As voters prepare to cast ballots on school budgets and board members Tuesday, New York State United Teachers has launched a $1 million ad campaign urging them “to remember that opportunity for children, good jobs and a healthy economy are all part of the American Dream—and depend on passing school budgets on May 20.”   

   The commercial [...]

   The star of Riverkeeper’s 19th Annual Shad Festival Sunday and Hudson River Celebration in Garrison will not be shad. Instead, the environmental group will be serving a special kind of farmed salmon, according to a spokeswoman.

   A recent study that showed there had been a 90 percent decline in shad in the river over the [...]

Painting, drawing or otherwise placing or displaying a noose is now a felony under New York law—punishable by up to four years in prison.

Gov. David Paterson signed the legislation that was proposed in the state after the well-publicized “Jena 6” case in Louisiana and two cases in New York—one noose was found in the locker room [...]

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just announced he is expanding his “double dipping” investigation on pension fraud by requesting information from each of New York’s 685 public-school districts on hiring retired officials who had already been receiving public pensions. (He had previously sought this information just from Long Island districts.)

Cuomo’s office is looking for “double dippers” engaged [...]

Gov. David Paterson said today that he would not give in to pressure from Republicans to give the state a sales tax “holiday” between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Although the Senate Republican Majority said its bill authorizes anti-price-gouging penalties for gas station owners and gas distributors that don’t pass along the savings, Paterson said there is no [...]

 The State University of New York is making progress on finding a new chancellor for the 64-campus system and is on track to make an appointment during summer, Board of Trustees Chairman Carl Hayden reported today.  

SUNY has been without a permanent chancellor since John Ryan resigned from the $340,000-per-year position last May. John Clark is interim [...]

Saying the state’s nursing shortage is reaching “crisis proportions,” Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, announced five proposals he and his Republican colleagues are advancing. They would set up loan reimbursement programs for people who agreed to work as registered nurses in New York, teach nursing students, deliver care in specialty settings like nursing homes, or worked [...]

Touting the success today of the state’s recent decision to triple its film tax credit (from 10 percent to 30 percent), Gov. David Paterson announced today that production of the ABC series “Ugly Betty” would be returning to New York City.  The city’s 5 percent “Made in NY” tax credit will boost that to 35 [...]

With hospital-acquired infections affecting 5 to 10 percent of patients, New York is giving more than $1.2 million to hospitals for projects to tackle the issue. Each year, hospital patients across the country contract an estimated 1.7 infections, resulting in some 99,000 deaths, according to state Health Commissioner Richard Daines.

Prevention efforts will target some of [...]

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli just announced that he has removed three more lawyers from the state and local retirement systems and has taken away retirement system service credits from two other attorneys and an accountant. The actions are part of an ongoing review of retirement-system abuse by DiNapoli. Last month, he suspended the pensions of [...]