recover from the devastation wrought by the credit-default swap global caper. Now, we can look forward to sorting through the allegedly fraudulent robo-mortgage signings that helped "secure it." And stay tuned, for the perp walk generated by the latest insider trading probe that prosecutors say "may be the biggest yet."

Oh, joy.

The attentive observer might ask just how much of American "high finance" is actually a string of yet-to-be-discovered criminal conspiracies?

These days, there is never a script at New Jersey Governor Chris Christie town hall meetings. He works the crowd like a right-wing Oprah. There's self-effacing humour about his ap...

Hank Morris, once one of New York's most powerful political consultants, pled guilty to a felony in connection with New York State pension fund scandal. Morris, the top political advisor to former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, admitted in court that he "intentionally engaged in fraud and deception" when he helped shape the scheme to sell access to the state's multi-billion dollar public pension fund. 

Fallout from the recession still haunts budget makers in more than 500 of New Jersey's local governments. Scores of communities are resorting to layoffs. School systems, county agencies and long-insulated public authorities are all feeling the squeeze. On January 1st, a state-mandated two percent cap on local property tax increases kicks in. But local officials say none of the key reforms designed to help them cut costs — like reforming the civil service law — have been enacted yet. Those are hung up in a partisan debate in Trenton.

After years of working in lockstep on the blockbuster New York State pension scandal, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo split over how to hold former auto czar Steven Rattner accountable for his alleged role in the scheme.

In his SEC settlement, Rattner will pay $6.2 million and accept a two-year ban from associating with investment advisors or broker dealers. But he admits no wrong doing. He must reapply to the SEC after his suspension.

Minutes after the SEC rolled out the details of their deal, Cuomo announced he was suing Rattner for $26 million and seeking to ban him for life from the securities business in New York.

Ten years after 9/11, workers are still dismantling the Deutsche Bank building, which was damaged after the South Tower of the World Trade Center fell. WNYC reporter Bob Hennelly discusses why it has taken so long to take it down and why it has cost $400 million (and counting).

Former auto czar Steven Rattner will pay $6.2 million as part of a settlement deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has also accepted a two year ban from the securities industry.

Current New York Attorney General and Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo came to the blustery banks of the Newtown Creek Wednesday to announce a landmark settlement that will force Exxon Mobil to clean-up a multimillion gallon, underground oil spill that has vexed Greenpoint residents for decades.

Steady progress is being made on the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. But the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building, damaged on September 11, 2001, has been plagued by delays, scores of injuries, fatalities and even criminal indictments. Now, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on its demolition, the removal of the building is near.

Layoff notices effective January 1, 2011 have been sent out for all of the state employees who work at New Jersey Network and the state's Public Broadcasting Authority.

This week, Congress starts their last session before Republicans take control of the House. Returning Congressman Leonard Lance, a Republican from New Jersey, says despite the upcoming change of control, he thinks both parties will find common ground on changes to the health care overhaul.

On September 11th, 2001, when the World Trade Center's South Tower fell, it tore a 15-story gash into the 41-story Deutsche Bank building, letting in the World Trade's  whirlwind of toxic waste and human remains. Diesel tanks that held the fuel for the building's Emergency generator helped feed a fire that flared for days.

Now, almost ten years later, workers are finally dismantling the fifth and fourth floors at 130 Liberty, as the site is now known. Sunlight is finally replacing what was a highrise headstone that cast a shadow over Ground Zero. But the demolition is costing hundreds of millions of dollars and it is not scheduled to be complete until early next year.

The reasons behind the delays and the $400 million (and counting) price tag illustrate the stuck in stucknation