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 ›

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 ›

The relationship between Jews and Chinese food on Christmas runs deep through history, touching on immigration patterns, religious customs, and plain old pragmatism—what other restaurants are open on Christmas Eve? Of course, Jews aren't the only ones who need to eat on the holiday—there are also all of the Asians who keep their restaurants open, and the legions of Festivus observers across the country. And now, Queen's Kickshaw, the fancy grilled cheese restaurant in Astoria, is hosting a cross-cultural Christmas Eve dinner to bring everyone together under one roof: meet Woks and Lox. more ›

Yesterday morning, police found the bodies of two women inside a home on 38th Avenue in Astoria, Queens. Olga Annarumma and her 25-year-old daughter, Valeria Kuzmina Lowery, were shot and police arrested Annarumma's estranged husband Guerino Annarumma. Lowery died from her injuries while her mother is in critical condition. The suspect wrote on a blog ranting at his wife, "You are going to pay for whatever you did. I dont [sic] play no games. Good Luck, Bye Bye Bye." more ›

This morning, a loud argument was heard coming from a home on 38th Street near Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, Queens and a woman and her daughter were shot in the head. The women are in critical condition at Elmhurst Hospital and police say the man who shot them is woman's husband the daughter's father. Update: The younger woman is apparently not related to the suspect. more ›

The annual Santa Streak is back again for a second year, and it's happening tomorrow—one week before SantaCon, where at least people leave their holiday outfits on until bedding Mrs. Claus at the end of the bar crawl. If you have any desire to streak (it is for charity, after all), then you'll want to head to RSVP here, to find out the exact Astoria starting point. more ›

A 16-year-old high school student was literally stabbed in the back yesterday while walking the halls of Astoria's Long Island City High School, according to authorities. Police have since taken four teenagers from the school—Louis Giron, 19, Daniel Nicholas, 18, Jermaine Davis, 17, and an unidentified 15-year-old—into custody. Meanwhile the victim was taken to Elmhurst Hospital and is reportedly in stable condition. more ›

During a visit to a library in Astoria, Queens, a 7-year-old girl says that a man assaulted her—specifically her feet— while she was reading. The child told WCBS 2 that he “Sniffed them, rubbed them against his beard, and kissed them. Did it to each foot. And then he did the same and just sniffed my flip flops." Ughhhhhhh. more ›

A Queens father who allegedly beat his wife and threatened to kill his kids was taken down by police after a heated confrontation early this morning. Police say the 42-year-old man yelled, "You're going to have to shoot me," and that he would not be taken alive, while also refusing to drop the two knives he was holding. Cops tried Tasing and macing him, but when he shrugged them off, they eventually had to shoot him in the stomach. more ›

A visit to New York ended in tragedy last night for an Australian family driving Astoria, where a two car collision left a little girl dead. Six other people were injured in the accident, which took place around 6:30 p.m. when a GMC minivan flipped over on its side after colliding with a Nissan Sentra at 34th Avenue and 31st Street. 10-year-old Sabrina Mangos of Tennyson, Australia, did not survive the collision, despite bystanders' valiant attempts to rescue her. more ›

As if the threat of terrorists on bicycles wasn't enough to keep you up at night, now there's a new two-wheeled threat: Gropers. At least one man, possibly two, have been biking around Queens, mainly in Astoria, and grabbing women's breasts and buttocks. At least 20 women say they were victims of similar incidents, and all of them were assaulted between 28th Avenue and Broadway and from 31st to 48th Streets. One woman, a 25-year-old who identified herself as Erin K., tells the Daily News a man "exposed himself and began masturbating as he rode by her at 7:30 a.m. last week." 7:30 a.m.! The early perv catches the worm, we guess. more ›

Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock once said, "In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director." And considering all the stories about how the auteur treated star Tippi Hedren, it certainly seems like he had a bit of a God-complex himself. Now, a church in Astoria is exploring the world of "Hitchcock and the Catholic Conscious" with a free film series! more ›

Public School 85 (the Judge Charles J. Vallone School) in Astoria thought it was pretty high-tech, but their internet filters were no match for a group of third-graders! A group of eight-year-olds are on in-school suspension after bypassing whatever out-of-date filter system their schools computers had and looking at pornographic images on the internet. But Principal Ann Gordon-Chang says it wasn't even porn! "The kids typed in 'hot girls' and pictures came up," she told the Daily News. FYI, this is the first (NSFW) thing that comes up when we type "hot girls" into Google. more ›

The grieving relatives of a Queens woman who was fatally shot in the face by her ex-husband say that Giummia Villa had gone to Family Court last week, perhaps in an attempt to get another order of protection from Alexander Figueroa. And Villa's brother said that Figueroa, who later killed himself in his apartment, had dumped Villa when she started to suffer from kidney disease, "The relationship went south when she started getting sick. She went on dialysis for three years. She was losing her physique as she was losing weight." more ›

Police have identified the man found dead in a car in Astoria on Saturday as Albanian immigrant Argent Dyryzi, and a Medical Examiner said his organs showed discoloration consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning. The ME's office has yet to determine the official cause of death or whether the death was a suicide or an accident, but friends say Dyryzi didn't seem like the type to take his life. Romina Perkaj told the Times, "We were with him all the time, we would have known." more ›

A Queens mom is suing the Department of Education after her daughter repeatedly came home with her hair cut off. A "class bully" twice cut off the girl's braids, once with a pair of scissors he swiped from the teacher's desk. However, when mom Vicki Brown asked for a safety transfer for her daughter from Astoria's PS 151, she was allegedly denied. So now she's asking for $1 million. And now, that bully will never grow up to be the next winner of Shear Genius. more ›

A 31-year-old man was found dead inside a snow-covered BMW on Newtown Avenue and 28th Street (ABC7 says 28th Road but it doesn't intersect with Newtown Avenue) in Astoria just after midnight last night. The car was locked, and police have yet to determine how long he had been inside or whether his death was suicide or an accident. One Astoria resident said, "you can see the car has been here for a couple weeks under this much snow." On Tuesday morning the body of 36-year-old Kevin Ronan was found inside a car in Flushing nearly a week after he had shot himself. more ›

A short film shot in Astoria, Queens during the blizzard is getting high praise from Roger Ebert, who says it deserves to win the Academy Award for best live-action short subject. The short, titled "Idiot With a Tripod," is an homage to the 1929 short "Man With a Movie Camera" (which you can see on Ebert's blog). Filmmaker Jamie Stuart emailed the video to Ebert on Monday by 4:18 p.m., and the critic says, "You can tell from the cinematography he knew exactly what he was doing and how to do it. He held the Vertov film in memory. Stuart must already been thinking of how he would do the edit and sound. Any professional will tell you the talent exhibited here is extraordinary." Take a look for yourself below (and Stuart has also offered up this Quicktime link): more ›

Nothing livens up a gray Friday afternoon like a busted sex trafficking ring involving the FBI, a Russians call-girls, and a murder-for-hire scheme. Police arrested alleged pimp Salah Youssef, 37, and assistant Victoriya Makogonyuk, 18, and accused them of running a call-girl ring out of Astoria. In addition, Youssef is accused of trying to get revenge on an associate who owed him money by hiring a friend to either accuse the associate of rape or murder him. more ›