Some Queens parents who are against vaccinating their kids on religious grounds have sued the city to get rid of the policy which keeps kids with communicable diseases out of school. "It is my opinion that resorting to vaccinations demonstrates a lack of faith in God, which would anger God and therefore be sacrilegious," said Fabian Mendoza-Vaca, the father of two students at P.S. 107, who sued the city last week in Queens Supreme Court to overturn principals’ decisions to send his kids home. more ›

The parents of a 5-year-old girl are outraged over their daughter's homework assignment, which included spelling exercises for the words as "GUN" and "ROB." NY1 reports that the Flushing family is "demanding answers" after seeing their daughter's lesson when she came home from school today. "She showed me her homework, I look at it and I see the word gun on it. The first thing I thought was oh no no no, I don't want you reading it, I don't want you spelling it. I don't even want you looking at the picture. Trying to keep her away from from violence and she is being drawn to it in her homework, and that's not something I want her to learn," Lawrence Gillman told NY1. more ›

An Astoria man wanted for questioning regarding the vicious bludgeoning of his wife, special needs teacher Tara Hawes, was captured in Connecticut Sunday. Jordan Hawes had been on the lam since last week. Hawes, who has not been charged with any crime, is reportedly being held in a psychiatric ward in a Connecticut hospital. more ›

Celebrating the Giants' Super Bowl victory might have meant cheering and high-five-ing folks in Times Square, but when you're in Bay Ridge, it means toilet paper, firecrackers, and standing in front of cars. (Tomorrow's ticker tape parade should be real!) Check out videos of some celebrations in neighborhoods including Bay Ridge, Howard Beach, the Upper East Side and Astoria. more ›

It was a violent weekend in Queens: In the span of 12 hours, three people were killed in three separate incidents. more ›

After the discovery of slain special needs teacher Tara Hawes in her and her husband's Astoria home on Thursday night, police have been searching for husband Jordan Hawes and released a surveillance image of him using his wife's ATM card on Tuesday. more ›

Last night, the in-laws of Tara Hawes, a 33-year-old teacher who worked with special needs children at the Aaron School in Manhattan, made a grisly discovery. After not having heard from their son or daughter-in-law for two days they went to the Astoria apartment they shared and found Hawes lifeless body lying in bed. Initially there was so much blood pooled around her they thought her throat had been slashed. more ›

A teen who brutally stabbed a 12-year-old boy has been given the maximum juvenile sentence for the attempted murder. Wayne Henderson, 17, was found guilty last month of the attempted murder, assault and disfigurement of Luis Martinez; Henderson and his girlfriend Carina Parache stabbed Martinez multiple times together and carved an "X" into his face two years ago. “This is the most vicious crime I’m seen in my 25 years on the bench,” said Judge James Griffin. more ›

Remember when Victoria Gotti had a reality show about her life with her three sons called Growing Up Gotti? Yeah, we barely do, too. But we bring this up because one of her boys, Carmine Agnello Jr., got arrested yesterday for allegedly driving with a suspended license. Oops! more ›

Governor Cuomo insists building America's largest convention center in Queens will be a big boon for New York State and Queens. That remains to be seen, but it's already been good for one Heywood Sanders, an economics professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Sanders has been getting a lot of exposure since Cuomo announced his big plan to get a Malaysian company to build the mammoth convention center; soon after Cuomo's speech, Sanders told the Times, "The convention business is a disaster everywhere. Simply building more space gets you nothing more than a big empty building." more ›

Police are investigating whether 50-year-old Theodore Ellinghaus Jr. intentionally set the large firecracker that killed him yesterday, or was fatally wounded by accident. The Post reports that Ellinghaus, who lived with his father in Ozone Park, Queens, lit an M80 firecracker and held it against his body. The device was so powerful it "tore a hole through his stomach, leaving his organs exposed." Ellinghaus' father, Theodore Sr., told the paper he doesn't believe his son would commit suicide. "It was an accident. It went off. He wouldn't kill himself. He told me he wouldn't kill himself." more ›

The police are looking for a man who allegedly threatened his ex-girlfriend with a meat cleaver, after breaking into her apartment. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] A Queens man died this morning and an explosive device may have been the cause. FDNY tells us that around 9:28 a.m. a call came in regarding a firecracker explosion at 112-20 111th Avenue, a home near the Aqueduct Racetrack. Authorities then suspected it was a shotgun discharge, but now believe it is related to fireworks or other explosive devices, although the investigation is ongoing. The man, describes as a white male in his 50s, was found dead at the scene. more ›

A police officer on duty in the 111th Precinct in Queens killed himself last night on 211th Street in Hollis Hills. And the police officer apparently had been arguing with his girlfriend on the phone moments before. more ›

While Marty Markowitz has been lobbying for an Apple store in Brooklyn for years, that borough may be one of the last to get one. Currently Manhattan has five Apple stores (the latest in Grand Central), Staten Island has one, and it turns out Queens may be next on the list. Forest Hills, to be exact. more ›

