Results tagged “newyorkstate”

The city’s unemployment rate is at 10.3 percent, its highest level in 16 years, and the unemployment rate statewide reached 9 percent in October, the highest rate since April 1983, the State Labor Department reported yesterday. Making matters worse, the usual holiday hiring bump doesn't seem to be happening; instead, the retail sector shed 1,100 jobs in October. Leisure and hospitality, which usually picks up toward the end of the year, lost jobs last holiday season and is doing slightly worse so far this year. At this point, we'd ask for a stiff drink, but who's left to pour it? Yet there is a silver lining empty lining where some copper wire used to be!

Something crazy happened in Albany this week: The Assembly passed a bill, then the Senate passed their version of the bill, and then Governor David Paterson signed it into law—all in two days! Yesterday New York instituted the nation's toughest drunk driving law, making it a felony to drive intoxicated with a passenger 15 years old or under. The bill, "Leandra's Law," was named for the 11-year-old New York girl killed in a DWI crash on the West Side Highway last month. At the signing yesterday, Leandra's father Lenny Rosado vowed to take his crusade to Washington and pass the law on the federal level:

From here on, those that think it’s OK to drink and drive - with children in the car or not - will pay the price...This is not going to be where I stop. I'm going to go out there to as many people as I can and educate them about this terrible disease we have out there...and hopefully we can take it all the way up straight to the White House.

Bowing to pressure from families of drunk driving victims, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has thrown his support behind a bill that would make it a felony to drive with a blood alcohol content of .08 while a passenger 15 years old or under is in the car. The legislation is named for 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, who recently died in a crash on the Henry Hudson Parkway while riding with her friend's allegedly drunk mother.

The State Senate failed to vote on a measure legalizing same-sex marriage yesterday, but after a two hour closed door meeting with Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson, Senate President Malcolm Smith, and bill sponsor Thomas Duane, Governor Paterson finally emerged to tell reporters that an up-or-down vote on same-sex marriage will be held "at a date not certain between now and the end of the year." Earlier, when pressed about the bill's chances in the Senate, Paterson said, "I can't explain the dynamic of the Senate, because nobody can."

The Post really had us going here for a second, because this headline could be misunderestimated to mean that George H. W. Bush, our 41st president, was being indicted for mortgage fraud. For an all-too-brief moment, we thought, well, it's not Dubya, but it's a start! Unfortunately, the 41st president remains untouchable, and the 41 in question here is a crowd of attorneys, loan brokers, accountants charged with mortgage fraud involving tens of millions of dollars across New York state. Screw them, too, but don't tease us Post.

The New York State Health Department is now requiring mandatory seasonal and swine flu vaccinations for all hospital, home health and hospice workers. No other state or city agency in America has such a requirement, and a coalition of local health care workers unions are considering filing a lawsuit to block it. Less than half of all health care workers across America get an annual flu shot, and Dr. Julie Gerberding, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, thinks the New York requirement is "a big deal." She tells the Times it's time for "a more aggressive approach," not just for the protection of workers, but also for patients with weak immune systems.

The new jobless numbers from the State Labor Department are not too good, not too good at all. New York City's unemployment rate increased to 9.5 percent in June (the highest level since July 1997), while the rate outside of NYC climbed to 8.2 percent, the highest since June 1983. Last month the number of unemployed state residents jumped to 854,200, the greatest number ever on record. Low-five? And the state's overall unemployment rate soared to 8.7 percent in June, its highest level since October 1992, the same month that Sinéad O'Connor ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live. It wouldn't really be fair to blame all our problems on Sinéad this time, so let's just ramp up the class warfare and note that today also marked the announcement that JP Morgan's profits were up 36%, with second quarter earnings ballooning to $2.7 billion. Surely some of that largesse will be trickling down any day now!

A survey of all 62 state Senators shows that a pending same-sex marriage bill faces tough odds of passing if brought to the floor for a vote. Majority Leader Malcolm Smith says he won't do that unless he's certain it has the 32 votes needed for passage, and the survey, conducted by NY1, would seem to contradict the bill's primary sponsor, Thomas Duane, who has optimistically predicted "there are enough votes for it to pass and a cushion." Reverend Jason McGuire of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms tells NY1, "We're very confident in the fact that this bill is quickly going to crash and burn."

A coalition of bottled water companies—including Nestle Waters, which owns Poland Spring, and Keeper Springs, a smaller company owned by environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—filed a lawsuit yesterday to challenge a new state law that would require bottled water companies to charge a 5 cent deposit fee. The complaint argues that the law violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause because it exempts drinks with sugar added, such as competitors like Glacéau, makers of Vitamin Water. Lawyers also say the deposit would violate the Constitution’s interstate commerce protections the law because it could be interpreted as prohibiting companies from selling the New York-labeled bottles in other states.

