State Assemblyman Vito Lopez is set to resign Monday morning after an ethics report detailing sexual harassment allegations against him led Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to take steps to expel the assemblyman. But as Lopez prepares to leave office, Silver is facing mounting scrutiny for secretly approving a settlement with two women who accused Lopez, the New York Times reports.

The report released last week by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics found that Silver and his staff failed to refer the initial allegations against Lopez to the ethics committee. And a separate report by Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan suggested that the way Silver’s staff handled the allegations encouraged Lopez to continue with his inappropriate conduct.

The state Republican Party and several Assembly Republicans have called for Silver’s resignation, the Times reports. Women’s groups and government watchdog organizations have also criticized the speaker. No prominent Democratic elected officials have called for Silver to step down.

“The speaker has said from the start that we have made serious mistakes in the way this was handled, although we believed at the time we were acting according to the wishes of the victims,” a spokesman for Silver wrote in an email to the Times. “We will be discussing with members important changes so these mistakes will not be repeated.”

The allegations against Lopez first became public last August. Anger towards the assemblyman intensified after last week’s report, which contained graphic details of how Lopez sexually harassed at least eight female staffers. He told the women to massage him, wear low-cut blouses and miniskirts, stay overnight with him to “cuddle” and other requests. Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated that Lopez should be expelled if he does not resign.

Lopez said Friday that he would resign on June 20 and then focus on his run for City Council, but he announced on Saturday that he would resign effective Monday at 9 a.m.

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Two top editors of the struggling alt-weekly The Village Voice resigned abruptly from their posts Thursday after being asked by management to make cuts to their editorial staff.

Will Bourne, who became the paper’s editor-in-chief  just last November, and Jessica Lustig, whom he tapped to be his deputy editor in January, quit so as not to “preside over further layoffs.”

“We are both leaving because I was summoned to a meeting and asked to get rid of five people and we are on a short string already,”  Bourne told the New York Times. “When I was brought in here, I was explicitly told that the bloodletting had come to an end. I have enormous respect for the staff here and the work they have been doing and I am not going to preside over further layoffs.”

According to reports, Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, which is based in Denver and owns 11 alternative newspapers (LA Weekly, Denver Westword, Phoenix New Times, Dallas Observer and Miami New Times are among their titles), called Bourne and Lustig into a meeting and asked them to lay off five people from their 20-person staff. Bourne and Lustig resigned instead.

Their resignation comes a week after Bourne laid off the Voice’s art director, John Dixon.

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The arrest of Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson in a shocking corruption scandal brought other surprising news to state politicians on Thursday: another Bronx assemblyman has been secretly working with federal prosecutors for more than three years.

Nelson Castro, who resigned Thursday, has been identified as the assemblyman who worked as a key witness in the sting operation against Stevenson. Castro went undercover after he was charged in 2009 with a sealed perjury indictment, the New York Post reports.

Castro was charged after he lied in 2008 about a large number of people who registered to vote using his apartment’s address, sources told the Post.

According to the indictment, Castro agreed to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney and Bronx District Attorney’s office and to resign from the state assembly.

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There is neither sadness, neither regret, nor nostalgia even on St. Peter’s Square. On the day of Pope Benedict XVI’s final general audience, among the tens of thousands of faithful there were smiling faces and a few tears, not from sorrow but from emotion. When he first emerged in his Popemobile, Benedict was greeted with an explosion of applause before he stopped to hold and kiss a baby.

If the faithful feared Benedict would disappear forever, words of comfort from the outgoing pontiff said otherwise. “I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences and so on. I do not abandon the cross, but remain in a new way near to the Crucified Lord,” he told those gathered at St. Peter’s Square. “I no longer wield the power of the office for the government of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, within St. Peter’s bounds.”

His words, reassuring and not formal, were aimed directly at the heart of so many different people from all over the world, of all ages, united by a historical event.

He did speak of the testing times, comparing it to a noted Biblical passage. “[These years] have been a stretch of the Church’s pilgrim way, which has seen moments joy and light, but also difficult moments. I have felt like St. Peter with the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee: [...] there have been times when the seas were rough and the wind against us, as in the whole history of the Church it has ever been.”

In the end though, he showed gratitude to the faithful: “I thank each and every one of you for the respect and understanding with which you have welcomed this important decision.”

And the reasons, real or imagined, of this decision now take a back seat in the face of a man who will continue to wear white as a Pope, but a few hours will be called ‘Papa Emeritus’.

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The Pope is resigning: an unprecedented event in modern times. Indeed, because the event is so unusual, the Catholic Church is charting new territory as Benedict XVI leaves office. Metro explains.

What happens on February 28?

This is the last day of Benedict XVI’s pontificate. In the morning, he meets with cardinals at the Vatican. Cardinals, which are based in countries around the world, have travelled to Rome for this event. They convene again in March to elect a new Pope.