It's New Yorkers versus Hollywood, once again. Locals have sounded off against film crews invading their neighborhoods in the past, and now Crain's NY has the latest from the front lines, which have moved from Brooklyn to Queens for the latest battle. more ›

Investigators say that a father and son found dead in a Queens home were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. The bodies of Kuo-Kung Chen, 66, and his 29-year-old son Aaron were found yesterday when the older man didn't arrive to baby-sit his granddaughter. more ›

A woman is suing the NYPD after her humiliating, misguided arrest for shoplifting at a Queens Rite Aid. As 30-year-old Leah Fishman left the store a year ago, items in her purse that she had purchased weeks earlier for a total of around $20 set off the store's alarm. Fishman tells the Daily News that initially, "When the police came, I was relieved." But her suit alleges that the police did no investigation whatsoever, and mocked her as she was being detained. "Oh look, she has tears," a detective said, according to the lawsuit. "It won't help you; you're still going to jail." more ›

A Queens woman is in critical condition after getting run over by a school bus that careened off the road after colliding with another vehicle yesterday afternoon in Jamaica. NBC New York reports that the unidentified woman was walking on the sidewalk when the bus driver "lost control and crashed into a sedan," and swerved up onto the curb, smashed through a small brick fence, and slammed into a house. The pedestrian was pinned under the bus, and officials say she suffered severe leg trauma with a partial amputation of her limbs. more ›

The older brother of a Dallas Cowboys wide receiver was shot in Queens last night. Calvin Ogletree, 25, brother of Cowboys receiver Kevin Ogletree, was shot in front of the luxury car rental shop he opened last summer in St. Albans. “I heard one or two pops,” a witness who works nearby told the News. “I didn’t know if it was gunshots. Then I saw some excitement. I got a streak of fear. I saw a bunch of people running and screaming.” more ›

Oh yeah, wait a minute Mr. Postman—are you even really a postman? The FBI says that a bank robber disguised as a UPS worker hit up a Queens bank yesterday. And this bank robber made sure not to mistakenly hand his gun to the cashier. more ›

Police in Queens arrested off-duty corrections officer James Robinson today and charged him with rape, assault and wrongful imprisonment. Details on the charges are still scant but a source tells us the charges are "domestic." more ›

The biggest news to come out of Governor Cuomo's State of the State address yesterday was his big idea to raze the Javits Center and partner with a Malaysian company to build a $4 billion convention center, with a hotel and expanded gambling space, out in Jamaica, Queens. It would be bigger than America's current-largest convention center in Chicago, and Cuomo promises it would "bring to New York the largest events, driving demand for hotel rooms and restaurant meals and creating tax revenues and jobs, jobs, jobs. In addition to the new convention space, up to 3,000 hotel rooms will be developed. We will make New York the No. 1 convention site in the nation." Your move, Shelbyville! more ›

The Queens man whom police say has "implicated himself" in a series of Molotov cocktail attacks at various locations wanted to take out “as many Muslims and Arabs as possible” at the Al-Khoei Foundation, an Islamic cultural center in Jamaica, Queens. Why did he choose the center as his target, out of all the other Islamic meeting places in town? He says because they refused to let him use the bathroom. The flaming Starbucks Frappuccino bottle which Ray Lengend allegedly threw at the center did minimal damage, but it could have been worse—sources tell the Daily News that Lengend's original plan was to toss all five of his firebombs from the balcony of the center onto the crowd below. more ›

The Queens man who was found guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend and subsequently framing her for armed robbery—which caused her to lose her business and be jailed for months—has been sentenced to 32 years in jail. Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter tore into Jerry Ramrattan when he tried to plead for mercy earlier today; Ramrattan maintained his innocence, while touting his work stopping crimes as a police informant. "The defendant is an architect of his own ruin. He deserves no mercy from me and he won't get any," Buchter said, calling him a “diabolical conniver who shamelessly exploited the criminal justice system.” more ›

A Queens man has been arrested in connection to a string of arson attacks in Jamaica, Queens and on Long Island Sunday night. Police say Ray Lazier Lengend, 40, has "made incriminating statements" about throwing Molotov cocktails fashioned out of Starbucks Frappuccino bottles at private residences, a deli, and an Islamic center. "The individual is implicating himself in each of the five firebombing cases, citing personal grievances with each location," police spokesman Paul Browne told reporters last night. See, it's never too late to get swept up in the Festivus spirit! more ›

Investigators are searching for a man seen in this surveillance video hurling a Molotov cocktail at a private home in Jamaica, Queens that doubles as a Hindu place of worship. The suspect, described as black, 5-feet-8, 200 pounds, and 25 to 30 years old, was caught on camera throwing a Starbucks Frappuccino bottle filled with flammable liquid at the residence, one of four places in Queens that were firebombed late Sunday night. A fifth home on Long Island was also hit Sunday night, and Nassau County police tell the Times that incident has "some characteristics" similar to the Queens attacks. more ›