The State Assembly is expected to vote today to repeal the mandatory sentencing laws known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws; passed in 1973, the laws require judges to sentence even minor drug offenders to extremely long prison terms. According to the Times, the Assembly’s proposal would restore judges’ discretion in sentencing lower-level drug possession crimes, enabling them to send some offenders to treatment programs instead of prison. The measure would also permit about 2,000 prisoners to apply to have their sentences reconsidered. A growing coalition has long called for the laws' repeal, but only now, with the Senate in Democratic hands for the first time since 1965, is repeal within reach. Senate Democrats are expected to debate the issue tonight, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver tells the Times, "I think the stars are aligned." In a statement, the NYCLU praised the bill as an "essential first step," but criticized it for still permitting (though not requiring) "unreasonably harsh maximum sentences for low-level, non-violent drug offenses."

New York State will be receiving some $750 million from Washington in earmarks for various projects throughout the state, and Senator Chuck Schumer, as usual, is getting most of the credit. According to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, the $410 billion federal budget contains approximately $7.7 billion in disclosed earmarks for various politicians' pet projects; 230 of those earmarks have New York pols' names attached. Locally, these include $381,000 for music education programs at Jazz at Lincoln Center, $277 million for the Second Avenue subway, and $210 million to connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central. Watchdog groups argue that many of these special projects—such as $950,000 for a pedestrian bridge in Poughkeepsie (a bridge in nowhere?)—win funding based on each politicians' power, not because of the projects' merits. But Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon tells the Daily News, "If left to them, Washington bureaucrats wouldn't give New York its fair share."

The economic stimulus package will benefit New York more than any other state in several crucial ways, and Washington insiders say Senator Chuck Schumer deserves a lot of the credit. Much of the allocation is still being determined, but as it stands now, New York will receive more money for Medicaid relief ($12.6 billion), mass transit ($1.3 billion) and home weatherization ($403 million) than any other state. Schumer is widely credited with big Democratic wins in the Senate in the 2006 elections, and one unnamed Democratic "insider" tells the Daily News, "Pretty much everyone from Harry Reid on down owes their job to Chuck. So whatever Chuck wants, Chuck gets." And it's not just Chuck; even less senior players like Rep. Anthony Weiner have been bringing home the bacon, securing $390 million to help New York's aging housing projects. But Weiner explains that part of the recent legislative success simply has to do with the end of the Dubya era: "Trying to explain public housing elevators to the Bush administration was the equivalent of talking French to a fish."

Sometimes its best to let the tabloids do what they do best—shower us with groan-worthy old man puns. Today the Post reports that Governor Paterson's proposed 4% tax on internet porn downloads is "rubbing the porn industry the wrong way." Not to be outdone, the Daily News, in an article titled, "Tax Proposal Awaits Climax in Albany," promises "this is the best tax you ever had." The Post even gets a quote from porn star Shawna Lenee, who opines, "We've had an adult industry in this country for decades, and now they want to tax us because of a deficit. That's not at all fair."

A New York State appellate court ruled today that the state must recognize lesbian and gay marriages entered into in other states. Today’s decision involves Monroe County officials who sued the state Department of Civil Service for providing health insurance to the same-sex spouse of a Monroe Community College employee. According to the NYCLU, which filed an amicus brief in the case, the court struck down the appeal, affirming that the state was indeed following the law by granting all validly married couples eligibility for health insurance benefits, regardless of what state issued the marriage certificate. Last May, Governor Paterson ordered all state agencies to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages; a lawsuit filed by a Christian legal group to fight the directive was subsequently thrown out of court.

The weather's looking lovely, just lovely this weekend, so let's just forget all about that big scary financial drama being acted out by those Wall Street divas and get the hell out of town. Fall foliage is reaching its peak in the Adirondacks and northern New England this weekend, and the Catskills and Berkshires are also just about to peak, according to the state's offical leaf peepers.

On Monday Mayor Bloomberg announced a lawsuit against the Poospatuck Indian reservation on Long Island, in an attempt to stop the untaxed sale of 11.3 million cartons of cigarettes on the reservation per year. Today the Times has a great, long article about how the smokes travel from the wholesaler through the reservation and to the streets of New York, where "$5 Men" like "Paco" stand on corners and whisper, "Newports. Loosies. Shorts. Longs." Reporters at the reservation describe a booming business, where cigarette sales are made on a bustling main street and even out of residential trailers. One reporter saw a sign for Justin’s Smokes "on a tree outside a residential trailer. An occupant of the trailer ordered the reporter off the property, telling her it was not a cigarette shop. 'That’s just a sign on a tree,' the woman yelled."

