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In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department's secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday. The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

The education reform movement, slow economies and federal grant competitions have led lawmakers to tighten the requirements for earning and keeping tenure.

An athlete competing in the Ironman U.S. Championship in New York City and New Jersey died Saturday after having a medical problem during the swimming portion of the grueling triathlon, race officials said... Deaths in triathlon competitions have happened with regularity in recent years, almost always during the swim, and the Hudson River has been particularly dangerous.

The nation's fastest texters are facing off in the annual LG U.S. National Texting Competition. Eleven contestants from all over the country are coming to Times Square for the annual competition Wednesday afternoon. The winner gets $50,000. Competitors range from 16 to 24 years old. Last year's champion Austin Weirschke (Wear-Ski) is coming back to defend his title.

Four men, friends from New York University, have spent much of the last 18 years living together in low-rent spaces they found in New York City.

A 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department was suspended and four other men were arrested after a ransom phone call was traced to the detective’s home in Queens.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says a fast food chain’s opposition to gay marriage is none of “the government’s business.” Bloomberg said Friday that he strongly disagrees with the mayors of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco in that regard. Chick-fil-A’s (chihk-fih-LAYZ’) opposition to gay marriage has touched off a national furor. Gay rights groups have called for a boycott and the three mayors have said Chick-fil-A was not welcome in their cities.

iReporter Jody Brandman shot this video of a window washer being pulled to safety outside a 50th floor window in NYC.

Firefighters will spend the next two weeks setting homes ablaze on a small island in New York Harbor for one purpose: Saving lives. Eighteen abandoned townhouses on New York City's Governor's Island, formerly housing for members of the Coast Guard, have been turned into a setting for roaring fires in experiments aimed to develop new strategies firefighters can use to save lives.

Passengers hailing cabs in Chicago starting Sunday may want to read the fine print on the taxi placards before they get in. In addition to the base fare, cab drivers for the first time can charge sick passengers a $50 vomit cleanup fee.