Erica Chang

The judge in charge of overseeing the trial of an off-duty city police officer accused of raping a Manhattan teacher accepted the jury's partial verdict Tuesday. The jurors informed the judge that they were unable to come to an agreement on Officer Michael Pena's innocence. Pena, who was off-duty and drunk at the time of the attacks, is accused of forcing a woman into an alley where he threatened her with a gun and raped her.

Rumor has it that notorious exes Rihanna and Chris Brown will be reuniting musically at the Supafest music festival in Brisbane, Australia. But does that mean they will be reuniting romantically as well? Our guess is no.

In a solemn interview set at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center in South Carolina, talk show host Oprah Winfrey asked Shaquan Duley why she killed her two baby sons just a few years ago. The interview, which was held on Friday, will be shown on an episode of Oprah's Next Chapter on April 1 at 9 p.m. The evening show will also include interviews with Duley's 7-year-old daughter and Duley's mother and sister.

The jury in charge of overseeing the trial of an off-duty city police officer, who allegedly raped a Manhattan teacher, reached a partial verdict Monday. The jurors informed the judge that they were unable to come to an agreement on Officer Michael Pena's innocence. Pena, who was off-duty and drunk at the time of the attacks, is accused of forcing a woman into an alley where he threatened her with a gun and raped her.

NYPD has released surveillance footage of the L Train subway fight that ended up killing 20-year-old college student Joshua Basin. Basin was confronted by a man, presumed to be in his thirties, following a verbal dispute on Friday night at the Bedford Avenue station in Brooklyn.

Oh, the power of social media. 30 Rock star Alec Baldwin called upon his loyal Twitter minions Tuesday night to take action against a specific tweeter who had allegedly been harassing his girlfriend Hilaria Thomas for some time. In a plea for help, Baldwin released the Twitter handle of the purported stalker, @scarfacemadam, asking followers to go to her address, and read just a few of her posts, and give her your notice of her behavior.

A 22-year-old police officer who posed as a high school student over the past eight months made a series of arrests in Exeter, California, according to the Los Angeles Times. The undercover operation is not unlike Hollywood's recently released film, 21 Jump Street, which opened in theaters across the nation last week.

According to the latest results received by the New York City Board of Elections, Republican candidate David Storobin held a 120-vote lead over Democratic candidate Lewis A. Fidler for New York's South Brooklyn Senate Seat. However, after months of political tension, both candidates for the 27th District seat declared victory to their supporters Tuesday night.

Yet another New York City teacher was arrested for sexually abusing a student, as cases of similar standing continue to mount. The Brooklyn gym teacher could easily be the 15th city Education Department employee to be convicted of criminal charges this year, according to NY Daily News.

A secret Hunger Games screening went public after news of the red carpet event was leaked on Twitter. Stars gathered at the School of Visual Arts Theatre Tuesday Night where they were greeted by an unexpected crowd of onlookers. Actress Jennifer Lawrence, who plays female lead Katniss Everdeen, met the crowd outside of the Chelsea Theater telling them I can't stay long, as fans screamed her name.

Several Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested early Wednesday as the movement gathered in Union Square Park. The protesters marched uptown from their former encampment at Zuccotti Park after the NYPD closed the area off on Saturday night. In total, six protesters were taken into custody on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to obstructing governmental administration, according to the NY Times.

Although there is no known specific threat against New York City, the NYPD has taken the precaution of stepping up coverage of Jewish neighborhoods and institutions in the city, said a spokesman.

New York State lawmakers passed a major pension reform deal following an arduous session that lasted through Wednesday night, according to the NYPost. The pension deal had already been approved by the State Senate and needed only to be passed by the Assembly before the new legislation was authorized.

Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev -- who reportedly purchased an $88 million Central Park West apartment for his daughter while she attended school in New York-- is facing accusations from his estranged wife regarding the true reason for purchasing such a lavish pad.

Marie Colvin, the internationally acclaimed journalist who was killed in Syria last month, will be buried in the Long Island community she grew up in. Her funeral will be held Monday at St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church. The Sunday Times of London reporter was killed last month while fleeing an unofficial media center which was being shelled by the Syrian Army. Colvin had been reporting from Homs, in spite of the Syrian government's attempts to prevent foreign journalists from covering the u...

