Democratic Assembly leaders refused to entertain the governor’s primary tactic to achieve housing growth and affordability.
New York law requires utilities to build out gas infrastructure at customers’ expense. The Senate wants to close the spigot.
Private attorney Caitlin Halligan helped let Chevron off the hook for billions of dollars it owed Ecuadorians over the company’s pollution of the Amazon.
The confluence of rising commissary prices, stagnant wages, and a package ban are making basic items inaccessible.
As the governor negotiates the state budget with a legislature that rejected her last chief judge pick, she has selected a sitting liberal to lead the Court of Appeals.
A new legal challenge takes aim at the New York prison department for locking hundreds of people up in solitary over offenses that should be exempt.
Comptroller Brad Lander is scrutinizing the climate impacts of private equity investments — an area his counterpart in Albany has yet to address.
As Westchester Democrats weigh whether to endorse the former Republican, the party chair calls his critics a “lynch mob.”
Last-minute legislation would transform New York’s climate law, allowing significantly higher emissions over the next decade.
With budget talks at a stalemate, Hochul offered the legislature new draft language on bail. It would accomplish largely the same result as her previous plan: a dramatic expansion in judges’ ability to set bail.
The governor buried policies in her budget proposal that would give police and prosecutors more leverage over people with opioid addictions.
In 2020, New York became the first state to ban biometric technology from schools. But administrators are still seeking “face analytics” tools and other gray-area tech — with scant guidance from the state.
Deceptive Facebook ads, hundreds of thousands of mailers to customers, six-figure lobbying campaigns — here’s how fossil fuel companies are fighting to keep electrification at bay.
Hochul has a month to nominate one of the seven candidates to be New York’s next chief judge, after the state Senate rejected her first pick last month.
Mayors said they aren’t interested in state grants to expand housing. “You can’t dig a hole in the ground for that kind of money,” one told New York Focus.
So-called “de-escalation units” were supposed to help people cool off after violent encounters. But months after their implementation, Rikers staff still use the old brutal methods.
Nearly a year and a half after they were supposed to fix their system, jail officials still don’t know how long they’re keeping people in notorious intake pens.
The legislature signed on to Hochul’s goal of 800,000 new homes. But they aren’t confident their plan can get there.
We added up the governor and the legislature’s joint priorities and broke down their major divisions. The splits will define the year’s big legislative battles.
Dozens of horses die at the Long Island track each year. Governor Hochul — and now the state legislature — want to give it a state-funded renovation.
National Fuel urged customers to oppose a gas appliance ban. It’s just one strategy in the fossil fuel industry’s mounting offensive against climate action.
After months of ignoring reforms, the corrections department published new rules. They look a lot like the old rules.
A conversation with consultant Shuprotim Bhaumik, whose firm wrote a study arguing that New York state can revitalize the failing horse racing industry by funding a $455 million track renovation.
A handful of state legislators made far more from second jobs than they did representing their constituents, a New York Focus analysis found. Find your rep in our database.
In December, the governor vetoed legislation requiring freight trains to be staffed with at least two crew members. Rail workers say it’s a bare minimum for safety.
The governor proposed an outsized boost worth tens of millions for prosecutors — drawing comparisons to New York’s history of public defense neglect.
As ASA College prepares to shut its doors after years of controversy, New York continues to shell out tuition subsidies to for-profit colleges — at rates higher than any other state.
Hochul says it “goes without saying” that a taxpayer-funded track renovation will bring jobs and boost attendance. Her proof: an industry-commissioned study that she refuses to release.
Keith Brown makes $142,000 representing his Long Island district — and about half a million representing corporate real estate interests.
The New York Power Authority manages resources built half a century ago. But a plan to make it the vanguard of clean energy could be hamstrung by labor-environmentalist divisions.
The surprise vote was a stinging rebuke to Governor Kathy Hochul, who pushed aggressively for LaSalle’s confirmation.
A case challenging High Acres landfill leaves the fate of the so-called “green amendment” with New York’s courts.
A recent hearing was legislators’ chance to have acting prison commissioner Anthony Annucci explain himself. They didn’t make him.
The move will leave tens of thousands of undocumented New Yorkers uninsured.
New York’s biggest racetracks have been declining for decades. They’ll likely need more state subsidies to cover their debts.
The governor’s proposal for “transit-oriented development” has so far gotten a mixed reception from suburban legislators, who killed a similar plan last year.
Long before 2019, New York law mandated that judges setting bail consider only a person’s likelihood of returning to court. Hochul’s proposal would strip that limit.
And what it doesn’t.
The controversial units have been responsible for high-profile killings and civil rights abuses in cities nationwide. Hochul doubled their state grant funding in New York — and wants to double it again.
Under federal law, the public housing agency is required to hire low-income tenants. Records show it has often missed the mark.