ios5 - JSON Parsing - dictionary OK, not parsing to array - json

Question

I am using the new ios5 "NSJSONSerialization" function to obtain some tech-news from a website. I seem to have everything working OK, up until the point when I try to parse the NSDictionary into an NSArray. I have included the code here. The first console test (test 1) is working great - I get a console full of returned json data. But at the second console test (test 2 - the one that checks the contents of the nsarray), gives this message: "Array returned: (null)". Any ideas? Is it because I reused the error variable, maybe? I'm stumped.
Here's the code:
// create the string for making the api call to the website
NSString* theURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=9DfJELfJ2xGnjAQWJphxuA&_render=json"];
// declare and assign variables necessary to generate the actual url request
NSError* err = nil;
NSURLResponse* response = nil;
NSMutableURLRequest* request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
NSURL* URL = [NSURL URLWithString:theURL];
[request setURL:URL];
[request setCachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringLocalCacheData];
[request setTimeoutInterval:30];
// make the actual url request - get the data from yahoo pipes, in json format
NSData* jsonData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:&response error:&err];
// assign the entire result to a dictionary
NSDictionary *resultsDictionary = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:jsonData options:kNilOptions error:&err];
//*** test 1: use the console to test results:
NSLog(#"NSDictionary returned: %#",resultsDictionary);
// parse the whole returned list of items (in dictionary form) into a large array
NSArray* arrayOfReturnedItems = [resultsDictionary objectForKey:#"items"];
//*** test 2: view the items returned (in the console)
NSLog(#"Array returned: %#",[arrayOfReturnedItems objectAtIndex:0]);