Month: January 2020

Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn announces that 31-year-old Lavon Dean of Cheektowaga pleaded guilty before State Supreme Court Justice M. William Boller to one count of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, a Class “D” violent felony. The

BY SENATOR PATTY RICHIE Imagine for a second your child is killed by a drunk driver. Then, imagine you find out the person responsible is a repeat offender who was arrested and released a couple weeks prior, after not having

QUEENS, NY — As New York State enters budget negotiations starting in January, it is already known that the state faces a $6 billion shortfall, mainly due to the rising cost of the vital Medicaid healthcare program.  State Senator Joseph

New Mental Health Legislation To Prevent Teenage Suicide Would Provide School Staff And Students With Resources To Assist Students In Crisis And Prevent Suicide  CDC: In New York, 17.1% Of Students Seriously Considered Suicide And 10.1% Made Non-Fatal Suicide Attempts

The VA Proposed Adding 4 Health Conditions To Agent Orange “Presumptive Conditions” Exposure Health Care Benefits List, But Administration Has Refused To Add Conditions & Blocked Vietnam-Era Vets From Getting The VA Coverage & Compensation They Deserve  Standing at the

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to prioritize funding to protect the lake’s water quality from toxic algal blooms by

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today released the following statement on her vote against the USMCA: “I plan to vote against President Trump’s USMCA agreement. President Trump’s USMCA deal may be slightly better than NAFTA, but let’s be

Inclusionary zoning provides an incentive, or a mandate, to real-estate developers to include lower-rent units in new housing. One signature proposal of New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has been a mandatory inclusionary housing program, known as MIH, enacted

BY MARCUS WINTERS This report estimates the effect of enrolling in a charter school on student standardized test scores in Newark, New Jersey. The results indicate that attending a Newark charter school that participated in the city’s common enrollment system

From a statewide perspective, New York’s economic performance since the end of the Great Recession hasn’t been especially outstanding, roughly equaling the U.S. averages for growth in private employment and GDP, while slightly trailing the national rate of increase in

Policymakers and researchers have been searching for a solution to persistently high rates of recidivism for decades. While the number of incarcerated individuals under federal and state jurisdiction has decreased in recent years and is currently at a 10-year low,

BY KORI N. SCHAKE It is hard to credit now, but there was a time, only a decade ago, when Turkey described its foreign policy doctrine as one of “zero problems with our neighbors.”  But since then, Ankara has burned its boats with

BY KYLE POMERLEAU It seems like it is conventional wisdom that if Democrats take the White House and the Senate in November the corporate income tax rate is going to go up. Of the six candidates on the debate stage

A recent U.S. alert warning Mexico of armed Iranians planning to enter the country through the southern border didn’t faze a busy Mexican border city’s police chief, who confirms the region is full of Middle Easterners, Africans and Asians heading

In a statement released late this afternoon, Assemblyman Steve Hawley announced that he is withdrawing from the Republican Primary contest in New York’s 27th district, where Rep. Chris Collins resigned upon being convicted of insider trading charges. The development is

Assemblyman Angelo Morinello (R,C,I,Ref-Niagara Falls) has been appointed as the Ranking Minority Member for the Assembly’s Standing Committee on Codes for the 2020 Legislative Session. Morinello has an extensive background in the criminal justice system, including serving as the Niagara Falls City

BY NORBERT RUG I recently had some discussions about customer service due to some less than favorable experiences I had. I spent a rather cold night recently due to a botched thermostat replacement. To be sure I will never use

Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn announces that 41-year-old Clarence Lamont Bryant of Buffalo has been arraigned before Erie County Court Judge Susan Maxwell Barnes on one count of Murder in the Second Degree, a Class “A-1” felony, and