After a grueling year marked by Democratic infighting, New York State lawmakers are expected to conclude the 2023 legislative session this weekend with few marquee policy wins and a notable failure to address the state’s critical housing needs. Despite last-ditch efforts, Democrats in control of the State Capitol failed to introduce or pass legislation to […]
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On the Smoke Crisis, New York City’s Mayor Chokes
As apocalyptic smoke bore down on New York City from Canadian wildfires this week, a familiar sensation rose in the acrid, choking air. New Yorkers, once again, were on their own. Mayor Eric Adams’s slow, muted response to the unhealthy smoke left the city’s more than eight million residents unprepared, scrambling to protect themselves. By […]
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Did N.Y. Leaders Leave Residents Unprepared for the Air Quality Crisis?
New Yorkers have grown accustomed to being inundated with well-intentioned warnings from city and state leaders, for everything from incoming snowstorms to virus outbreaks. But as the skies darkened dramatically over New York City on Tuesday evening, the air suddenly rich with acrid smoke, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul made no public appearances […]
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N.Y. Democrats, at Odds Over Tenant Protections, Fail to Reach Housing Deal
Democratic lawmakers in New York had scrambled this week to assemble a plan to tackle the state’s housing crisis: They said it included measures to protect tenants from eviction and cap rent increases, incentives to remodel empty offices into apartments and an extension of a tax break for developers to build affordable housing. But it […]
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New York Lawmakers Try to Sabotage Campaign Reform
But if a donor gives more than $250, then no part of the contribution is matched. That was the key element of the agreement reached in 2019. Lawmakers said they would provide an incentive for candidates to hunt for small contributions and to discourage big ones. All of that would be undone by the bill […]
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State’s Cannabis Effort is Faltering Amid Roadblocks and Red Tape
Six months later, he said, officials have yet to answer his most basic questions — “How much is this going to cost me? Where is my loan agreement?” — and he was beginning to fear that licensees have been set up to fail. “I’m just not being treated like a business person who makes business […]
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Buffalo’s Blizzard Response Had Numerous Failures, Researchers Find
Five months after a blizzard devastated western New York, killing 31 residents of Buffalo, a report released on Friday cited multiple failures in the city’s response to the blinding snowfall that whipped through the region for three days, trapping many people in their cars, homes and workplaces. Emergency warnings from city officials did not adequately […]
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Despite Hochul’s Pledge, Her Policies Have Helped Husband’s Firm
The day before she was sworn into office, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York signed an unusual recusal policy forbidding her from using her position to help Delaware North, a global giant in entertainment and hospitality services. The privately held company — which owns or manages 11 gambling venues and numerous hotels, and handles concessions […]
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Thousands of NYC Hotel Rooms Are Open, Despite Migrant Arrivals
Thousands of migrants have come to New York City in the past two weeks, fueling what Mayor Eric Adams called “one of the great humanitarian crises” in the city’s history, as officials struggle to find places to house them. In particular, Mr. Adams has spoken repeatedly about the city’s program to put migrants up in […]
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Build in the Suburbs, Solve the Housing Crisis
In his 1987 book, “Bourgeois Utopias,” the historian Robert Fishman pointed out that “suburbia was at once the most characteristic product of explosive urban expansion and a desperate protest against it.” Many policymakers and homeowners are, in effect, still living within that tension, in denial of the ways the modern suburb already reflects trends in […]
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Subway Killing of Jordan Neely Stuns, and Divides, New Yorkers
Almost as soon as the video of one subway rider choking another to death began to ricochet across the internet, the killing came to signify more than the tragic death of one man. For many New Yorkers, the choking of the 30-year-old homeless man, Jordan Neely, was a heinous act of public violence to be […]
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Hochul Acknowledges She Didn’t Vet Adviser Accused of Sexual Harassment
Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledged on Thursday that she had not scrutinized the background of a longtime political adviser when she hired him to run her 2018 re-election campaign for lieutenant governor of New York, just months after he was fired for sexually harassing colleagues at a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. Ms. Hochul said that she […]
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Hochul’s Ex-Adviser Has History of Sexual Harassment Complaints
Sarah Driscoll was out for drinks with colleagues one evening in early 2017 when a veteran political operative she worked with, Adam C. Sullivan, cornered her at a Washington bar. They were both directors of the Hub Project, a small Democratic advocacy group leading a pitched fight against Donald J. Trump’s new presidency. But rather […]
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In Deadly Subway Encounter, Questions of Mental Illness and Use of Force
Most frequent riders of the New York City subway have seen people acting erratically on trains. Usually, they ignore them, move away from them or switch to another car. On Monday, one rider went up to Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator who had been homeless for several years and was screaming that he […]
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How New Yorkers’ Lives Will Be Altered by the $229 Billion State Budget
ALBANY, N.Y. — Minimum wage workers in New York City will get a pay bump for the first time in five years. Out-of-state students at city and state universities will face a tuition hike. And cigarette smokers will need to pay an extra dollar in taxes per pack. New York State lawmakers approved a $229 […]
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Native Burial Sites Will Soon Be Protected Under Law for the First Time
For years, New York law permitted developers to built atop Native American burial sites without taking steps to preserve the ancient remains, making the state one of only four with no meaningful protection for graves on private lands. But that is set to change thanks to a provision included in the state budget deal Gov. […]
