Suffolk County police busted an off-duty NYPD cop they say in a fit of road rage pulled his gun on a woman who cut him off on Long Island, officials said Tuesday.

The victim accidentally cut Officer Donald Vale off on the southbound Sagtikos Parkway as the two neared the Southern State Parkway about 4:10 p.m. Sunday, cops said. Vale flew into a rage, pursued her, and threatened her with a gun, according to police. As he sped off, his victim wrote down his license plate number and gave it to authorities when she reported the incident.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A West Virginia mayor was criticized and her businesswoman friend fired after calling First Lady Michelle Obama an “ape in heels.”

“It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House,” wrote Pamela Ramsey Taylor, the axed director of the government-funded Clay Development Corporation. “I’m tired of seeing a Ape in heels.” The Facebook post has since been deleted. Screenshots of the her remarks were shared thousands of times by social media users condemning the racist message.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

ALBANY, N.Y. – A woman being held in a New York jail is again facing charges she killed her twin sister after their vehicle plunged off a Hawaii cliff in May. State police say 38-year-old Alexandria Duval was arrested Friday after being tracked down at an Albany home.The arrest comes after the Maui Police Department issued a warrant for Duval’s arrest when a grand jury indicted her on a second-degree murder charge late last month. She’s accused of killing her sister Anastasia by driving their SUV off a cliff.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

Residents of a Hudson Valley city already struggling with poverty and urban blight are now being told to have their blood tested for a toxic chemical long used for firefighting at the nearby air base. Newburgh’s water supply was switched to an alternate source in May after the chemical PFOS was found above federal guidelines. Now, the state Health Department has launched a blood testing program. Similar testing has been done in several smaller communities, such as rural Hoosick Falls. But Newburgh’s population of 28,000 is eight times the size of Hoosick Falls and the city has a high percentage of poor, non-English-speaking residents, making outreach challenging.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

It only took five days for the biggest fears about Donald Trump’s administration to take shape as the President-elect named Stephen Bannon to a top post.

Outrage flooded social and mainstream media Sunday over Trump’s decision to appoint Bannon, the campaign CEO, as his chief strategist and senior counselor.

Trump also tapped Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, 44, as his chief of staff. Bannon, 62, is popular among some of the more reactionary elements of the Trump coalition, but his ascension is seen by many opponents as proof that Trump will maintain ties to the populist white nationalism movement.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A chaotic shootout in Brooklyn left one suspect and two bystanders wounded early Sunday, police said. A 36-year-old man and another suspect exchanged gunfire on Manhattan Ave. near Boerum St. in Williamsburg around 1:40 a.m., according to cops.

One bullet hit the 36-year-old in the left knee, and another hit a 28-year-old man in the foot, officials said. A third bullet struck a 25-year-old woman in the left thigh.(nydailynews)…[+]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A powerful earthquake struck New Zealand near the city of Christchurch early Monday, generating a tsunami, with the first waves hitting the South Island, officials said.

The strong jolts caused some damage to buildings over 200 kilometers (120 miles) away in the capital, Wellington.

New Zealand emergency services warned people near the coast of the South Island to move to higher ground following the magnitude-7.8 quake.

In Wellington, 214 kilometers (132 miles) north of the quake’s epicenter, power was knocked out in some places, and some windows smashed and some chimneys collapsed.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

Many Donald Trump supporters try to cover their intentions. They say their choice was about ideology, about the direction of the country.

But every exit poll shows it was about race. Whites overwhelmingly voted for a man who has a history of rejecting black people wanting to live in his apartment buildings, who said he wants to send Mexicans back to Mexico, who said he wants to keep Muslims out of the country. Even a majority of white women voted for Trump, despite his saying he’s free to grab women in the crotch. White women pulled levers for Trump even as he called Hillary Clinton, who would have been the country’s first female President, “a nasty woman.”

I teach at Brooklyn College and I’ve seen students cry as they shared fears engendered by the outcome of Tuesday’s voting. One student, a white woman, spoke at a gathering on campus Thursday and broke down in tears as she said she was embarrassed to be white.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A Brooklyn woman who became an anti-bullying crusader after suffering a brutal attack was busted Thursday for assaulting a 74-year-old Donald Trump supporter, cops said Friday. Shacara McLaurin, 23, got into a shouting match with the senior citizen during an anti-Trump rally near the President-elect’s namesake building on Fifth Ave., cops said. The fracas started as an argument over who should have won the presidential election — and quickly escalated, a police source said.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

An alleged rape victim once berated by a Canadian judge for not keeping her knees together faced jarring courtroom questions about her attacker’s penis size from a lawyer who suggested it may have played a factor in whether she consented to sex.

Pat Flynn — the attorney representing Alexander Scott Wagar, who is accused of flashing and then raping a woman in a bathroom during a 2011 house party in Calgary — asked the alleged victim if she was attracted to his client because he was “larger than most men.”

“No,” the now 24-year-old woman responded during the cross-examination Tuesday, according to the Canadian Press.(nydailynews.com)...[+]