New York City courts have been quiet in the two and a half weeks since the NYPD essentially stopped arresting people. The New York Times reports that arraignments have dropped 60 and 91 percent for misdemeanor offenses and low-level violations like disorderly conduct over the past two and a half weeks compared with the same period last year. Overall, arraignments in December were down 34 percent compared to last year.

Heyyyyy, teens, here's an SMS direct to your heart signed with the winking face emoji from Bill de Blasio: the mayor of New York City announced on Wednesday that the ban on cell phones at NYC schools has been lifted. All 1.1 million kids enrolled will now get to bring their phones and tablets onto campus.

"Manhattan apartment prices jumped to the highest point since their 2008 peak as buyers competed for a limited supply of homes... Price gains are accelerating as demand from domestic and international buyers alike outpaces the number of properties for sale."

The city of New York received 70,000 applications for 38 units of affordable housing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The city's affordable housing plan is a, uh, work in progress.

At a press conference this afternoon, Mayor de Blasio asked activists protesting the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to put their demonstrations on hold until after this weekend, when Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu—the two NYPD officers shot to death on Saturday—will be buried.

On the real estate front, there's good news, and bad news. The bad news is you can't afford Manhattan. The good news is that Brooklyn is—oh. Hm. Well, the good news is that Queens is—oh. Shit. Uhhh....

Vice Media, now valued at two and a half billion dollars, made a ton of money this year. How much do its employees make? Here is Vice's most detailed information yet.

As the New York Times style section dutifully tackles health goth, and while the land of 1,000 babies sees the closure of its beloved artisan tea shop, something BIG is afoot in a different borough. It's Queens. You ever heard of it? You know the one. It's over there, fresh for the wrecking.

The beautiful borough of Brooklyn, New York is home to almost 2.6 million people, and none of them can afford to live there.

It was hard to discern who among the throngs crowding the sidewalks last night was in Midtown for justice and who was there for vacation.

New York City, Philadelphia, and Columbus, Ohio are the finalists to host the 2016 Democratic Convention. The Republicans will hold theirs in Cleveland. So the Democrats will be in Columbus, or in NYC if they've given up on the election and just want good restaurants.

If you've ever wondered what separates New York's toughest accent (The Bronx) from its second-toughest (The Rockaways), how East Villagers talk differently from their counterparts on the West, or why Long Islanders sound so flabbergasted all the time, allow Fred Armisen and his considerable improv skills to demonstrate.

As Manhattan continues its transformation into a land of empty luxury apartments owned by absentee billionaires, support has grown for a tax on these sorts of second homes, for motherfuckers. Now, our wish may be coming true.

A 39-year-old man who inherited his grandfather's sweet $100-a-month rent deal on a four-bedroom Upper East Side apartment may have blown the whole thing by suing to have the high rise next door torn down, the New York Daily News reports.

A 61-year-old man was allegedly pushed onto the subway tracks in the Bronx on Sunday morning when an incoming D train was approaching. The man was killed by the train and reports say that his wife watched on in horror.

Few things capture the grandness and blandness of modern day Manhattan better than the unveiling of the "World's tallest Holiday Inn."

Was semen really found in Starbucks drinks nationwide? Is the FDA looking into this? No. God no. But Harlem pastor James David Manning thinks so, and he's very concerned.

"Ridgewood is in the chrysalis stage of an outer-borough transformation that shrieks 'Brooklyn.' Except it's not in that overhyped borough." The New York Times style section has arrived, so "Queens is the new Brooklyn" is already over.

Andrea Peyser, a troll who lives under a bridge and also an anger columnist at the New York Post, is very angry about the fact that the NYPD choked Eric Garner to death, then let his mom out of a traffic ticket. She's mad about the ticket part.

New York City real estate is too expensive to afford for most people who are not foreign billionaires. Mayor Bill De Blasio has vowed to build or preserve 200,000 new units of affordable housing in the next decade. Is that even possible? The experts say: Uhhh.....