Regional Coverage

Governor Andrew Cuomo, speaking by phone to a gathering of advocates for the poor, says he’s rescinded a 14-year-old state regulation that required food stamp recipients be subject to fingerprinting before receiving benefits.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

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.

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.