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Gov. Hochul Severs Ties With Top Political Adviser in Face of Backlash
A top political adviser to Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York abruptly informed colleagues that he would resign on Sunday, citing a New York Times report that called into question his political counsel and described a toxic work environment under him. The adviser, Adam C. Sullivan, was not a paid employee of the state but […]
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New York Will Toughen Contentious Bail Law to Give Judges More Discretion
ALBANY, N.Y. — It was just four years ago that New York’s Democratic lawmakers celebrated a new law that eliminated bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies and, at the time, seemingly added a measure of new justice to a system long faulted for pre-emptively punishing the poor. On Thursday night, however, after months of […]
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Gov. Hochul Gets a Budget Deal, but No Signature Win
ALBANY, N.Y. — It was around dinner time on Thursday, with many New York State lawmakers already heading home to their districts, when Gov. Kathy Hochul dropped a budget bombshell: Roughly four weeks past the deadline, she and legislative leaders had reached a tentative deal. She hastily convened a news conference in the Capitol’s ornate […]
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M.T.A. Averts Fiscal Crisis as New York Strikes Budget Deal
Why It Matters The deal creates a more permanent funding stream for the M.T.A., which is often at the center of feuds between the city and state over how to prop up its finances. During each budget cycle, the authority has had to jockey for money against an array of other interests. There is also […]
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Gas Stoves To Be Banned in New NY Buildings
New York may soon become the first state in the nation to ban natural gas in new construction under a budget deal announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul. The proposal, revealed on Thursday night, has been a priority for environmental groups, who see it as a critical step in reducing New York’s dependence on fossil fuels […]
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New York to Change Minimum Wage and Bail in $229 Billion Budget Deal
Ms. Hochul announced the deal during an impromptu news conference in the State Capitol on Thursday evening, even as legislative leaders in the Assembly had not yet finished briefing rank-and-file lawmakers on some details of the agreement. Just hours before, Assembly Democrats had sent members home, with an expected return Sunday evening to continue discussing […]
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Charter Schools, Still Hotly Debated, Could Expand in New York
Why It Matters: Even a Few Charters Will Make Big Political Waves Fourteen is a small number in a system with roughly 1,800 schools, and the change would not transform New York City’s educational landscape. But charter schools remain a hot-button issue. Charter schools use public taxpayer money, but are run independently from district schools […]
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New York Officials Failed to Address the Housing Crisis. Now What?
ALBANY, N.Y. — It seemed like 2023 would be the year that New York would finally take the most consequential steps in decades to address the state’s dire housing shortage. Rising rents and homelessness had made housing a top issue for voters. Gov. Kathy Hochul had unveiled a grand plan, focused on cajoling communities to […]
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He Calls the Shots for New York’s Governor. He Lives in Colorado.
With the Democratic nomination all but assured last spring, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and her campaign team began to plot a pre-emptive television ad to protect against Republican attacks already bubbling up around rising crime. Ad makers cut a 30-second spot, highlighting Ms. Hochul’s plan to secure city streets and subway trains. She […]
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As New York Boosts Tax Breaks for Movies, Some Critics Pan the Program
Four years ago, Amazon pulled the plug on its plans to build a headquarters in New York City, amid left-wing outrage over a $3 billion public subsidy package. But New York has hardly cut the company off: Amazon’s film and TV arm has received more than $108 million in state tax credits since then, and the left has […]
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Black Smokers at Center of New York Fight to Ban Menthol Cigarettes
ALBANY, N.Y. — A push by Gov. Kathy Hochul to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes in New York has become the focal point of a fierce and expensive lobbying fight, pitting Big Tobacco against the medical community. Caught in the middle are Black smokers, who smoke menthol cigarettes at higher rates than white smokers, and are the […]
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Hochul Paid $2 Million for Outside Help on State of the State Speeches
The pledge that Gotham Ghostwriters makes to its clients is as simple as it is bold: “If you can dream it, we can write it.” So when Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York needed to dream up something exceptionally grand this year for the annual State of the State address, the Manhattan ghostwriting firm was a good […]
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The Office Market is Cratering. Why Should That Hold Up Penn Station?
In 2020, when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo unveiled a grand reimagining of Pennsylvania Station to be funded largely by new office towers around the train hub, one landlord stood to reap most of the rewards: Vornado Realty Trust, one of the nation’s largest owners and managers of commercial real estate. But three years later, the […]
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New York City Welcomes Growing Number of Out-of-State Abortion Patients
When Nancy Davis of Baton Rouge, La., learned last summer that the fetus she was carrying had a rare and fatal condition, her anguish was compounded by the chaotic legal terrain surrounding the abortion ban in her state. A local abortion clinic had shut down, and her hospital refused to perform the procedure, despite an […]
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After Texas Ruling, Democratic States Move to Stockpile Abortion Pills
The governor of Massachusetts has asked the University of Massachusetts to purchase a one-year supply of the abortion pill mifepristone, and issued an executive order shielding pharmacists who stock the drug, abortion providers and patients from criminal and civil liability. Washington State is using its Department of Corrections and the University of Washington to stockpile […]
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