At 4:55 pm, Benedict XVI bids farewell to his staff and the Swiss Guards at the Vatican Apostolic Palace and travels by helicopter to Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s vacation residence. Once there, he will greet the crowds from the balcony.

At 8pm, Benedict XVI officially relinquishes the papacy. The Swiss Guards, who serve the Pope, depart and are replaced by soldiers of the Vatican Gendarmerie, who will be responsible for Benedict XVI’s security until he dies.

What will the Pope do next? Is he even a Pope anymore?

As this is unchartered territory for the Church, officials have had to come up with new solutions. Benedict will be known as “Pope Emeritus” and will still be called “His Holiness Benedict XVI”. He’ll continue the white cassock reserved for Popes, but not the cape. Benedict, a renowned scholar, will live in a monastery, where he will spend his time studying and writing.

A new Pope hasn’t been elected yet. Who will be in charge?

The Vatican bureaucracy will continue as usual, headed by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Until a new Pontiff is elected, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, will lead the clergy in a caretaker capacity.

When will a new Pope be elected?

Nobody knows. Around March 1, Cardinal Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, will call all cardinals to a conclave. In one of his final acts as Pope, Benedict XVI amended Canon Law, which regulates the Catholic Church, so as to allow a speedy election of a new Pontiff. Ordinarily the conclave begins 15-20 days after the death of the incumbent, which would mean the cardinals would convene no earlier than March 15, but the conclave may now be brought forward. All cardinals not younger than 80 are eligible to vote; that means that 115 cardinals will be voting this time.

How long will it take them to elect a new Pontiff?

It depends. It took the cardinals three ballots, over one and a half days, to elect Pope Benedict XVI, and all recent papal elections have been relatively speedy. There will definitely be a new Pope in place before Holy Week, which begins on March 25.

How will we know the Cardinals have made their choice?

Ah, the famous white smoke. After each round of voting in the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals burn their ballots in a fireplace whose chimney is visible to the crowds on St. Peter’s Square. Added dye makes the smoke black. When a winner emerges, the ballots are burned without the dye. The white smoke tells the world that a new Pontiff has been elected. An official then steps out on the balcony, announcing the famous words Habemus Papam, and the new Pontiff emerges.

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Pope Benedict will keep the honorific title of “His Holiness” after he abdicates this week and will be known as “pope emeritus,” the Vatican said on Tuesday.

He will wear a “simple white cassock” and his papal ring of office will be destroyed according to Vatican tradition, a spokesman told a briefing.

He will lay aside the red “shoes of the fisherman” that have been part of his papal attire and wear brown loafers given to him by shoemakers during a trip to Mexico last year.

Benedict on Thursday will become the first pope in some six centuries to resign instead of ruling for life.

Given the rarity of the occasion, Vatican officials have had to decide what he will be called and how he will dress.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he will be known as either “pope emeritus Benedict XVI” or “Roman Pontiff emeritus Benedict XVI”, be addresses as “Your Holiness,” and be referred to as “His Holiness”.

The spokesman said Benedict had made the decisions concerning his titles after consulting with Vatican officials.

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Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric resigned on Monday following allegations he behaved in an inappropriate way with priests, and said he would not take part in the election of Pope Benedict’s replacement.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien said he had tendered his resignation some months ago, ahead of his 75th birthday in March and because he was suffering from “indifferent health”.

The Vatican said the pope, who steps down on Thursday, had accepted O’Brien’s resignation as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh.

O’Brien, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has been reported to the Vatican over allegations of inappropriate behavior stretching back 30 years, according to Britain’s Observer newspaper.

The cardinal, who last week advocated allowing Catholic priests to marry as many found it difficult to cope with celibacy, rejected the allegations and was seeking legal advice, his spokesman said.1

“Looking back over my years of ministry: For any good I have been able to do, I thank God. For any failures, I apologize to all whom I have offended,” O’Brien said in a statement, which made no reference to the recent allegations.

He said he would not attend the election next month of a new pope, saying: “I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me – but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor.”

The Observer, which gave little detail on the claims, said three priests and a former priest, from a Scottish diocese, had complained over incidents dating back to 1980.

One said the cardinal formed an “inappropriate relationship” with him while another complained of unwanted behavior by O’Brien after a late-night drinking session.

Last year, O’Brien’s comments labeling gay marriage a “grotesque subversion” landed him with a “Bigot of the Year” award from British gay rights group Stonewall.

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Dolan said on the “Today” show Monday morning that he feels a special bond with the pope because he is the one who appointed him archbishop of New York.

The pope announced Monday that he will resign on Feb. 28 citing his health and advanced age. He is 85 years old. He is the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years.

Dolan says the conclave to elect a new pope in March should look for the kind of qualities Pope Benedict possessed: knowledge about the world, a theological depth, personal piety and linguistic talent.

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