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Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan has declared a state of emergency after recent gun violence. The city is also ordering the closure of Cafe Hollywood on Lark Street after a number of police calls. That order was signed late Friday, with Mayor Sheehan noting a 22% increase in the number of shots fired incidents in the past 28 days compared to the same time last year.

The Democratic congressman who reps both sides of the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge is calling on the federal government to investigate concerns about the span’s structural integrity. US Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), who represents Westchester and Rockland counties, recently wrote a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, asking him to probe claims reported by the Albany Times-Union earlier this month that bridge contractors “covered up” faulty bolts in the $3.9 billion structure. Jones called on Buttigieg “to open an investigation into these claims and … to work with the New York state Department of Transportation to ensure proper inspections are...

A former aide who accused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment told investigators Monday that the embattled Democratic leader has a "preoccupation with his hand size." The former aide, Charlotte Bennett, met with investigators for more than four hours as part of New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the allegations against Cuomo, her attorney Debra Katz said. "The investigators have been moving quickly, and with sensitivity, to get to the heart of these allegations," Katz said in a statement. "We remain confident that their investigation will substantiate Charlotte’s claims of sexual harassment against Gov. Cuomo,...

Abusive bullying helped end the marriage between Cuomo, now 63, and Kennedy, the seventh child of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy The accusations fit with a pattern of brutal bullying and demeaning treatment of women raised in recent weeks that have left Cuomo facing widespread calls to resign, and possible impeachment if he does not. “On more than one night during that period, Kerry slept in a locked bathroom, according to a source close to the family, who recounted instances of physical abuse. ‘I’ve been a human rights activist, and for women who have abusive husbands,’ Kerry told a friend,...

First Gov. Andrew Cuomo hid the truth about deaths of nursing home residents from the public. Then his administration lied about why. Then, pretending to come clean, it lied about why it lied. Enough. Mr. Cuomo has squandered the public’s trust at a time when it’s needed more than ever. Amid an enduring pandemic, it is vital that people can believe what their governor and their government are telling them, and that the rules they’re asked to follow and the sacrifices they’re asked to make are truly in the interest of public health. It is time for Mr. Cuomo to...

Democratic lawmakers in Albany are never satisfied: Their party already has a firm lock on the key levers of power, yet last week they moved to solidify that power even more — via an amendment to the state Constitution. And because they control both houses of the Legislature, the measure sailed through easily, with barely any public input. The amendment deals with the redistricting process — how new maps, based on the Census, must be drawn and approved. And the changes essentially favor Dems and tie Republican hands, so Democrats will be free to draw lines to their advantage. Under...

TROY, N.Y. - Albany police say a Troy man was arrested following an incident in May involving a molotov cocktail being thrown at four police officers and their police horses during a riot. Dwight Parker, 38, of Troy, was arrested Thursday morning in the City of Troy following an investigation by detectives from the Albany Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Unit. Parker was arrested at his residence with the assistance of the Troy Police Department. On Saturday, May 30, at around 9:15 p.m., police say Parker threw a molotov cocktail incendiary device at four police officers on horseback during a riot...

Samantha Shader, a 27-year-old white woman, was arrested on charges of throwing Molotov cocktails at an NYPD vehicle occupied by four officers at a protest following the death of George Floyd in late May. She faces charges including use of explosives to commit a felony, arson, and use of a destructive device. Shader’s actions were caught on tape and she admitted to throwing the makeshift explosive but claimed three “Black” strangers had approached her on the street and given her the bottle. But this past Friday, July 3, police arrested a white man who admitted to federal authorities he’d given...

The president of the New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association was critical of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of violence throughout the state after some peaceful protests. President Thomas Mungeer wrote that he finds it “appalling” that the governor hasn’t condemned violence directed at State Police during “the riots across the state.” The letter continues, noting that members of the state legislature and governor’s administration have offered little support during ‘the riots across the state’. “I find it appalling that you have not condemned the violence directed at your New York State Troopers during the riots across the state,” he...

ALBANY - Mayor Kathy Sheehan is asking people to reconsider plans to attend a rally Friday to protest the state’s coronavirus quarantine orders. She's also warning city residents to avoid the area around the state Capitol. Conservative groups are planning the second rally in as many weeks for Friday afternoon in the city, hoping to pressure Gov. Andrew Cuomo to lighten the restrictions placed on many commercial and social activities. Cuomo announced earlier this week that a drop in coronavirus cases should allow some upstate businesses to reopen by mid-May. Some city residents were caught off-guard by last week’s protest....

