A state law proposed to offer airline passengers trapped aboard grounded planes at New York airports a baseline of humane treatment (e.g. water, air, bathroom facilities) was struck down by the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals today. The New York Airline Passenger Bill of Rights was enacted after some high-profile incidents that had passengers stuck aboard delayed flights for hours, with overflowing toilets and no food or drink. New York State was a practical......

The Justice Department is denying federal benefits to the families of the two auxiliary police officers who were brutally killed by a marauding gunman in the West Village last year. Yevgeniy Marshalik's and Nicholas Pekearo's families each applied for $300,000 in benefits, part of the 2003 “Hometown Heroes” Congressional bill for families of first-responders killed in the line of duty. But the DOJ doesn't think they qualify, because NYC's “auxiliary police are not recognized as......

Some good news in the ongoing saga to save 1520 Sedgwick, better known as the Birthplace of Hip Hop. Today Senator Schumer, who has been lobbying on behalf of the tenants to preserve the building's affordability, announced that "the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development rejected the proposed sale to developer Mark Karasick because current rents could not be sustained if the sale had gone through." The move doesn't insure that the building’s owner......

Photographs of Spitzer, Sharpton, Dinkins and Bloomberg at Sharpton's National Action Network by Tina Fineberg/AP All over the city, events were held to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. One of the biggest events was the Reverend Al Sharpton's annual forum at his National Action Network in Harlem, which attracted Governor Spitzer, Senator Schumer, former Mayor Dinkins and Mayor Bloomberg. Sharpton hailed Bloomberg's efforts to make the city less racially divisive, "It is......