Two health care companies are positioned to keep tens of millions of dollars that are meant to benefit the army of low-wage home health aides who care for disabled and elderly New Yorkers.

The first company, Public Partnerships, LLC (PPL), recently took over New York’s state-funded home health program. The second, health insurer Leading Edge Administrators, was hired by PPL to provide insurance and other benefits to the hundreds of thousands of workers — mostly women and immigrants — who provide the home care. The new coverage began in May.

A New York Focus investigation has found that Leading Edge has championed a business model allowing the employers they work with to keep money that should legally go to their workers. In partnership with PPL, that strategy could help the two companies hold on to nearly $100 million a year.

“That is them keeping the money that they were supposed to pay to the employees,” said LaDonna Lusher, partner at employment law firm Virginia & Ambinder, after New York Focus described the business model to her. “I do think that the New York attorney general could investigate that.”

Governor Kathy Hochul has made energy affordability a centerpiece of her political platform this year, blasting proposed utility rate hikes and even promising to “slow down” implementation of the state’s climate law over the concern that the clean energy transition is costing New Yorkers too much.

But Hochul’s administration is slashing an energy affordability program that was once a priority for the governor, New York Focus has learned.

The Empower+ program was designed specifically to help low- and moderate-income households “save energy and money” through energy efficiency upgrades. Since 2023 — at Hochul’s initiative — it has been New York’s one-stop shop to help residents take advantage of green building upgrades they might not otherwise be able to afford, like better insulation and replacing old boilers.

“I don’t know of any other program that makes such a big difference to the energy bill and the quality of life for a household that goes through [it],” said Jessica Azulay, executive director of the advocacy group Alliance for a Green Economy.

The program is now facing drastic budget cuts. In a meeting last Friday, the state’s energy research and development arm NYSERDA warned local contractors who install the upgrades that it would be cutting the Empower+ budget from roughly $220 million this year to $80 million in 2027.

After Jane Havens learned about the severe job layoffs planned for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, she immediately reached out to her congressperson.

As the manager of Calamity Jane’s Firearms and Fine Shoes in Hudson Falls, Havens wanted to tell Representative Elise Stefanik that she opposed the US Justice Department’s firing of all of its trained ATF inspectors as part of President Donald Trump’s budget-cutting agenda.

Writing on behalf of her family, which operated a John Deere dealership for 35 years before opening its Washington County gun shop in 2016, Havens told Stefanik, “This does not help us or the industry. We do not support this,” and asked for her concerns to be forwarded to the DOJ.

Since its inception more than 50 years ago, the ATF has enforced federal laws relating to the sale, possession, and transportation of firearms in the US. Though the agency has been consistently underfunded, it has been able to monitor about 4.5 percent of licensed gun dealers throughout the country — but that may soon change.

Now, the ATF’s budget will be slashed by more than a quarter, or $418 million, pending congressional approval this fall. As part of that reduction, 541 of the ATF’s more than 800 industry investigators — who ensure compliance among licensed dealers by inspecting their records and inventories and looking for evidence of trafficking — will lose their jobs.

The move will decrease the ATF's “capacity to regulate the firearms and explosives industries by approximately 40%,” according to the DOJ’s 2026 budget summary.

Last December, Kyra Assibey-Bonsu realized that her stream of work as a freelance audio producer was “puttering out.”

She went to file for unemployment with the state, only to find that she was signing up for a new job: trying to reach the agency that was supposed to help her access the benefit.

Assibey-Bonsu, who lives in Brooklyn, was unsure about her eligibility, so she tried to contact the New York state Department of Labor by calling the help line advertised on the department’s website.

“It was so maddening,” Assibey-Bonsu told New York Focus. “It was always like, ‘Sorry, we don’t have enough agents to speak to you. Please try back later.’ I tried 9 am, I tried 11 am, I tried 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — it doesn’t matter the time of day.” She couldn’t reach anyone.

Thousands of New Yorkers a week apply for unemployment benefits through the state Department of Labor, which assesses eligibility and makes payments. For many people, it’s a smooth process that can be completed online. But that’s not always the case.

As negotiations over President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” came down to the wire, renewable energy developers were holding their breath. Until the eleventh hour, it looked like Congress was ready to make good on Trump’s promise of “terminating” key subsidies for wind and solar virtually overnight.

In the end, the industry breathed a small sigh of relief after the Senate reached a compromise that would, at least in principle, give new projects a slim window to go ahead. Under the final law, wind and solar projects that begin construction by July 4 of next year are eligible for the full federal tax credits. Halfway through that window, a new requirement kicks in: Projects that begin construction after January 1, 2026, can only keep the tax credits if they follow restrictions on the use of Chinese materials.

That could still upend New York’s renewable energy transition.