You can save the sentimental claptrap on turning 100 for some other centenarian. Hedi McKinley, who hits triple digits on Wednesday, is not interested in any sort of triteness. She is a Holocaust survivor and a woman who has looked evil in the eye and never blinked. “I didn’t expect to make it to 100, but here I am,” she said. “I don’t know why anybody wants to live this long. The world isn’t such a wonderful place, but I don’t know what the alternative is.” She spoke by phone Saturday from her apartment in Beverwyck, an independent senior community...

Sheriff Zurlo with the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office says that the December 29th reported explosion is a meteor. “We took close to 30 to 40 calls in a 10 minute period. All the calls were similar, houses rattling, sky turning a greenish color,” said Sheriff Michael Zurlo. Zurlo says the calls came from all over the county. “Ballston Spa area, Town of Milton, Town of Galway, Town of Providence, Town of Edinburgh, and the western part of the Town of Greenfield.”

Here’s one thing that unites local pols across the political divide — a gentrification tax. A bipartisan group of city lawmakers is pushing Albany to approve tweaks to the state tax laws that would allow them to hit new homebuyers with tax bills based on the actual market prices of their properties. The coalition of 13 Republican and Democratic city council members says that taxes would not go up for existing owners. New York’s famously opaque property tax system offers big breaks to new homebuyers by taxing them at assessed values that are often millions of dollars less than the...

[snip]But reforming an old, entrenched system had its price. The system pushed back with impeachment, prompting the elected chief executive to respond: “I impeach the criminal conspirators.” It may sound similar to the current Washington saga and House Democrats’ impeachment of President Donald Trump. But this was nearly a hundred years ago in 1913 in Albany, New York, where Gov. William Sulzer took on the Empire State’s version of the “swamp.” It was known as Tammany Hall.

NEW YORK, December 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A proposed law in the state of New York will make it compulsory for all public universities to provide abortion pills to students at the taxpayers’ expense. State assemblyman Harvey Epstein of the East Side of Manhattan introduced the bill to the New York State Assembly on November 25. The bill states: "Each public college student health center shall make available to all students abortion by medication techniques onsite. This service shall be provided by medical professionals on staff at such student health centers or by a third party who has contracted with...

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - Unofficial results show that Bo Dorough will claim the Albany mayor’s seat. Dorough garnered 4,656 votes, or 51 percent, over Incumbent Dorothy Hubbard. Hubbard garnered 4,366 votes.

ALBANY – The nine U.S. citizens slaughtered in an ambush Monday were from a Mormon community in northern Mexico where NXIVM recruited teenagers for a "girls school" to live in the Capital Region under the care of a high-ranking "slave" for Keith Raniere. ... According to Moira Kim Penza, the lead federal prosecutor at Raniere's trial, Raniere created a “girls school” for Mexican teenagers, many of whom were recruited from within the LeBaron community to live in the Albany area under the care of a "first-line slave" for Raniere. Raniere secretly operated a"master/slave" group known as DOS or “Dominus Obsequious...

Bill Larkin, who spent four decades in the New York state legislature following a distinguished military career that brought him to the battlefields of World War II and the Korea War, has died, his family announced Sunday. He was 91. “America and the State of New York have lost a dedicated public servant, soldier and statesman,” the family said in a statement. “Our family lost a husband, father grandfather, great-grandfather and so much more.” The Albany legend and legislative war horse died Saturday night, his spokesman Brian Maher said. Gov. Andrew Cuomo lauded Larkin as “a constant force for good”...

[Catholic Caucus] Alleged Gay Predator Bishop Sued for Sex Abuse Bishop Howard Hubbard was believed to be gay ringleader in Albany diocese ALBANY, N.Y. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A newly filed lawsuit accused a bishop of homosexually abusing a minor. In the suit, a man identified only as "P.R." claims that Bp. Howard Hubbard and Fr. Paul Bondi sexually abused him in the 1990s when he was a teenager. It states the Fr. Bondi abused P.R. while stationed at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Ballston Spa, New York, when P.R. was 12–15 years old. It also alleges that Bp. Hubbard abused P.R. when the...

Community: Blah blah blah better community relations is the answer Officer: This sucks