Lawmakers are considering a tax break for mass transit users in New York City. The tax break would apply to LIRR, NJ Transit and New York City subway riders, according to Huffington Post.

Investigators are on the hunt for two men who they believe are responsible for the brutal murder of a Chelsea event planner. John Laubach, 57, was discovered bound and gagged in his apartment on West 22nd Street earlier this month. Evidence has led police to believe that Edwin Faulkner, 30, and Juan Carlos Martinez-Herrera, 26, killed Laubach on March 2.

A former cop is now seeking to serve as Anna Gristina's defense pro bono after attempting to have her former attorney fired during Monday's hearing, according to NY Daily News. Peter Gleason, who has expressed that he will work for free, has willingly offered to give up his Tribeca loft as collateral in order to bail out Gristina and to house her family during the trial. When asked why he is so intent on helping Gristina, Gleason mentioned only that the two share a mutual friend.

The press agency of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement charged Wednesday that the CIA, Israel's Mossad and private security firms have been exposed supporting Syrian rebels in Homs.

A Brooklyn teacher's aide accused of fondling a young boy and recording his assault on camera is being indicted by a federal grand jury, according to NY Daily News. Taleek Brooks, a teacher's assistant at a Bedford Stuyvesant school, and supervisor of an all-boys dance group, was arrested after FBI agents discovered homemade child pornographic images on his computer. Brooks, 40, was previously arrested in connection with a prior kidding porn investigation.

Mayor Bloomberg publicly supported John Liu at a Bronx event on Tuesday, saying As long as he's controller, we'll continue to work well with him, according to NY Daily News. Meanwhile the feds are continuing their investigation of the fund-raising scandal involving Liu's campaign treasurer, who was busted for funneling large, illegal donations from straw donors to Liu's campaign.

Lexington, the much loved dog of Msgr. Robert Ritchie of the St. Patrick's Cathedral, passed away Monday, according to New York Daily News. The darling yellow lab has lived at the cathedral for over 15 years, and has even served as the inspiration for the addition of a new dog statue in the Christmas Nativity scene. Ritchie's beloved pooch passed away peacefully while Ritchie was recovering from knee surgery.

The former Rutgers University student who secretly captured his gay roommate's sexual encounters on a webcam allegedly planned to host a viewing party, according to friends. Dharun Ravi is on trial for invasion of privacy, bias intimidation and a number of other criminal counts after his roommate, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge in September 2010.

It's official, winter is technically over. And the stats show that the 2011-2012 season was the second warmest winter in New York on record. At an average temperature of 40.5 degrees, this season's winter broke most records except for the 2001-2002 season, according to the Gothamist. On the contrary, the coldest winter took place in 1934, during which temperatures averaged 19.9 degrees.

The Brooklyn Height's home, where Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany's, as well as a number of other books, has sold for $12 million. The house was originally listed for $18 million and has been on the market for almost two years. Nonetheless, it is reportedly the highest price anyone has paid for a single-family home in the borough's history.

A Brooklyn mother of two who had her hands and feet amputated as a result of a hospital's negligence has won a $17.9 million settlement from the hospital and the city. 35-year-old Tabitha Mullings will receive $9.4 million from Brooklyn Hospital Center and $8.5 million from the city after a three-year legal battle, according to the NY Daily News.

President George W. Bush's re-election campaign manager and openly gay former Republican Committee chairman Ken Mehlman expressed regret with his role in the 2004 campaign's anti-gay marriage agenda. Mehlman, who left the Republican National Committee to work for a private equity firm shortly after coming out in 2010, apologized in an interview for pushing against gay marriage in 2004.

One advertising company pulled its commercials from Rush Limbaugh's show Friday in response to Limbaugh's controversial comments about female law student Sandra Fluke. Sleep Train Mattress Centers specifically responded to a wave of tweets that asked the company to withdraw it's ads from Limbaugh's show. The company announced on it's own twitter, We don't condone negative comments directed toward any group. In response, we are currently pulling our ads from Rush with Rush L...

The number of black and Latino students admitted to one of New York City's elite high schools has increased by 14 percent since last year, according to recent statistics released by the Department of Education. Admittance to these specialized schools including institutions such as Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, the Bronx High School of Science and the High School of American Studies at Lehman College, is based on the results of a single standardized test distributed amongst prospective ...