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Governor Andrew Cuomo, speaking by phone to a gathering of advocates for the poor, says he’s rescinded a 14-year-old state regulation that required food stamp recipients be subject to fingerprinting before receiving benefits.  

“Poverty and hunger are not crimes,” said Cuomo. “So we shouldn’t treat the poor or the hungry as criminals.”

The Vermont Air National Guard is proposing to start taking training flights over the Adirondacks and Watertown with F-35 aircraft.

The big, loud planes would replace the smaller, quieter F-16s the National Guard is using now —but not until at least 2015.

The Guard has issued a draft environmental impact statement – and it has held public hearings  around the area. The planes would take off and land in Burlington, Vermont. A meeting there drew more than 500 people.

Utica area lawmakers, activists  and residents are trying to save the Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center.  The community is galvanizing its support of the facility, which has been in the area for over a century.

It was his 22-year-old niece that gave Amir Cohen the inspiration to quit his job working in Israel's tech sector and start his own company.

Every time she gets in a taxicab in Israel she has her cell phone in-hand, ready to call her father in case of an emergency.

"This was the original trigger," Cohen recalls. "Letting people feel safer and be safer on their daily routine - when they're going to a party, getting in a taxi, whatever."

The end product: a smartphone app called Guard My Angel that allows users to pre-program a list of emergency contacts. If you feel threatened or are in an accident, an alert is sent out with your location.

The New York Racing Association is defending its authority to name its officers and operate freely in what they believe is the best interests of thoroughbred racing.

NYRA promoted two executives while the state is investigating allegations the association intentionally held back roughly $8.5 million in winnings from bettors. State government officials have threatened to replace NYRA, which operates the Belmont, Aqueduct and Saratoga thoroughbred tracks under a state franchise.

This year's statewide school budget vote was the first to take place after Governor Andrew Cuomo convinced the legislature to adopt the property tax cap.

The governor says the tax cap imposed “fiscal discipline.”

He says he’s  pleased  that few school districts attempted to override the cap, that most districts kept tax increases to a minimum and that so many budgets were approved by voters.

He says taxpayers, as well as state government, are tapped out.

Three people have died in the last three years in Central New York from the Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus, which can be spread from mosquitoes to  humans.

The deaths have sent scares across the region, and the health departments in Onondaga, Oswego, Madison, and Oneida Counties are taking it seriously.

“It is a rare disease, but it is a very fatal disease and I think that that is very frightening for everybody,” remarked Onondaga County Health Commissioner Cynthia Morrow.

Governor Andrew Cuomo came to Syracuse today to promote his legislation for protecting people with special needs and disabilities.

The legislation creates a center which would have primary responsibility for investigating allegations of abuse and neglect of disabled people in state operated or licensed facilities. Last year there were 10,000 such allegations.

The wife of former Syracuse University basketball coach Bernie Fine is suing ESPN. Laurie Fine accused the sports network of libel in a news conference at a resort in Geneva today.

Fine, flanked by her two daughters, a son-in-law and nephew, told reporters that her life was destroyed after ESPN covered allegations that her husband had sexually abused two ball boys.

Around 300 anti-fracking protestors rallied inside the capitol building in Albany Tuesday.

It was part of a day-long effort to convince the state to continue its ban against the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for gas in New York.

The state’s September primary is going to be delayed by two days, now that the legislature has agreed to move the date from Tuesday, September 11 to Thursday, September 13.

Democrats in the State Assembly approved a bill to increase the state’s minimum wage.

The Republican leader of the State Senate offered a spirited defense of his position opposing the measure, but did not rule the issue out altogether.

Democrats in the Assembly approved a bill to increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour.  Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has championed the measure, calls it a “moral imperative”.

“It is, I keep saying it, a moral issue,” said Silver.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says J.P. Morgan Chase's recent bad investment again shows a need for more oversight and transparency in the nation's banking sector.

It was a day of remembrance today in Syracuse at the newly renovated Forman Park. Mayor Stephanie Miner, Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler, and Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh were all on hand to honor members of the police force that have fallen in the line of duty.

Assembly Democrats say they have the votes to approve a minimum wage hike when a bill comes to the floor today.