At the end of July, Governor Paterson gave a rare televised address to brace New Yorkers for impending cuts required by an estimated $6.4 billion budget cap. But it seems that the belt tightening doesn’t apply to state troopers: Besides adding more officers to his security detail to the tune of $4 million, the governor has now agreed to a pay raise for troopers totaling almost 14% over four years. The Sun is quick to point out that the raise comes on the heels of a July 8th contribution of $25,000 from the State Troopers PAC to Paterson's gubernatorial campaign. The governor’s office is mum on how much the contract settlement will cost, but the Empire Center for New York State Policy puts it at about $45 million over four years.

Last month, the NY Times found that an actuarial consultant who reviewed legislation pending in the State Legislature also had financial ties to labor unions. The consultant, whose expertise was used to examine the financial impact of bills (like retirement, pension benefit bills), even admitted he skewed his analysis to support unions. Now, the city has found the consultant's work underestimated costs by $500 million.

Gov. Paterson publicly addressed the state of New York's budget and described it as "too big and too bloated." Belt tightening is the prescribed solution according to the Governor, with state spending to be cut by 5-10% in the latest fiscal year. That is a pretty dramatic reduction, but Paterson was quick to reassure that it was equally important that the state not raise taxes either, noting that many residents were decamping to lower-tax states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, which were also more affordable.

Perhaps realizing he's best received as a leader in a time of crisis and disarray--and no stranger to cheating on his wife while in public office--former Mayor Rudy Giuliani may offer himself as a candidate for governor in the case Governor David Paterson has to step down.

The incoming president of the Obesity Society has resigned amidst controversy surrounding his work on behalf of the restaurant industry. Last month Dr. David B. Allison (pictured), a professor of biostatistics and nutrition at the University of Alabama, drew fire from colleagues when he submitted an affidavit questioning the city’s new rules requiring chain restaurants to prominently display calorie information on their menus.

A New York State Assemblyman ticked off about congestion pricing for suburban drivers is retaliating by proposing a $4-per-ride surcharge for taxi riders, rather than the congestion fee of $8 for motorists entering Manhattan below 60th St. That taxis are another form of mass transit that allow New Yorkers to get around without owning a car escapes Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, whose district includes parts of Westchester County.

A NY-based nonprofit called Breakthrough launched a video game yesterday called ICED: I Can End Deportation (also a play on the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department).

The incoming president of the Obesity Society has filed a 33-page affidavit questioning the city’s new rules requiring chain restaurants to prominently display calorie information on their menus. Dr. David B. Allison (pictured), a professor of biostatistics and nutrition at the University of Alabama, cites a study indicating that dieters who get distracted by calorie information are more likely to overeat. And even if the daunting calorie details prompt diners to go for lower calorie items, they'll just end up overeating later because their healthier choice won't really satiate them.

The California based Westland/Hallmark Meat Company is recalling all its raw and frozen beef products distributed since Feb. 1, 2006 – a total of 143 million pounds of ground beef. The largest beef recall in history was announced after an undercover Humane Society video showed workers kicking sick cows, jabbing them in the eyes and using forklifts to force them to walk to slaughter. (See the video here.)

With the writers' strike looking like it'll wrap up this week, Crain's points us towards another problem for New York's entertainment industry.

After looking at the nitrogen tanks that live on city sidewalks, a reader asked us to look into another city mystery. She wanted to know "Why is the expiration date on milk different for New York City? Does it really take that many more days for the milk to get here?" The NY Times looked into this in another shelf-life (1982), and reported:

New York City is the only place in the state and one of relatively few in the country that has its own dating system for fluid milk, which may legally be sold only up to 96 hours after 6 A.M. on the day after pasteurization. The rule is the same for whole, skim or low-fat fortified milk.

Continue reading "NYC's Milk Expiration Date Mystery"

New York State Senate leader Joseph Bruno is still under FBI investigation for possibly improper ties to unions that deal with state pension agencies! In 2006, Bruno said of the FBI's look, "I have nothing to hide. They are going into background over the past five or six years," but the NY Times describes the feds' current investigation as widening.

A New York State appellate court ruled that under the federal concept of the "marriage recognition rule," which grants reciprocity to the bond of marriage formed in other states, it will recognize gay marriages solemnized in other states. As one of the largest states in the nation, this is a huge step for proponents of normalizing same-sex marriages. Gay marriages still aren't allowed in New York State, although a young mayor in New Paltz, NY attempted to go forward with that initiative, but marriages performed elsewhere will be granted legal status. It's a bit of legalistic court-leading-the-horse, but gay rights proponents seem pleased.